748 



GLEANINGS IN BEE OULTUKE. 



Oct, 



weigh the frames with the bees on tliem, or how do 

 you delcrmiue;' You see, I know but verj^ little 

 about the business, and want to learn. I know jou 

 will say, " Get the ABC book," and I am going to 

 as soon as I can; but all in good time. 



H. B. Camekox. 

 Ncwajgo, Newaygo Co., Mich., Aug. 3, 1885. 



Friend C. it is quite common for bees to 

 cluster out in large numbers, after removing 

 their surplus receptacles. We usually put 

 on an empty upper story, or an upper story 

 tilled with combs. They will do no harm by 

 clustering on the outside of the hive, unless 

 some of them are killed by a cold storm. 1 

 liave known this to happen several times 

 late in the fall. They usually go in the 

 hive, however, as soon as we 'have a few 

 frosty nights, and I think you will find there 

 will be none too many bees to winter nicely, 

 if you give them good lieavy combs full of 

 stores, in proportion to the number. I 

 would, however, leave the winter brood-nest 

 larger than usual for so heavy a colony, al- 

 though I have never seen the colony that 

 required more than the space occupied by 

 ten L. frames, — Your question about de- 

 termining when a colony has winter stores 

 enough is answered by friend Doolittle, on 

 another page, fully as well as I coiild answer 

 it myself.— So yoii are a neighbor, are you, 

 of our friend George E. Hilton, ^^■hose apia- 

 ry we have so recently had tlie i)leasure of 

 looking atV 



BAD ODOR FROM THE HIVES; "WHAT C.\USES IT? 



The bees seem to find something here that gives a 

 sour smell to their hives. Sometimes you cau notice 

 it ten or fifteen feet away. Can you tell me what it 

 is? They seem to be doing well, though. The frost 

 has held otf. The nearest it came to one was Sept. 

 2.'5. The mercury fell to 39 degrees; but now, Sept. 

 :.'T, we are having hot summer weather, and the 

 bees are improving their time. G. Scofield. 



Ridgeway, Orleans Co., N. Y., 1885. 



Friend S., I have noticed something like 

 what you describe, during the fall of the 

 year, when the bees are working on certain 

 kinds of autumn Uowers : but I can not tell 

 you what llowers. Perhaps some of our 

 "readers can help us. 



WAS IT CARELESSNESS, OK THE FAULT OF THE BEES 

 TH.^T RESULTED IN THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN? 



The queen you mailed me on the ~2d of July was 

 received all right; but as my bees behaved badly 

 and killed her, 1 will tell you the circumstances. 



I wished to put the queen in a hive where the old 

 queen seemed to be on the decline. I removed the 

 old queen and put the new one in the hive, accord- 

 ing to directions. At the end of two days I released 

 her on top of the frames. She tlew, and I thought 1 

 had lost her; but on looking through the hive, in a 

 little while I found her balled. I caged her again, 

 and left her in the hive two days more, when I 

 again released her. She ran down into the hive. I 

 immediately commenced searching for her, and in a 

 few moments I found a bunch of bees, nearly as 

 large as a goose-egg; and when I got them out of 

 the hive, and separated, the (juecn was dead. On 

 the second day after the queen was put in the hive, 

 I cut out about twenty queen-cells, and on the 

 fourth day about ten ; to-day, 10 days after, 1 remov- 

 ed ten more. I expect now to give them a cell form- 



ed on brood taken from a queen which I purchased 

 of you in June. I should like to know if the fault 

 was my own, or wei-e the bees simply determined to 

 raise their own queen? O. P. Phillips. 



Amo, Ind., Aug. 3, 188.j. 



Friend P., the behavior of the bees would 

 indicate to me pretty clearly that they had 

 some sort of a queen already, were it not 

 for the fact that they started so many queen- 

 cells as soon as the queen was dead. I sup- 

 pose we shall have to explain it by calling it 

 one of those exceptional cases where a col- 

 ony refuses to accept any queen. 



MORE AUOUT SWEET CLOVER AS A HONEY-PLANT. 



In your foot notes on my article on sweet clover 

 you say, "But 1000 lbs. from one aci"e during four 

 weeks seems to me almost incredible." 



It does seem like a great amount, yet I know I 

 got over 500 lbs. of surplus, or box honey, during 

 the sweet-clover flow, and I believe '.V> to 45 colonies 

 would store in brood-frames, and use in breeding, 

 during 4 weeks, not less than 500 lbs. What do you 

 thi'nk they would use? Of course, that part of it is 

 guesswork with me. 



The spider plant may drip with honey, and yet not 

 produce one-fourth the amount of honey that sweet 

 clover would, for two reasons. First, the clover se- 

 cretes honey all day long; the bees may visit each 

 blossom a hundred times a day, and get a small 

 amount of honey each time, while the spider plant 

 is open only a short time. Second, the clover would 

 produce perhaps a thousand times as many blos- 

 soms on the same amount of ground as would the 

 spider plant. My clover grew from 5 to 7 feet high. 



As to bees getting honey from other sources than 

 sweet clover during the time, I would say that oth- 

 er bees within two or three miles of me gathered no 

 honey during the same time. I can not believe my 

 bees gathered from any other source than sweet 

 clover. E. W.Pitzeh. 



Hillsdale, Mills Co., la., Oct. 7, 1885. 

 Friend P., very likely it may be a hard 

 thing to tell where the honey did come fi'om; 

 but 1 hope you will excuse ine for still feel- 

 ing quite certain that such a quantity could 

 not have come from the area of sweet clover 

 you mention. We have had tolerably heavy 

 Hows of honey, when we could not find an)/ 

 thing that seeined to justify the amount that 

 came into the hives daily. 



.MOKE IN RECARD TO RASPBERRIES AS A HOSEV- 

 I'LANT. 



I have just been i-eading the articles on raspber- 

 ries, in August Gleanings, and will give you our 

 experience. I consider raspberries our only relia- 

 ble source for light honey. Last year the colonies 

 which were strong enough for boxes at the begin- 

 ning of raspberry-bloom commenced on every box, 

 but the bloom ended when only a few were capped. 

 The others remained in that unfinished condition 

 from week to week, although the fields and road- 

 sides were white with clover-bloom. I have now 

 taken otf all the light honey we expect to have, 214 

 lbs., about half comb and half extracted, from eight 

 colonies. This is all amber colored, and I think it is 

 mostly Irom raspberries, though there has been 

 some clover honey this season. 



The Turner does not do with us as described on p. 

 5.30 of Gleanings, but it is one of the earliest, and 

 is good. The Philadelphia yields much better, and I 



