630 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



snakes. I am delighted to get it. Though sent in a 

 close box all the way from Texas by mail, it came 

 safely, and was livel}' upon arrival. I should like 

 to get the other Southern snakes, especially the 

 moccasins. I would pay for expense and trouble. 

 They can be sent at my expense. I am told that it 

 is unlawful to mail them. A. J. Cook. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



A GOOD YIELD. 



ORGANIZING A CONVENTION. 



HAVE secured two tons of comb honey, and ex- 

 tracted three and one-half tons, making 11,000 

 lbs. All of it is clover, except some that is 

 mixed with linn. Prospects are good for more 

 honey yet. I have increased from a trifle over 

 120 colonies to 105. My bees are all Italians; but as 

 soon as I can find time I expect to experiment with 

 Carniolans, but more for amusement than in hopes 

 of finding a better bee than the Italian. 



What is to prevent us bee-keepers of Western 

 Missouri and Eastern Kansas from having a rous- 

 ing convention in the fall? Doesn't it look too bad 

 to have such a host of bee-keepers in a good honey- 

 producing country, and never a meeting of any 

 kind! We could meet at some town that has the 

 proper conveniences, without very great effort; and 

 if it is not too f oon I would suggest that we have a 

 convention at Higginsville, where, I'm satisfied, we 

 could be furnished suitable accommodations at a 

 great deal less expense than at Independence or 

 Kansas City. I am satisfied that, if we would try, 

 we could get up a convention that would be of as- 

 sistance to us in the way of giving us a chance to 

 shoot off our ideas, and air them a little. 



PREVENTION OF SWARMING. 



I found a cure for swarming this season by re- 

 moving most of the capped brood and replacing 

 with empty combs. This plan, if used with judg- 

 ment, will not interfere with work in the sections, 

 and will prevent swarming if care is taken and 

 plenty of room given as it is needed; but unless 

 you have weak colonies or nuclei to build up, you 

 will increase some, which, if not wanted, can be 

 doubled back into the hives as fast as the bees 

 hatch out of the combs. R.L.Tucker. 



Lexington, Mo., July 4, 1889. 



BEES BITING HOLES IN CAPPINGS. 



VAUUARLE SUGGESTIONS FROM DOOLITTT E. 



HAVE read the different articles written by 

 friend Mamim, in late numbers of Gleanings, 

 with much interest, and I find that his mode of 

 working for honey corresponds very nearly 

 with my views on the subject. There is one 

 little item which T wish to notice, however, which 

 must be either a mistake of the typo or else Mr. 

 Minium must have fallen into an errcr, according 

 to my experience. On page 535 we find him saying 

 to Scott. " No, no! don't smoke them, as that will 

 cause the bees to bite holes in the cappings and 

 spoil the looks of the honey," while a few para- 

 graphs further on, Scott siys that the scale hive 

 showed the day before a gain of 18 pounds of hon- 

 ey, so that we infer that honey was coming in very 

 plentifully at the time friend Manum fears that the 

 bees will bite holes in the cappings if the bees were 



smoked. Now, according to my experience those 

 bees could not have been smoked enough at that 

 time to make them bite into a single capping; for 

 when bees are getting honey at the rate of 18 

 pounds a day, nearly every bee is as full of honey 

 as it can well be, hence could have no desire to 

 take more honey, even if- it " lay around loose." 

 At such times as this it is only fun to get the bees 

 out of sections, for they are so heavy with honey 

 that a little shaking will cause them to rattle oil the 

 combs like beechnuts off a tree when they are fully 

 ripe. Here is a point in bee-keeping which 1 have 

 never seen noticed that 1 remember of, which is, 

 that the same number of bees will occupy nearly 

 double the space when honey is coming in plenti- 

 fully that they do in a time of honey dearth. Dur- 

 ing our peculiar season, the present year, the bees 

 were nearly starving just before the basswood 

 bloom; and as but little brood was reared 21 days 

 before basswood opened, there were but few bees 

 hatching to replenish those in the hive; yet when 

 they began to get honey from the basswood, the 

 bees which before occupied only the brood-cham- 

 ber to the hive so expanded that they now filled 

 nearly as much room in the sections as there was 

 in the brood-ehamber, or double the room they did 

 a few days before. I do not believe in smoking 

 bees anymore than do Messrs. Manum and Koot; 

 but in all of my experience I have never had holes 

 bitten in the cappings to honey except in times of 

 scarcity, and in such times it is hardly possible to 

 get the bees off section honey without their doing 

 more or less of this work, unless they are immedi- 

 ately shaken off the honey, or driven down into the 

 hive before the sections are removed. 



DISTURBING NUCLEI. 



On page 533 I see that friend Root was annoyed 

 when raising queens in upper stories by having to 

 disturb his nuclei in the upper hive every time he 

 wished to get to the lower one, and thinks that this 

 is an objection to my plan of working. To over- 

 come this difficulty I tack the queen-excluding hon- 

 ey-board lightly to the bottom of the upper story or 

 hive, so that at any time when I wish to get to the 

 brood-chamber all I have to do is to lift off the up- 

 per story and set it to one side, the same as I would 

 do were there no queen-excluding honey-board be- 

 tween the two, nor any queen-cells or nuclei about 

 the hive. When doing this the upper cover is not 

 touched, hence this upper hive is really' not disturb- 

 ed in the least in getting at the brood-combs below. 

 Perhaps it would not be more than right for me to 

 say that, during the time of scarcity of honey, and 

 when it was coming in very slowly from clover, I 

 did not have my usual success in getting queens 

 fertilized in uppec stories, so I fear that this part of 

 the plan, as given in my book, may not work with 

 all, especially those who do not have a heavy hon- 

 ey-How at any time during the year. As I had in 

 previous years sold myself short of bees, and used 

 so many from my stronger colonies to start the 

 queen-business early, I did not tier any hives for 

 extracted honey till into the basswood bloom, 

 hence I had an experience with it only in the 

 height of the honey-How and afterward. Now that 

 the basswood is in bloom I am having success 

 agaiu. The queens were allowed to hatch as usual 

 before basswood ; but when they became three or 

 loilrdays old the bees would begin to persecute 

 them, which finally resulted in their death, and in 

 one or two instances in a general row " upstairs,'' 



