1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



587 



His home in the pretty country town of Wen- 

 ham, Mass., IS almost hidden among the trees, 

 and his apiary was so distributed among the 

 raspberry and currant bushes that a satisfacto- 

 ry photo was impossible. Mr. A. said he had 

 been too busy to trim away the bushes and to 

 slick things up, but the essentials he certainly 

 does not neglect. His kitchen garden was as 

 free from weeds, and as thrifty, as any one 

 could desire ; and while his workshop, spare 

 hives, etc., were in some confusion, it was only 

 such as is brought about by a rush of work. It 

 was a pleasure to watch him as he made up 

 nuclei, fixed frames of cages containing cells 

 or queens, and prepared strips of comb for 

 cell-building. To those who are not familiar 

 with Mr. Alley's system a brief description 

 may be inteiesting.Sfj 



First, his breeding queens are kept in little 

 hives containing five frames about five inches 

 square, and from these little frames he cuts a 

 comb whenever he wants eggs for cell-build- 

 ing. For doing this work he prefers black 

 bees, buying many colonies of them every 

 spring. He has to send far afield for them 

 now, as those anywhere near Wenham were 

 gone long ago. When received, the entrance 

 is covered with a drone-trap, and all black 

 drones kept from flying until he is all ready 

 to use the colony for cell building. To pre- 

 pare them for this they are taken into his 

 workshop where the queen is found and re- 

 moved, and the bees are brushed into an emp- 

 ty hive and shut in with a wire-cloth cover, so 

 to remain for several hours. When they have 

 been shut up long enough, the prepared eggs 

 are given to them and they are left until night 

 when they are placed on a stand out of doors, 

 and the entrance opened. The operation of 

 preparing the cells I will describe as I saw 

 him do it. 



In his shop he lighted a kerosene-stove and 

 set on it a pan containing a mixture of bees- 

 wax and rosin. Then he took two L. frames 

 from which the lower half of the combs had 

 been cut, and, by a quick stroke of his knife, 

 removed the remains of a previous lot of cells. 

 He then went to the colony of one of his 

 breeding-queens, picked out one of the little 

 combs, stepped back into the shop, and, with 

 a hot knife, cut the comb from the frame, slit 

 it into strips containing one row of cells each, 

 took a match and destroyed the egg in each 

 alternate cell on one side of the strips, dipped 

 the other side into the melted rosin and wax, 

 and stuck them to the bottom edge of the L. 

 combs above referred to. His next step was 

 to hang these in an empty hive, fill the rest of 

 the hive with combs of honey and pollen, J9r 

 the confined bees to the bottom of the hive 

 ihey were in, put on the top of it a zinc ex- 

 cluder ("drone-strainer" he calls it), place 

 on this the hive containing the prepared strips 

 of eggs (enough for 60 cells), and over this a 

 wire screen. In a few minutes a large part of 

 the bees were in the upper hive. The opera- 

 tion from the time he went for the eggs until 

 they were given to the bees was just eight 

 minutes. When the cells are sealed they are 

 cut apart and each one put into a little cage 

 by itself, and a lot of these cages are fastened 



into an L. frame and hung in any queenless 

 colony until they hatch. The next step is the 

 making of a lot of little nuclei from the small 

 -5X5 frames, stocking them with bees, giving 

 them a virgin queen and carrying them to an 

 out-apiary where he has his drone-rearing col- 

 onies. 



I am fairly familiar with both this and the 

 cell-cup system ; and for celerity of operation 

 and excellence of results I consider Mr. Al- 

 ley's plan far ahead of the others. His sys- 

 tem is certainly best for those bee-keepers who 

 rear queens solely for their own use ; but each 

 commercial queen-raiser will use the system 

 he is most accustomed to. He had in cages a 

 lot of virgin queens of various ages ; and finer 

 and larger queens I never saw. From their 

 size I took it for granted they were laying 

 queens just caged, until informed to the con- 

 trary. 



The Adels are large, active bees, clinging 

 well to the combs, easily handled and reason- 

 ably gentle. Mr. Alley speaks highly of their 

 honey gathering and comb building qualities ; 

 but with them in that respect I am not famil- 

 iar. The using of black bees for building 

 cells has its advantages (one of which is 

 cheapness) and its disadvantages, the chief 

 being their stings. Ah, but how they stung ! 

 They used my head and neck for a pin-cush- 

 ion, but not a sting did I get from the Adels. 

 Mr. Alley never wears a veil, but does have a 

 handkerchief hanging from the back of his 

 hat to protect his neck and the back of his 

 head. To see him working among the bees 

 one would never think a sting treubled him. 

 He has a pleasant, genial way of treating his 

 visitors that causes a visit to be agreeably re- 

 membered. 



Providence, R. I., June 25. 



BEE-KEEPING IN CUBA. 



Large Honey Yields ; Peculiar Conditions in the 

 Island. 



BY FRANK N. SOM^RFORD. 



After a long disastrous drouth which lasted 

 all spring, greatly shrinking the amount of 

 late spring surplus honey, and retarding nat- 

 ural as well as artificial increase, besides caus- 

 ing great loss to the agricultural industries, 

 we were visited in this section some days ago 

 by one of the heaviest rains known for many 

 years, which inundated large tracts of flat 

 lands, doing great damage. One man alone, 

 a Cuban, lost 300 chickens ; another, several 

 colonies of bees, besides several who lost 

 cattle that were staked in low places. Much 

 damage was also done to roads, bridges, etc. 

 This was followed by the hottest weather 

 known for 15 years, as stated by Spanish pa- 

 pers ; and now the rainy season seems to have 

 Ijurst upon us, and vegetation is growing at a 

 rate almost astonishing. W^e are enjoying 

 mud, mud, mud ; and wheel-riding, except 

 on the macadamized roads, is done with now 

 for a while. 



Mr. Harry Osburn's honey crop for the past 

 season was taken from about 400 hives. I 



