712 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUltE. 



Sept. 



those reared above a queen-excluder; in fact, I 

 don't think we can improve on the plan of going to 

 a colony that is preparing to swarm or supersede 

 their queen, cutting out all the queen-cells they 

 have started, and giving a frame of started cells 

 from your best queen I have over 100 queens in 

 my apiary, reared this season in that way; and 

 they are nearly all superfine xxx queens, and I 

 don't regret the time spent in rearing them. 

 Fillmore, Cal., Aug. 26, 1889. J. F. McIntyre. 



And so, friend M., you had only one day 

 during the season when the hive gave as 

 much as 9 Ihs. You surely have not had a 

 very bountiful season. It seems a little sin- 

 gular tliat your honey-yield commences 

 pretty nearly as ours does here— at least not 

 very much earlier ; and it closes toward the 

 middle of July, just as it does here in Ohio, 

 as a rule. Where such an experiment is 

 made, it were no more than fair to state 

 how many colonies there are in the apiary, 

 and also how many in the vicinity, that we 

 may see how fully stocked was the field. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS, 



RAISING QUEENS ABOVE QUEEN - EXCLUDING 

 HONEY -BOARDS, AGAIN. 



Several years ago a question of priority of a cer- 

 tain discovery pertaining to bee-keeping arose in 

 a western bee-paper, wherein one of the claim- 

 ants gave plenty of printed proofs of his claim, yet 

 he was misquoted, misrepresented, and misused, 

 till he began to think that, if he ever made any 

 future valuable discoveries, he would use them to 

 his best interests and let others And them out as 

 best thoy could. Still, I believe there are some who 

 are willing to give " honor to whom honor is due." 

 In Gleanings, page 685, it is conceded that Heddon 

 has the oldest claim on raising queens over a laying 

 queen. His writing dates back to 1885. See Glean- 

 ings, page 518. Now, will you please turn to 

 Gleanings for 1883, page 13, to my article under 

 date of Dec. 18, 1882, headed "Two, Three, or More 

 Laying Queens in one Hive"? nearly three years 

 ahead. I believe this is essentially the same prin- 

 ciple that Dr. Tinker has just got a patent on. Next! 

 A. A. Fradenburg. 



Port Washington, O , July 25, 1889. 



Friend F., I have just turned to the pas- 

 sage you mention. I had not forgotten it at 

 all, nor my foot-note to the communication. 

 Why I did not mention it at the time I gave 

 Doolittle credit, was because you succeeded 

 in getting only one of the queens fertilized, 

 and this at the time seemed to be rather ac- 

 cidental. That is, I have been well aware 

 for years that I could get an extra queen in 

 almost any hive about one time in three, by 

 making the brood-nest larger or cutting it 

 nearly off, as you did, by slipping back the 

 cloth cover; and I am inclined to think even 

 now that there will be so many failures, 

 queens will not be reared and fertilized to 

 any great extent above the queen-excluding 

 honey-board. I have before suggested the 

 difficulty, when you want to examine the 

 brood- combs in the hive below, Some one 



says it can be done without any trouble. 

 Well, I had a great deal of trouble when I 

 experimented in this line. The queen be- 

 longing to the upper story would sometimes 

 take wing when the upper story was set off 

 on the ground, and alight in the lower story 

 while I was handling it. Now, unless I got 

 the hive together again, and got her back 

 where she belonged, there was trouble. 1 

 should much prefer to have a part of the 

 brood-chamber divided off by a queen-ex- 

 cluding division-board, and then either one 

 can be examined without interfering with 

 the other. But this idea was given by D. 

 A. Jones when he first brought the queen- 

 excluding zinc so prominently before the 

 attention of the American people. It seems 

 to be the old story over again. It is hardly 

 safe for anybody to say in bee culture, 

 "This is my invention.' 1 When it comes 

 before the public, it transpires that a dozen 

 others have been at some time or other 

 working along in the same line, and very 

 often the thing has been described very 

 closely in print years before. 



BEES TEARING DOWN STARTERS, ETC. 



How high do Alaska peas grow? 



Do you have any trouble with bees eating the 

 starters in section boxes? 



Where bee-keepers cage the queen to prevent 

 swarming, what kind of cages is used most? 



Monroe, N. Y., Aug. 8, 1889. Millard Mapes. 



Alaska peas grow to about the height of 

 two feet.— Bees will sometimes, when they 

 have nothing else to-do, eat away starters in 

 the section boxes. They rarely do this, 

 however, and you need apprehend no seri- 

 ous trouble from this source. With flat- 

 bottom foundation we have sometimes no- 

 ticed the bees tear it down and rebuild it. — 

 For caging queens in the brood -nest during 

 swarming time, no particular cage is used. 

 Perhaps as good as any thing is a piece of 

 wire cloth folded into a cylinder, one end of 

 which is stopped by a wooden plug, and the 

 other by a plug of " Good " candy. This lat- 

 ter should be protected so that the bees of 

 the colony can not get at it, otherwise they 

 will liberate the queen in 24 hours. Dr. 

 Miller never places any food in the cage, 

 and I think has never found a queen dead. 



BLACK BEES FOR BUCKWHEAT, AND ITALIANS FOR 



CLOVER; WHICH ARE THK BEKS THAT 



GATHER THE WHITE MONEY? 



The two bushels of Japanese buckwheat I got of 

 you I sowed June 20th on four acres. June 29th 

 there came a terrible hailstorm and cut nearly all 

 of it down. I did not think there was enough left 

 to- stand on ten rods square of ground; but it has 

 come up to nearly a quarter of a crop. I was look- 

 ing over it this morning, and the bees were fairly 

 roaring over it; but they were nearly all black bees. 

 I saw but one Italian on it, and two or three hy- 

 brids. I then examined the white clover. The bees 

 were working lively on it, and nearly every one was 

 Italian. I saw two black and a few hybrids. I wish 

 others would examine and see if bees are working 

 the same way in their locality. 1 have 29 swarms of 

 Italians, 2 or 3 of blacks, and 13 hybrids, within 100 

 rods of the buckwheat, while my neighbors have 

 plenty of black. One correspondent writes that 



