356 



GLKAN1NG-S IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



for producing what 1 call, after having- eaten honey 

 all over, the whitest, as well as the finest-flavored 

 honey in the world. J. B. LaMontagne. 



Orlando, Florida. 



What you tell us is surprising. Notwith- 

 standing all that has been said in regard to 

 Florida and the orange-orchards, I never 

 before heard anybody speak of seeing bees 

 in the orange-trees so that they made a noise 

 any thing as they do in our apple-trees Is it 

 not only during an occasional favorable sea- 

 son that you have reports like the one 

 above? One other thing : We have had two 

 samples of orange-blossom honey from Flor- 

 ida this spring ; and the last sample of 

 comb honey is certainly equal to the Cali- 

 fornia white sage, or to any thing else that 

 it has been my good fortune to taste, in the 

 way of honey. One of the friends sent us a 

 sample that was passed around among the 

 printers, and, if 1 am correct, they agree ex- 

 actly with me. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS. 



PROPER DISTANCE IN SPACING COLONIES. 



'HAT distance must separate two stocks of 

 different blood to keep them pure? If I 

 should remove the queen from a colony, 

 and after a few days should be compelled to 

 return the same one, is there any liability 

 that the bees would be hostile to her? Will feeding- 

 meal from a single vessel start robbing among the 

 bees? Will setting hives that are all exactly alike, 

 in a straight row six feet apart, be in any way a 

 disadvantage to the bees? Which is the best way to 

 arrange an apiary of less than fifty hives? 

 Muskegon, Mich. E. Hile. 



Queens are apt to go beyond the immdei- 

 ate neighborhood of their own hives to be 

 fertilized. To keep the two races distinct 

 they should not be nearer than a mile and a 

 half. Two miles would be better. Feeding 

 meal will never cause robbing. It is not ex- 

 actly advisable to put hives in straight rows, 

 with the entrances all one way. It is apt to 

 result in some confusion to the bees, and 

 particularly so to young queens. Hives as 

 arranged in the A B C book make a very 

 good arrangement. See "Apiary,' 1 in the 

 ABCbook. 



LOSS OF QUEENS IN WINTER; LOSS OF COLONY; 

 WHICH MAKE THE BETTER WORKING COLO- 

 NIES, THE LARGE OR SMALL CONSUMERS 

 WHILE IN WINTER QUARTERS? 



I have to chronicle the loss of all late fall-raised 

 queens. They hatched out the first week of Octo- 

 ber, and had ample chance of being fertilized. They 

 were produced in an easy, off-hand sort of way, and 

 they died after the same fashion. I knew they 

 were gone in January, but I had hopes that their 

 bees might live till I could re-queen them. All such 

 colonies died early in March. I do not wish to say 

 that queenless stocks will not winter, but T am cer- 

 tain that, had those queens lived and been mated, I 

 should not have lost one stock. Had all my queens 

 died in winter, all my bees would have been dead 

 now. All had dysentery alike, and all such died. 

 But my vigorous queens began laying in December, 



and brood-rearing, less or more, was kept up; and 

 by the time all the old sickly bees were dead I had a 

 nice little batch of young healthy bees in each stock 

 when March came. Phenomenal weather did you 

 ever know the like? Natural pollen the 15th of 

 March, and brood in from one to three frames each. 

 What will be the outcome of all this? My sickly 

 bees consumed enormous quantities of honey. 



I am surprised at some of the answers to Ques- 

 tion 111. Yet one thing is only fair to these gentle- 

 men; and when I reflect that their homes are scat- 

 tered throughout the States 1 am disposed to be 

 charitable. I am no bee-keeper in a scientific sense, 

 but I know enough to know that here in Logan Co. 

 (Central Illinois), the less stores an average colony 

 consumes during a four-months' repose, the health- 

 ier will such bees be in spring. Of course, all agree 

 that, after natural pollen begins to come in, the 

 more they consume the better. My bees ate fully 

 30 pounds each stock this winter, and I shall have 

 to feed; yet my report shows that they gorged 

 themselves to death. I bought, last fall, 4 miles 

 from here, a stock of black bees in a box hive. It 

 was a large hive, and would weigh, in November, 

 between 80 and 100 lbs. I went for it the last of 

 February. I was delighted. The stock was just 

 perceptibly lighter, packed full of bees, and actual- 

 ly not half a pint on the bottom stand. I looked 

 narrowly all around the hive, but no dead bees any- 

 where. 1 say this is perfect wintering. 



Beason, 111. James Hamilton. 



Friend H., it seems to me you are a little 

 hasty in your conclusions. I do not know 

 that I would advise trying to winter a col- 

 ony that raised a queen which failed to be 

 fertilized. You see, in such a case they 

 were some time queenless before winter 

 commenced. The circumstances are quite 

 different from that of a colony where a good 

 queen was taken out and sold, say in No- 

 vember. In the latter case I do not think 

 there would be a bit more danger of dysen- 

 tery than if the queen were left with them. 

 In fact, several observations seem to indi- 

 cate that such queenless colonies are less 

 liable to dysentery or spring dwindling. 



DRONES FOR EARLY QUEEN-REARING. 



We have seen mention made of securing drones 

 early, so as to commence queen-rearing earlier. 

 Bro. Doolittle can secure the drones early, but 

 not the queens, so he sends south for virgin queens. 

 We can get queens before we can get the drones in 

 this climate, so we send south for drones. We had 

 very fine weather the last two weeks in April, and 

 can commence for queen-rearing to have them 

 hatching by the 10th of May. We should have to 

 have drone eggs laid by the first of April, to have 

 drones to be of any service by the 15th of May. This 

 is impossible with us here. We have for the past 

 two years made arrangements with Mr. P. L. Vial- 

 Ion to furnish us by the 20th of April with a four- 

 frame nucleus made up of two frames of drone 

 brood, nearly ready to hatch; by this means we 

 have them in time. By getting drones from a relia- 

 ble person who will take pains to have them raised 

 from the best stock, we also get new blood in the 

 apiary, as well as early drones. We prefer to get 

 them in the brood state, but have not heard any 

 one so express themselves. Probably this is origi- 

 nal with us. In the March number of the Queen 

 Breeders' Journal, advice is given to purchase drones 



