1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



557 



The objection to this trap is that of expense 

 and the difficulty of fitting it to various styles 

 of hives. After all, the regular Alley trap 

 will be just as good and much cheaper. If 

 the perforated metal is of the Tinker style the 

 bees can pass it with little or no hindrance. — 

 Ed.] . 



a new drone-trap. 



If you want a perfect drone-trap, cut a saw- 

 kerf in the side-bars on the deep side of the 

 Danzenbaker bottom-board, an equal distance 

 from the edge and bottom-board proper ; tack 

 some ^-s-inch strips to the bottom-board, and 

 slip a sheet of perforated zinc in the saw-kerf, 

 and allow it to rest on the strips. Turn the 

 end of the zinc up and tack it to some blocks 

 on the front of the hive, and set an ordinary 

 drone-trap, minus the bottom part, over it. 

 The drones will escape through the upper en- 

 trance thus formed, while the one next to the 

 bottom-board will be left free for the exit and 

 entrance of the workers. There will be no 

 danger of clogging or suffocation. 



An ordinary excluder placed on a bottom- 

 board with an entrance above and below the 

 excluder, with a drone-trap adjusted to the 

 upper entrance, removes the objectionable fea- 

 tures of a droue-trap so far as the trapping of 

 the drones is concerned, and does not inter- 

 fere with the progress of the workers at all, 

 further than forcing them to pass through the 

 excluders. W. H. Pridgen. 



Creek, N. C. 



BEE-KEEPING IN OKLAHOMA. 



Mr. Root : — Did you know there were bee- 

 men in this new country, and that the busi- 

 ness is growing? Two years ago I had the 

 only bees in this neighborhood ; now there 

 are some ten or twelve men keeping bees. 

 Our honey is from sumac and cotton. You no 

 doubt know what it is — while and light am- 

 ber --and it sells as well here as the alfalfa 

 honey that is shipped in. My average, last 

 season, was 66 lbs. per colony, spring count. 

 The season is somewhat backward. Bees are 

 just beginning to swarm, which is about ten 

 days later than last year ; but I hope they will 

 make up the lost time. 



F. W. Van de Mark. 



Ripley, Okla., June 6. 



SWEET CLOVER FOR HAY, ETC. 



Is melilot, or sweet clover, of any value for 

 bay? and, if so, when should it be cut? Can 

 it be cured sufficiently to mow away ? I have 

 several acres in my pastures, and this wet 

 weather of the past few weeks has pushed it 

 till no grass will grow beneath it. Stock will 

 not eat it green ; but mules and hardy Cana- 

 dian horses are said to relish the ha}' made 

 from it. S. S. Fetheroff. 



Era, Ohio, June 10. 



[Friend F., you evidently have not been 

 reading Gleanings very long, for this mat- 

 ter has been most fully discussed for several 

 years past. Horses and cattle, after they have 

 once acquired a taste for sweet clover, either 

 ^reen or cured, as a rule prefer it to any other 



kind of hay. If cut before it gets tall, so as 

 to be hard and woody, it makes the best kind 

 of hay that I know of for all kinds of stock ; 

 and I can not remember that I have ever seen 

 any stock that would not eat it when thus 

 cured. See pamphlet we are mailing you, 

 free of charge, that tells all about sweet clo- 

 ver.— A. I. R.] 



WHY did the swarm GO OFF TO THE 

 WOODS ? 



I had a swarm issue June 17, with a clipped 

 queen. I caught the queen, and moved the 

 old hive away — set a new one in its place with 

 starters. The bees settled close by. I had 

 every thing ready. I gave the cluster a little 

 smoke, and they started back. I put the 

 clipped queen at the entrance, and she went 

 in. The next day they came out again, and 

 I picked up the same queen and caged her ; 

 but the bees did not stop — they went to the 

 woods. Do you think they had two queens 

 in the hive? Wm. Fox. 



Longwood, Wis., June 19. 



[This case is evidently one where there were 

 two queens in the hive — mother and daughter. 

 At this season of the year this thing is not so 

 very unusual. The clipped queen was get- 

 ting old, and the bees had reared another, and 

 both were very likely laying eggs right along 

 together. Of course, the bees did not care 

 particularly for the old queen, so they went 

 straight for the woods, where they had prob- 

 ably selected a home some days before the 

 swarm came out. — A. I. R.] 



HATCHING DRONES FROM QUEEN-CELLS. 



Before it slips our mind, we desire to report 

 the hatching of a perfect drone from a queen- 

 cell. Cell was cut from a comb of a choice 

 colony of Italians, and placed in a queen-cell 

 cage, the same being put into a nursery. I do 

 not remember seeing or having any thing of 

 the kind happen before, and so thought it 

 worth while reporting. There was no chance 

 of a slip twixt cup and — in this case. 



H. G. QuiRiN. 



Parkertown, Ohio, May 21. 



A GOOD REPORT. 



There is one of the finest honey-flows here 

 now that we have had since 1897. In fact, 

 the white clover lacks but little of being as 

 plentiful as it was then. But I find a great 

 many more bees on red clover than on white. 

 The honey is just rolling in. I have a good 

 many colonies with the second super on. I 

 commenced to raise the first super up the 15th 

 of June. Basswood is going to be simply 

 grand. Chauncey Reynolds. 



Fremont, O., June 21. 



Half of the bees or more have died here, 

 and in near-by towns, where they have been 

 wintered out of doors. The season was wet 

 and cold up to June ]. We have now had a 

 few fair days, raspberry just beginning to 

 bloom. Bees have commenced swarming 

 where they have wintered well. 



N. D. West. 



Middleburgh, N. Y., June 7. 



