188-5 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



745 



not needed them yet. I am well aware that a house 

 apiary has its disadvantages as well as advantages. 

 The alighting-boards, and over the entrance, I have 

 of different colors. H. S. HoxiE. 



Holloway, Lenawee Co., Mich. 



A^ery good, friend Iloxie ; but I am^ afraid 

 that your house-apiary, like all of those be- 

 longing to the rest of as, will in a few years 

 be standing idle and vacant. There is one 

 trouble with house - apiaries, that I don't 

 exactly see how to get around ; that is, that 

 when bees get out into the room they must 

 be got back into the hives by some means. 

 Of course, they will go back themselves if 

 you give them 'time enough, and leave the 

 doors or windows open. If youl leave the 

 doors or windows open permanently, then 

 you have got to sweep the tloor, and keep 

 it clear of rubbish, etc., which we don't 

 have to do while the hives are outdoors. 



IS SrCAR IKOM A BUILD1.\G THAT^HAS liKKN 

 BUHXKD in)WX, IN.JL'KIOUS:' 



Last Thursday morning there was a stui-e con- 

 taining a large quantity of granulated and maple 

 sugar, burned in this village, and the lionoy-bees 

 are there in large numbei-s, among the burnt and 

 unburnt sugar, and that, or something else, has 

 set my bees lo lighting, and the question is, What 

 effect is this sugar going to have upon the bees | 

 now, and in respect to wintering? 



CAN A NUCLEUS BE FED AND CDNFINKII IN A '■ 

 WIRE-CLOTH HOUSE? I 



Another question is. in a nucleus swarm in a 

 wire-cloth house, can tlicy be fed with granwlated ' 

 syrup, and any kind of meal for pollen, and not be 

 l)ei-mitted to roam at large? If a colony of bees is j 

 shut up for a number of days, in case of fighting or | 

 any fjtiicr causf>, must tlicy have water put Into the 

 hive? .J.J.Hill. I 



IJnrtou, X'ermont. ' 



Friend II., L should be afraifl that the I 

 burnt sugar would give the l)ees dysentery j 

 as soon as they arc conhned to their hives. ; 

 It will depend considerably upon hmv large i 

 a. qiumtity tliey gatheied, and how badly'it ; 

 was burned. I would examine the hives, 

 tasting of the stores lliey have gathered: i 

 and if very much of it, 1 would lift out the 

 combs containing it, and save them for 

 spring feeding. We should like to have 

 your report in the spring, as to how it turns 

 out. in any case.— Having bees tly and take '• 

 feed in coiitinement, is a subject that was up ' 

 considerably for several years Avhile we were 

 practicing fertilization" of queens in con- 

 tiuement, and also while trying to winter { 

 bees in a greenhouse. Erietly. the bees can 

 be taught to lly aroiuid the room and go i 

 back into their" hives : but a good many of 

 them get on the glass, or against the wire 

 cloth, and die. We have record of a few ' 

 successful experiments. j 



selling honev at the countv eaih. ' 



I attended the county fair at Valparaiso. 1 had a 

 good time, stirred up the bee-men a little, and suc- 

 ceeded in drawing attention to the progress of the 

 pursuit. I was surprised to And how large a num- 

 ber of people "i/scdtokeep bees." "The woods" ' 

 seemed to be "full of them." I live some 15 miles 

 from the fairgrounds, so I took only 350 lbs. of 

 comb and extracted honey. I tried selling "honey 

 on the stick," also all the cxtr:icted honey one caved 



to eat, for 5 cts. I furnished crackers with the 

 same, and met with moderate success. 



The pound sections of comb honey put in the pa- 

 per boxes proved to be the best-selling package. 

 The chief obstacle to selling honey at a fair is, that 

 people don't like to carry it around in the crowd: 

 and when they start for home they don't think to 

 stop for the honey. I retailed some SIO worth on 

 the grounds, atfd disposed of my remaining honey 

 to grocers. Please report through Gleanings the 

 success you met with at your county fair— the 

 amount of honey sold, etc. I think it will be of in- 

 terest to many. I distributed sample copies of 

 Gleanings and price lists where I thought they 

 would do any good. Dwight Furness. 



Furnissville, Ind. 



Friend F.. we succeeded in selling, at our 

 county fair, between -t(Jt) and otM) lbs. of hon- 

 ey, mostly in live-cent packages : but as we 

 rnade only about a cent a pound on it, it did 

 not pay us for the time and trouble, except 

 in the way of advertising; and I]consider 

 it a good investment, for our lion'ey trade 

 has been considerably increased since then. 

 Our customers seemed to prefer the glass 

 lioney-pails. \Ve had the honey in the iron- 

 jacket cans, and poured it into such cans or 

 pails as they selected, just as fast, or a little 

 faster, than it was sold. We did not try 

 " honey on a stick, '" for our apiary of 200 or 

 300 colonies was less than a fourth of a mile 

 away, and we feared it might create an " on- 

 pleasantness." 



SWARMING while EXTRACTING. 



A few days ago, during our basswood liow, while 

 putting back the frames into the upper story on a 

 colony from which I had just extracted the honey, 

 a large swarm issued. 1 was on hand at the very 

 beginning, and the first impression was that they 

 had lost their queen, as they were all running 

 hither and thither, as I have seen them doing when 

 such was the case. But there was the difference, 

 that all the bees were uttering the swarming-note, 

 and soon began to pour out of the hive i>ell-mell. 

 When bees get the swarming lever, it seems as if 

 neither extracting nor any thing else would pre- 

 vent them. Kobt. H. Shipman. 



("annington, Oat., Canada, Aug. 3, 1885. 



Friend S., I once witnessed exactly the 

 phenomenon you mention, and the sight was 

 a wonderful one to me ; for it was almost a 

 glimpse behind the scenes, to see just how- 

 bees manage when they start out on the 

 "war-path,'" or. perhaps I should say, " se- 

 cede '" from their old home. 



USING PLAIN sheets OF WAX AS A SUBSTITUTE 

 FOR PRESSED FOUNDATION. 



Perhaps it will be of interest to some of the bee- 

 keepers who are not able to buy a foundation-mill, 

 and do not like to pay so much for having their 

 beeswax made up, to know how we make our start- 

 ei-s. We do not use full sheets of foundation in our 

 apiary. I put the big dish-pan on top of the stove, 

 with about two gallons of boiling water. Add the 

 beeswax, but do not let it get very hot— just so it is 

 melted. 



Have a pail full of very cold water, on a chair 

 near the stove. Take a piece of glass the length 

 you want your starters; dip the glass in the water 

 and then in the wax, and back in the water very 

 quickly. Tf you are quicli enough, tl^e wax will 



