184 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar 1 



old boy full directions on how to handle ei- 

 ther ; but do you think I would trust him to 

 carry out my directions? Not I. — Ed.] 



Ira Barber saj-s in Review that the only 

 thing necessary to keep cellared bees from be- 

 coming uneasy toward spring " is to keep all 

 fresh air from reaching them, by banking 

 thoroughly from the outside, and be sure that 

 it is kept there air-tight." Looks reasonable, 

 doesn't it? that a sniff of spring air should 

 make them want to get out where there's nlore 

 of it. But how do you account for another 

 thing? When they get uneasy with the out- 

 side temperature at 45° or 50°, and the cellar 

 is left wide open all night, they are very quiet 

 in the morning, and don't offer to fly out, even 

 if full daylight shines in. If a little fresh air 

 leaking through the walls makes them uneasy, 

 why doesn't a whole flood of it make them 

 worse? [Ever since the article came out in 

 the Review I have been cogitating on it not a 

 little. I had alread}^ formulated some thoughts 

 on this phase of the wintering question, and 

 I would therefore refer you to an editorial in 

 this issue. — Ed.] 



E. Giraud-Pabou, in Revue Eleclique, gives, 

 the following as his sole means of introducing 

 queens : Roll the queen in a spoonful of hon- 

 ey. When thoroughly smeared, drop her be- 

 tween two combs of brood so close together 

 that she can not fall to the bottom ; smoke, 

 and close the hive. The queen may be intro- 

 duced the evening of the same day the queen 

 is removed, and up to the ninth day after. 

 No need to destroy queen-cells. [Some years 

 ago there used to be more talk about dipping 

 queens (to be introduced) in honey than now. 

 If I remember correctly, some valuable queens 

 were lost by such procedure. Perhaps it 

 might be well to call on those who have had 

 experience, and who could tell us why they 

 abandoned the practice. I have introduced 

 queens by that plan myself, and I do not re- 

 member that I ever lost a queen where the 

 colony was surely queenless. But the mean- 

 est stock to introduce a queen to is one hav- 

 ing cells prett)' well advanced, and almost 

 ready to hatch. A still meaner one is one 

 having a young virgin. Kill that virgin, and 

 they are still mean. Well, let us have reports 

 from those who have tried the honey-dipping 

 process of introducing. — Ed.] 



Comment 315, in the latest ABC, says my 

 plan of placing 4 hives in a group is more 

 economical of room than S. E. Miller's plan 

 with 5 in a group. Then you ask in a foot- 

 note, Mr. Editor, " If the hives in the several 

 groups on the S. E. M. plan were placed only 

 3 inches apart, and the space gained closed up 

 between the several groups, is it not true S. 

 E.'s plan would accommodate more hives in 

 a given area than your plan ? " I suppose you 

 want an answer to that question, and it is, 

 "No." Look at the figures I send you, and 

 you will see that, when your conditions are 

 fulfilled, S. E.'s plan still takes 5 per cent 

 more room than mine. [I have examined Dr. 

 Miller's figures, and must admit that he is 

 right ; but the difference is so very, very 

 slight, that it practically amounts to "six of 



one and half a dozen of another." I am not 

 sure but I should prefer the C. C. in place of 

 the S. E. plan, for the simple reason that the 

 entrances would all be pointing in one direc- 

 tion, while in the S. E. way the entrances of 

 one set of hives are at right angles with the 

 entrances of another set in the same group. 

 It is desirable to direct the flight of bees, as 

 far as possible, in one direction, so that there 

 may be an alleyway for the bees and one for 

 the bee-keeper. Encountering the flight of 

 busy workers is annoying, both to the bees 

 and to their owner. — Ed.] 



Here's something to give " aid and com- 

 fort " to Mrs. Barber and ye editor. Devau- 

 chelle says in L'ApicuHeur that the only way 

 to set bees to work at once in sections, and 

 also the best way for the bee-keeper to em- 

 ploy with profit, is to put on first an extract- 

 ing-super, and when this is nearly filled to 

 put a section-super under it. [Yes, indeed ; 

 like other mortals I like to read what suits 

 my way of thinking. Over and over again I 

 have had stubborn colonies of Italians that 

 would not go into the supers, boiling over 

 with strength, clover out in profusion, and 

 yet they would stay in the brood-nest and 

 cram every available cell before going above. 

 I have given such colonies supers of shallow 

 extracting-combs when they rushed above ; 

 and after they got well going in these combs 

 I took these supers off and gave them, instead, 

 supers of sections with full sheets of founda- 

 tion. The habit of going above being once 

 established, caused those bees to occupy at 

 once quarters that they had refused to occupy 

 before. I am sure the principle is all right 

 when working with Italians, and in localities 

 where the honey-flow is not strong enough to 

 force the bees above with a mighty rush. — 

 Ed.] 



CoGGSHAivI, puffs smoke into his extracting- 

 supers, and flops a cloth up and down to make 

 the smoke go in. I tried it with no great suc- 

 cess. I suspect it doesn't work as well on su- 

 pers of sections as on his supers of extract- 

 ing-combs. [Yes, sir, I saw Mr. Coggshall 

 and one of his men, by means of the flop- 

 cloth smoker act, drive about two-thirds of 

 the bees out of something like 30 or 40 differ- 

 ent extracting -supers. From three to five 

 floppings of the cloth would accomplish the 

 result in a surprisingly small amount of time. 

 The rest of the bees were disengaged by a pe- 

 culiar trembling shaking motion, combs being 

 shaken /;/ the hive and not in front of the en- 

 trance. In some cases there would be half a 

 dozen bees left on the combs ; but these per- 

 sistent chaps were quickly dislodged with the 

 Coggshall bee-brush. You say it does not 

 work as well on supers of sections as on su- 

 pers of extracting-combs. I suppose you re- 

 fer to the old-style sections ; and if so, right 

 you are. In the ordinary beeway sections 

 there is a little space at each corner, the top 

 not being cut away. It is in these spaces that 

 the bees lodge and pile up. In supers of no 

 beeways, or plain sections, the bees are dis- 

 lodged much ^ore easily; and easier still 

 from plain extracting-combs. — Ed.] 



