518 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



empty hive - body (without frames) on top 

 thereof, and shook the after-swarm therein. 

 Result — in two days the bees were all in the 

 queenless hive — no fighting — removed empty 

 body, and put on super. Later I took off 20 

 lbs. of surplus, and put a good colony away 

 for wintering. W. H. Reed. 



Canton, Minn., March 28. 



[Shaking large bunches of bees from a 

 strong colony into a hive of fertile workers 

 would have practically the same effect. This 

 can be done at any time here. — Ed.] 



BEES AND GRAPES. 



In your footnote on the above caption in 

 Beginners' Questions, page 244, March 15, 

 you offer the clearest and strongest evidence 

 in exoneration of bees that I have ever seen. 

 Let me quote: "Now, to convince yourself 

 that bees do not make fresh'incisions, I would 

 call attention to the fact that three or four, 

 yes, five or six, will be circling around one 

 hole, sometimes standing on top of each oth- 

 er, all running their tongues down into the 

 same hole. If they could make fresh inci- 

 sions they would not crowd and jostle each 

 other as they do ; but each bee would make 

 for itself a hole where it could work without 

 being hampered in its efforts to extract the 

 juices." 



If any " candid man " will take pains to 

 observe the operation to which you call at- 

 tion he will surely be convinced that the bees 

 are not guilty of puncturing grapes. The 

 trouble is, people are so apt to jump at con- 

 clusions without sufficient (or any) investiga- 

 tion. 



Birds, nearly all kinds, but especially Eng- 

 lish sparrows (and are they not found every- 

 where?) are the guilty parties. With us, 

 catbirds and robins do a good deal of mis- 

 chief, but they give us in return some very 

 sweet music, while the English sparrow has 

 no redeeming qualities at all. Better devote 

 them to destruction, and protect the innocent 

 bees. John T. Sii^ER. 



Berkeley Springs, W. Va. 



OUR PREMIUM QUEENS, HUSTLERS. 



Mr. Root : — You will remember my telling 

 you last summer that one of my premium 

 queens was superseded. The young queen 

 proves to be an exact duplicate of her mother. 

 I was looking the hive over to-day, and found 

 brood in every one of the eight frames, every 

 available cell being occupied, and without any 

 spreading of brood, and plenty of bees to be- 

 gin business in an upper story, which I added. 

 I would not take five dollars for her to-day. 

 She and her bees are "hustlers." They are 

 all three-banded, yet slightly on the leather- 

 color order. EWAS Fox. 



Hillsboro, Wis., May 4. 



THE ECONOMY IN THE USE OF A WAX-PRESS. 



Your articles and illustration on the Hatch- 

 Gemmill press, I think, are the best that 

 have ever appeared in your journal. Six 



years ago I rendered 100 lbs. of clean wax 

 from 300 old and promiscuous combs. I 

 pressed the wax out on a cider-press. Shortly 

 afterward the question was asked in Glean- 

 ings, " How many Langstroth combs does it 

 take to make 1 lb. of wax? " As nearly as I 

 can remember, your correspondents made 1 

 lb. of wax from five to eight combs. I then 

 was satisfied that they did not press their ref- 

 use, or made a very bungling job of it. I 

 think the Hatch-Gemmill press is altogether 

 the best and cheapest apparatus made for se- 

 curing the largest quantity of clear beeswax. 

 West Bend, Wis. H. P. Ahlers. 



PROPORTION OF WAX OUT OF OLD COMBS. 



From 15 lbs. of comb out of box hives I 

 made 8 lbs. of wax ; and from 8^ lbs. of refuse 

 (out of which a neighbor had taken all the 

 wax he could get) I secured 13/ lbs. of bees- 

 wax. If the editor would like to see samples 

 of wax and refuse I will send them to him free 

 by mail. I do not know how old the combs 

 in box hives were. The man who brought the 

 combs to me got them when his father died in 

 1897, and his father kept bees for many years. 

 I have been in the bee business nearly ten 

 years, and I haven't any combs as heavy and 

 black with cocoons as those were. 



St. Anns, Ont. Herbert Treas. 



[You do not say how you rendered this 

 wax ; but I would assume that you used a 

 press of some kind. — Ed.] 



UNITING BEES WITH PEPPERMINT. 



Old bee-keepers will smile, I dare say, when 

 they read how I unite two colonies. I just 

 remove the cover from each hive, pour in a 

 few drops of peppermint essence, cover up for 

 15 minutes, then remove the cover from the 

 one I want vacated, and set the other on top ; 

 then I find them all in the upper hive in two 

 or three days, and no dead bees. 



Davenport, N. Y. E. E. Stebbins. 



[But if I am correct old bee-keepers seldom 

 have trouble in uniting, even without the pep- 

 permint. If there is any trouble, or liable to 

 be, smoke will answer as well. — Ed.] 



C. IV. C, Iowa. — Glucose is a very poor 

 food for bees, and it is very seldom they will 

 take it. It would be better and cheaper for 

 you to give them sugar syrup, as described on 

 page 28 of our catalog. There is more nutri- 

 ment in syrup made from granulated sugar, 

 for the money, than any glucose made, no 

 matter what the price may be. 



C. C, N. Y. — You ask how you can tell 

 whether your box-hive colony is queenless ; 

 and, unless you are a pretty expert bee-keep- 



