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GLEANINGS IX BEE CTLTUliE. 



Dec. 



BEMOA'ING bees; IS IT NECESSARY TO KEEP THE 



HIVES TX ABSOLUTE DARKNESS, IF THE CELLAR 



CAN BE KEPT BETWEEN 40 AND 50°? 



Would it be a good idea to keep bees at about 40 

 or 50°, from the time we have to put them into win- 

 ter quarters, and in total darkucss, without the aid 

 of artificial heat, until time to set them out on sum- 

 mer stands? or would it be better to pack and leave 

 them on summer stands? I thought, bj' keeping at 

 the degrees above, they would not be subject to the 

 changeableness of the weather we have in this sec- 

 tion, and would come out more bright and strong in 

 the spring, but I did not know about the darkness. 

 If kept at 40 or 50= they would not move if they 

 were in the light, would they? or would the idea be 

 any better than the ways we have? J. F. Redd. 



Loudonville, O., Nov. 17, 1885. 



Friend E., I presume there would be no 

 need of darkening the cellar, providing it 

 could be kept so the temperature would not 

 run above, say, 50 degrees : but I think you 

 will find this is impossible, unless you use 

 ice. Remember, tlie temperature of the 

 earth itself is 55°, and your cellar will very 

 likely run from 58 to 60'^ in spite of any thing 

 you can do, unless you get away down into 

 the earth, and cut off' cominuni"cati(m from 

 overhead. All things considered, I think 

 that, in our locality, I should prefer the chaff 

 hives on their summer stands. 



HOW AN A B C SCHOLAR SUCCEEDS BY STARTING 

 WITH ONE SWARM. 



Last spring I took a notion to go into the bee bus- 

 iness, and thought I would get 30 or 25 colonies to 

 start on ; and as I am a poor man I had engaged 

 $7.5.00 to buy my bees with. Being anxious to know 

 something about it, I sent for your ABC book, and 

 in it I saw that I was on the Avrong road to success; 

 and instead of buying so many I bought one colony, 

 and now I have three good ones, and I am not in 

 debt $75.00 with interest. I got 80 lbs. of comb hon- 

 ey. I shall Italianize in the spring, if I can afford 

 it. B. B. Messner. 



Nimisila, Ohio, Oct. 13, 1S85. 



Friend M., I am very glad indeed to know 

 that our A 13 C book was the means of sav- 

 ing you some money. I had had some expe- 

 rience in the very matter you speak of, and 

 I knew pretty well whereof I wrote, and I 

 think we are safe in saying that it is, as a 

 rule, very unwise for one to go into any bus- 

 iness on a large scale, to start with. If he 

 has been for years a grocer's clerk, it may be 

 well for him' to purchase a grocery store in 

 good running order to start with ; but even 

 then I believe the chances would be in favor 

 of commencing with a small business and 

 building it up gradually. 



WIDE frames STICKING TO BROOD FRAMES ; FEED- 

 ING UNDER THE FRAMES. 



Having been a good deal troubled the past season 

 by the slicking of the wide frames in the upper sto- 

 ries to the brood-frames in the lower, I have deter- 

 mined to resort to an expedient, recommended for 

 the difficulty by a correspondent of Gleanings; 

 viz., laj'iug strips of glazed cloth over the tops of 

 the brood-frames. Will you or some of your corres- 

 pondents tell me how wide the strips should be, anil 

 which side of the cloth to turn down? I have also 

 thought it might be a good plan to use, instead of 

 strips, a single piece occupying the central part, and 

 leaving a argin of one or two inches all round foi- 



t he free passage of the bees. Would such a plan be 

 objectionable for any cause? 



After trying various plans for feeding I have fall- 

 en upon one which is exceedingly simple, and, so 

 far as I have tried it, it is very satisfactory. It is, 

 to have tin pans so shallow that they can be slipped 

 under the frames at the entrance. To facilitate the 

 work of the bees in getting to the syrup in these 

 pans, I fit a small piece of wood to each side of a 

 pan, on the inside. The pans are so shallow there is 

 no danger of a bee drowning, and the strips of wood 

 —beveled on the inner edge-make it easy for the 

 bees to get at the syrup. In feeding, have the syr- 

 up in some vessel Avith a spout— a pitcher does well 

 —and push the pan three parts under the frames; 

 then fill with the syrup, and push the pan entirely 

 into the hive. A few gentle taps apprise them of 

 the presence of their food. .1. A. Gill. 



Tuscaloosa, Ala., Nov. 10, 1885. 



Friend G., your strips of enamel cloth, or 

 sheet of enamel cloth (the latter l)eiug the 

 simpler form), should have openings between 

 every pair of brood-frames, to allow the bees 

 free access to the upper story. You will 

 notice, by our back numbers, "that the per- 

 forated zinc is much used for tliis purpose, 

 and the slatted lioney-boards. The oidy ob- 

 jection to the enamel cloth is, that, when 

 perforated as closely as it ought to be, it 

 curls up, and the bees in time gnaw the 

 edges, making it liable to tear. — Your idea 

 of shallow tin pans is quite an old one. The 

 objections are, their liability to incite rob- 

 bing, and the difficulty of pushing the pans 

 under the frames without crushing bees, and 

 making the colony furious. If you allow^ 

 more space under the frames than f inch, 

 the bees will build little pillars of wax to 

 climb up on, so they can readily grasp hold 

 of the bottom-bars of the frames, and these 

 little pillars of wax are right in the way of 

 pushing the shallow feeders in. The plan 

 seems to have been pretty mucli all aban- 

 doned. 



FROM 5 TO ;;], AND !)45 LBS. OF HONEY; HOW THE IN- 

 CREASE WAS MADE. 



I can now give my report for the year 1885, and 

 will say that 1 am satisfied with the season. I had 

 the blues "awful bad" last spring. I lost 33 colo- 

 nies out of 38. Of the remaining 5, one was good, 

 one tolerably good, and the other 3 would have 

 made one good colony, and 7io more. 'This is what I 

 have done since May 18th. 



I increased to 31 good colonics, and have taken 945 

 lbs. of extracted honey. I raised all my queens too. 

 If I had had queens already laying when I needed 

 them, I could have done one-third better. I sold 

 one colony and one frame of brood in June. I see 

 in the bee-papers, that Iowa has failed in her honey 

 crop this year. It has been the best season I ever 

 saw, taking it all through, when I have increased 

 from 5 to 81, and have taken almost 300 lbs. per col- 

 ony, spring count. Ought I not to be satisfied? Jly 

 queens were all raised from the Syrian queen I got 

 from you, and they are mated with Cyprio-Italian 

 drones. (Jthers can do as they like, but I shall try 

 the Syrians another year. This is the method T 

 practiced in making my increase this year: 



The 10th of May I marked my best colony No. 1, 

 and moved itto a new stand and put a hive just like 

 it in its place, and marked it No. 3. In 10 days I 



