1889 



GLEANINGS IN- BEE CULTURE. 



769 



bees unless the float is used. One of that width and 

 under, needs no float, for the bees are never out of 

 the reach of one side or the other of the feeder. As 

 the larger part of those feeding bees use any thing 

 that they come across for this purpose, the com- 

 mon six quart milk-pan is probably more largely 

 used than any thing else. I will tell the readers 

 how 1 use this successfully. To use such a pan as 

 a feeder, however, the hive must have a cover of 

 depth euough to go over the pan, otherwise the 

 bees from the outside would get at the feed and 

 cause trouble. Set the pan on top of the hive, and 

 fill it with syrup, alter which pull up two or three 

 haudfuls of the short grass about the hives, and 

 scatter over the syrup for a float. Set up a piece of 

 a section or chip against the side of the pan, so the 

 bees can easily climb over to the feed, when a hole 

 is to be opened to the hive below, by turning up 

 one corner of the quilt, or removing a slat in the 

 honey-board, for the bees to come up through. I 

 now scatter a few drops of the feed down through 

 the hole and over the chip, and put on the cover, 

 seeing that all is tight about the joints, so that no 

 bees can get in from the outside. As these pans 

 hold about 20 pounds of feed, this once feeding is 

 all that most colonies require. 



UNITING BEES. 



Another correspondent wishes to know how it 

 would do to unite two weak colonies of bees for 

 winter. This is the proper thing to do; for two 

 weak colonies, kept separate, will consume nearly 

 twice the stores which both would united, and very 

 likely perish before spring, while if put together 

 they would winter as well as any large colony. The 

 way 1 would proceed in such a case would be as 

 follows: If one of the queens is known to be feeble 

 or inferior, she is killed, so that the best one may 

 survive, when both colonies are smoked freely, I 

 pounding on top of the hive as I smoke them, so 

 that the bees may fill themselves with honey, after 

 which one is carried to the stand of the other, and 

 both hives opened. I now select out of both hives 

 the combs containing the most honey, setting them 

 in one of the hives alternately, so as to mix the 

 bees as much as possible, thus causing them not to 

 fight, and also to mark their location anew upon 

 their first flight afterward, so tew if any return to 

 their former home. After the hive is tilled with 

 comb, close the same; and after putting a wide 

 board in front of the hive, reaching from the 

 ground to the entrance, shake the bees off the re- 

 maining frames, taking one from one hive and the 

 next from the other, thus mixing the bees as be- 

 fore. Take every thing, which would look like 

 home, from the old stand, storing combs, hives, 

 etc., away for another year, and the work is done. 



G. M. Doolittle. 

 Borodino, N. Y., Sept. 23, 1889. 



In addition to the mutter of robbing, I 

 would say, be sure that the robbed bive has 

 a laying queen, or unsealed brood from 

 which to raise a queen. If they are queen- 

 less, and destitute of all means of raising a 

 queeu, you may try all the recipes and plans 

 ever invented, and they will not avail a par- 

 ticle ; and where robbers have really got a 

 going, as friend D. says, nothing avails but 

 to shut the hive up with a cloth or bee-tent, 

 or some equivalent ; and even then, where 

 the queen is gone, I know they will go right 

 at it again just as soon as the tent or cloth 

 is.[removed. _J.n regard to adding phoney to 



the syrup, unless you know where the hon- 

 ey came from, be sure it is scalded enough 

 to kill all germs of foul brood. A burnt 

 child dreads the fire; and I tell you, we 

 have been burned terribly. To prevent 

 bees drowning, when feeding in a tin pan, a 

 great many use simply a piece of cloth 

 spread over the pan. The wooden butter- 

 dishes, we have found perhaps the cheapest 

 and simplest of any thing in the line of feed- 

 ers. Even without a float, they seldom 

 drown in these.. So many bees pile into 

 them they are empty before a bee has a 

 chance to die. Our experience in uniting is 

 much hs given above, except that some- 

 times a good many bees will get back to the 

 old stand, or go to hives adjoining the old 

 stand. 



INTRODUCING. 



DOING IT WITHOUT LOS8, ON THE CANDY PLAN. 



UCH has lately been said on the subject of 

 introducing queens; and I would say, after 

 having tried all the various methods in 

 use, that I have, for the last two years, in- 

 troduced without the loss of a single 

 queen, with a wire tube similar to Doolittle's cage 

 for introducing virgin queens, only there 

 is no wood, except a plug^for each end. 

 I till the cage half full of candy, and fill 

 the end with a wooden plug, in which 

 there is a hole just large enough for a 

 single bee to pass through. I put the 

 queen in the other end and plug it up, or 

 pinch it shut. I place this cage between 

 two top-bars over the center of the 

 brood-nest, and close the hive; and byj|j 

 the time the bees eat through the candy,! 

 which is usually inside of two days, they 

 are so well acquainted with the new queen that she 

 is safe. By this method I lose no queens, and I also 

 get rid of the bother of releasing the queen, remov- 

 ing the cage, etc.; for, lying as it does between 

 the top-bars, it is no hindrance to the bees or any- 

 body else. I think that any colony of bees will 

 more readily accept a queen if they are not disturb- 

 ed after the cage has been placed in the brood-nest. 

 carniolans discarded after a careful test. 

 In a former article I think that I spoke of our 

 Carniolan queens as being among our best layers. 

 Now, that is about all I can say for them; and at 

 the close of the season, having given them a thor- 

 ough test, I can say that they are no better work- 

 ers, and no more gentle, than our Italians; and 

 looking, as they do, so much like our common black 

 bee, I have discarded them, and next season we will 

 raise nothing but Italians. 



supersedure of young queens. 

 We commenced this season with 45 colonies, and 

 increased by natural swarming to 78, and doubled 

 back to 04 for wintering. About two-thirds of 

 these new swarms issued with virgin queens; and a 

 number of colonics that did not swarm at all, super- 

 seded their queens during June and July. This is 

 something new in my experience, to see such a 

 wholesale superseding of young queens, for most 

 of them were of last season's raising. 



This has been the poorest season I ever saw. 

 There was plenty of clover and other bloom, but it 

 has been too wet and cold for the bees to do any 



