846 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov 



wire-cloth cover— or slide— to slide into the grooves 

 made in the edges of the side pieces. I have 

 thought of making them with wire-cloth bottom— 

 or back— hut I hardly think it necessary, the box 

 bei n s stronger as it is. The slide is made of wire 

 cloth cut a little wider and longer than the size of 

 the box. A piece of tin, the proper size, is used as 

 a form to turn the edges of the cloth, that it may 

 slide in the grooves easier than the raw edge 

 would; and, besides, the slides keep their shape bet- 

 ter by having folded edges. 



The hooks which hold the cells in place are 

 made by cutting tin points from a strip of tin % 

 wide. A representation of these points may be 

 seen in Gleanings for Aug. 1, page 639. With the 

 point of a pocket-knife, an incision is made in the 

 center of the top end, and the tin point is driven 

 through into the box, and the point bent up to 

 form a hook on which the queen-cell is hung by the 

 upper end of the cell; then the wire-cloth cover is 

 slid in place, and the cage is ready for the nursery. 



These cages, or protectors, can be, furnished for 

 5 cts. each by mail; or just the bare box can be fur- 

 nished by express at $2.00 per 100. Possibly Mr. 

 Root can furnish them cheaper. 



THE NURSERY, OR FRAME. 



This is an ordinary brood-frame, with end-bars 

 cut shorter, so that two rows of boxes and center- 

 bar will just fill the space; hence the end-bars 

 should be l 3 _i long, as the center-bar is }- 8 thick. 

 This center-bar is kept in place by fitting it into 

 grooves made in the end-bars— see engraving. For 

 a back to this frame, an ordinary tin separator may 

 be used. I use a wooden separator, as I have no 

 tin ones. I use the nursery something after the 

 Doolittle plan, though I place them not only in up- 

 per stories, but in any hive or nucleus I wish to, 

 whether they have a laying queen or not. I find 

 that the bees will not always feed the young virgin 

 queens in these nurseries after the honey season is 

 past; hence they should be watched at such times, 

 and fed or removed as soon as hatched. I have 

 hatched queens over and in full colonies for sever- 

 al years, and supposed everybody else did, though I 

 did it on a different plan from this; but this ar- 

 rangement suits me much better than any thing 

 I ever tried before. 



I find that queen-excluding honey-boards are un- 

 necessary for this work, as I have never used them, 

 either for hatching queens or having queen-cells 

 completed after being started in other hives. I 

 have never had such cells torn down, nor have they 

 ever, to my knowledge, caused a swarm to issue. 



All honor to our good friend G. M. Doolittle for 

 the many good points he has given us in queen- 

 rearing, though I have never seen his new book. 



Bristol, Vt., Aug. 21, 1889. A. E. Manum. 



BEES, BEANS, ETC. 



WHY THOSE* BEANS DID NOT COME UP. 



T SUPPOSE the beans you spoke of several times, 

 M> as not doing well, did not grow because they 

 ^ll had never thoroughly ripened. I remember 

 when I was a boy my father always grew 

 beans for feed for horses and hogs. Those in- 

 tended for the horses were always kiln-dried, if not 

 harvested well, or not quite dry; damp new beans 

 bein? very injurious to horses. One time, in plant- 

 ing for the next crop we ran short of seed. After a 



good deal of argument, pro and con, the last three- 

 fourths of an acre was planted with kiln-dried 

 beans. These last were up first, produced the best 

 crop, and were three weeks ahead of the others at 

 harvest. Does not that Jook as if a seed must be 

 dry, to be ripe? 



THE CLOVER BLOAT. 



I remember my fatherjhaving a lot of cows blown 

 with clover, though there was a man put to watch 

 them. That was in the early part of the fifties— 

 about 1851, I think. What impressed it on my 

 mind was, they got them all into the barnyard as 

 quickly as possible, and tied sticks in their mouths 

 to keep them open, and all so treated recovered 

 but one cow. She would not be caught, and was 

 driven into the barn. The floor was paved with 

 blue bricks, and was very slippery; and in trying to 

 avoid being caught, the cow slipped down and 

 burst. 



SPEED OF BEES ; AN INTERESTING CASE. 



With regard to the speed of bees in flight: Some 

 years ago, in England, I was out on an engine, that 

 we had rebuilt, during her trial trip. A bumble- 

 bee took a fancy to investigate us, and after look- 

 ing us over on all sides it commenced making a cir- 

 cle around the smokestack, varying from one foot 

 to three feet from it. He seemed to do it with the 

 greatest ease, for several minutes, and then left us, 

 to find himself six or eight miles from where he 

 first joined us. We were going close on to sixty 

 miles an hour. How fast was the bee going, when 

 circling around the smoke-stack? 



TO GET WAX OFF FROM UTENSILS. 



The best way I know to get wax off from any 

 kind of vessel is to warm them so as to soften the 

 wax a little, then get some clean sawdust, and a 

 coarse rag, and it's just fun to get it off. A tea- 

 spoonful each of soot and lime will be plenty to test 

 for ammonia. Geo. E. Hailes. 



Lytle,Tex., Sept. 20, 1889. 



Friend H., you have given us several 

 things of a great deal of value. The result 

 of that experiment with the beans corrobo- 

 rates exactly the experiment 1 gave, of 

 planting beans just as soon as they were of 

 full size, but not dry. Now, is there not 

 here a point for our experiment stations to 

 settle? Will our good friend W. J. Green 

 please tell us whether garden seeds are all 

 of them better to be kiln-driedV Since you 

 suggest it, friend H., I recall quite a number 

 ofinstances that seemed to indicate that 

 seeds must be thoroughly dried, as well as 

 thoroughly ripened. Our garden seeds are 

 in a room warmed by steam, and so near one 

 of the radiators that I have sometimes 

 feared they would get so exceedingly dry it 

 might be hard to moisten them up quick 

 enough to have them start real early in the 

 spring. Your fact, however, indicates that 

 they are just right as they are.— I am glad 

 to have you corroborate the remedy recently 

 given for clover bloat.— If a bumble-bee flies 

 considerably more than a mile a minute, 

 how fast may a honey-bee go if it tries ? 

 Surely it can get ahead of its big country 

 cousin.— If lime causes soot to give off am- 

 monia, then soot is, without question, valu- 

 able for manure. I know it has been many 

 times recommended, but I was slow to ac- 

 cept it, because I could not see any reason 

 why. Will friend Green also tell what he 

 knows about the value of soot as a manure ? 



