556 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



son the same plantation will doubtless give 

 a much larger crop; but 1 seriously doubt 

 whether the .Jessie or the Sharpless either 

 will give as much fruit per plant as the 

 Crescent and Wilson, and perhaps some 

 Others. Our objection to the Crescent is 

 the small size ; but still a great many of our 

 customers this summer decidedly prefer the 

 small berries to the great large ones. Some 

 of them will not have the large ones, as they 

 say they are tasteless, etc. The Bubach is 

 certainly a massive berry. We, like your- 

 self, have single leaves that would cover a 

 pint bowl, and the berries are monsters. 

 But they are all gone after one or two pick- 

 ings, while the Crescent, with its great clus- 

 ters of small berries, still keeps the pickers 

 busy. Sometimes 1 think there is no better 

 berry, all things considered, than the old 

 Wilson. Then, again, I am inclined to fa- 

 vor the Crescent. Finally I decide that no 

 berry-patch is complete without half a doz- 

 en, or, better still, a dozen, of the popular 

 kinds. The Jessie is valuable because it is 

 so early ; and the Jersey Queen, because it 

 is so late ; besides, the jersey Queen is one 

 of the handsomest and best berries that we 

 have on our grounds. It is not as strong a 

 grower as the Sharpless and Jessie, how- 

 ever, and it doesn't bear any thing near as 

 many berries as the Crescent. I am aston- 

 ished to hear that Talmage ever said or 

 wrote any such folly. Our proof-reader says 

 he thinks there must be some mistake about 

 it. To intimate that man's inventive facul- 

 ties are not a wonderful gift directly from 

 the Almighty, seems to me, savors of infi- 

 delity. Farmers complain that wages are 

 so high, and produce so low, that they can 

 not keep on farming. Now, if this be true, 

 the laboring classes have been benefited in 

 both directions. Amen to your concluding 

 sentence ! 



0aR 0wn Jlnn^Y. 



CONDUCTED BY ERNEST K. BOOT. 



MANUM S MODIFIED SW ARMING-DEVICE. 



TT will be remembered that our friend A. 

 ijp E. Manum clips all his queens' wings. 

 W As some of our customers want their 

 A queens clipped and others do not, we 

 practice no clipping, leaving the pur- 

 chaser to follow his own option. Our 

 queens, unless prevented by perforated zinc, 

 always accompany the swarm. On page 542, 

 July 1, 1888, I mentioned a swarmiug-device 

 modified from A. E. Manum's implement, 

 which has given us most excellent satisfac- 

 tion. Our device differs from friend Ma- 

 num's in that we use a larger wire-cloth 

 cage. His will hold perhaps a quart of bees, 

 while ours will hold several. As it was late 

 in the season we made no engraving of it 

 then. 



While Manum's arrangement is better 

 adapted for those who clip their queens, 

 ours is more suited for those who practice 

 no clipping. Fig. 2 represents the wire- 

 cloth cage or basket ; Fig. 3, the device in 

 position, receiving the bees as they cluster 

 on the outside of the cage. Fig. 1 shows the 



bees after they have clustered, and the apia- 

 rist in the act of walking off to the hive. 



METHOD OF CAPTURING SWARMS. 



Instead of looking for the clipped queen 

 as soon as the swarm issues, we wait until 

 it begins to cluster. As soon as a cluster is 

 about half completed, we run the basket up 

 to and around the cone of bees. An assist- 

 ant, if present, gives the limb a jar, so as to 

 disengage the bees into the basket. In case 

 no one is ready to assist, a sliding move- 

 ment will precipitate the cluster into the 

 wire-cloth cage, when it is quickly lowered. 



MANUM S SWARMING ARRANGEMENT AS 



MODIFIED BY THE FOLKS AT THE 



HOME OF THE HONEY-BEES. 



This operation, in passing down through the 

 limbs, usually will catch the wire-cloth lid, 

 and close it with a slam. In case it is not 

 closed, the apiarist steps forward and does 

 it himself. Hall' or two-thirds of the bees 

 are generally confined. In all probability 

 the queen is there also. As the bees can not 

 get out, those still flying in the air will very 

 readily cluster on the wire cloth, surround- 

 ing the majority of their companions inside. 

 To make this more expeditious, the tripod 

 is adjusted, and the cage is suspended in the 

 air, as shown in Fig. 3, right where the bees 

 are Hying thickest. In two or three min- 

 utes the remainder of the bees will be clus- 

 tered on the outside. At this stage of the 

 proceeding the apiarist comes forward, 

 folds the two short legs against the pole, 

 grasps it at its center of gravity (see Fig. 1), 

 and walks off to the hive, which he has pre- 

 viously prepared. The wire fork is made of 

 steel, and is light and springy. The walk- 

 ing of the apiarist has no tendency then to 

 jar the bees off from the basket. 



One of the special features of the Manum 

 arrangement is, that the basket can be ad- 

 justed to almost any position, all the way 

 from 2 to 10 feet from the ground. All that 

 is necessary is to spread the tripod legs, 

 catch them into the ground, and leave them 

 standing, in the mean time, if the hive is 



