til-2 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



as nearly as possible just like a family, and all hav- 

 ing- such an interest in the work as to make it a 

 pleasure to talk over together the plans and pros- 

 pects. C. C. Miller. 

 Marengo, 111. 



Friend M., there is one thing in your re- 

 marks that takes a mighty hold on your old 

 friend A. I. Eoot. God's blessing is asked 

 on the cold lunch spread on top of a bee- 

 hive. No matter how busy you are—no 

 matter how commonplace may be your sur- 

 roundings, in the middle of the day and in 

 the midst of the work you all agree to come 

 to order, or, if you choose, you call your- 

 selves to order while the divine blessing is 

 invoked. I know we do not always feel 

 like it ; at least (and I am ashamed to say 

 it) / do not always feel like it ; but that is 

 the very time when it is of the utmost im- 

 portance that we bow our heads in rever- 

 ence to the great Ruler over all. Asking 

 the blessing seems to settle the troubled 

 waters, and it always has the effect of mak- 

 ing all the good there is in me come upper- 

 most or to the surface, and also of making 

 all that is bad or wrong go away out of 

 sight. If I had been cherishing a wrong 

 feeling when it comes time to ask a bless- 

 ing, the wrong feeling must be put away, 

 crowded down out of sight. Nine times out 

 of ten it stays down out of sight, and per- 

 haps never shows itself again. Perhaps 

 some new reader of Gleanings may in- 

 quire, " Well, what has all this to do with 

 out-apiaries?" Simply this, my friend : It 

 will oftentimes of itself decide between suc- 

 cess and failure. 



SETTING BEES IN THE CELLAE, ETC. 



KHIEND DOOLITTLE GIVES US SOME GOOD HINTS 

 ON A SEASONABLE MATTER. 



T AM frequently asked which is best, a cold day 

 ||r or a warm one, to set bees in the cellar; and I 

 W invariably reply, that I prefer the warm one. 

 I never set bees in the cellar when they went 

 in with as little trouble as this year. Two days 

 before, they had a nice fly, the mercury going to 

 63° in the shade, with scarcely a cloud or a bit of 

 wind. That night and the next day the weather 

 was very drying, while on the morning of the sec- 

 ond day it looked as if fixing for a storm. I said to 

 myself, " Now is the time to put the bees in the 

 cellar ; " but upon looking at the thermometer I 

 found that it marked 52°, while bees can fly at 45°. 

 I was a little afraid that I might have trouble with 

 their flying while it was so warm ; but I resolved to 

 try, and, to my astonishment, I found that I never 

 set bees in the cellar when they flew as little or 

 were disturbed less than with this warm tempera- 

 ture. As the hives were not frozen down on the 

 bottom-board, they lifted off the same without a 

 bit of jar, thus helping- much in the matter. To 

 keep from jarring them in carrying to the cellar I 

 placed several thicknesses of old carpet on the 

 spring wheelbarrow, letting the same run up over 

 the front board, to which it was tacked on the back 

 side, to keep it from slipping down. The hives 

 could now be set on the wheelbarrow without the 

 least bit of jar; and as the work of carrying them 

 into the cellar seemed rather uncalled for, after I 

 had them at the door of the cellar I conceived the 



idea of laying down a couple of plank, which made 

 it just right so that I could run the wheelbarrow 

 right into the cellar, and thus bring every hive to 

 the place where it was wanted, so that all the lift- 

 ing there was to it was the setting them on the bar- 

 row and off again. Only now and then a colony 

 seemed to realize that they had been disturbed at 

 all, and I believe that it will be quite a little in 

 their favor for safe wintering, in their not being 

 disturbed in putting- in. I can not help but think 

 that it is much better to put bees in thus early in 

 warm weather, than to wait till into December, as 

 some advise, when it often happens that the hives 

 are covered with ice and snow, and the inside of 

 the same covered with frost, the melting of which 

 causes a dampness to the cellar and hives not bene- 

 ficial to the bees. 



HOW TO WINTER THE HIVES WITH HALF-DEPTH 

 FRAMES. 



1 have had very many letters since my article ap- 

 peared in September Gleanings about " Non- 

 swarmers," speaking in very high terms of the 

 same, and many ask how I intend to winter the 

 bees in these half-depth frames. My way of fixing 

 them is this: After the honey season is over I look 

 them over to see what honey they have in the 

 combs; and whether I find any or not, I place eight 

 combs which are the nearest empty of any, next to 

 one side of the hive, when the other half of the 

 hive is placed on top of this one, the same as used 

 in the early part of the season. During the sea- 

 son I have used some of these half-story hives on 

 the colonies which were worked for extracted hon- 

 ey, looking toward the wintering of these colo- 

 nies; and as fast as they were filled they were set 

 away for this very purpose, so that all I have to do 

 at this time is to go to these hives stored with 

 combs of honey and get eight frames from them, 

 which are generally so well filled that they will 

 weigh three poands each, so that the eight contain 

 34 pounds of honey, which is the right amount the 

 bees need for winter. These are set in the upper 

 half of the hive, directly over the others in the 

 lower half, when a division-board, such as is used in 

 full-depth hives, is set in next to the combs, thus 

 making a hive a foot square for wintering, with a 

 passageway through the center of the combs for 

 the bees to pass and repass as the cluster contracts 

 or expands during the winter. In this way I get a 

 deep hive for wintering, which some contend is bet- 

 ter than a shallow one; and I get the bees in a snug 

 compact form for winter, which my old teacher, 

 E. Gallup, claimed to be of great advantage, and do 

 away with the Hill device, or the cutting of holes 

 through the combs for winter passageways, as 

 nearly all bee-keepers think must be done. The 

 space between the division-board and the end of 

 the hive is now packed with chaff; and if they are 

 to be wintered on the summer stand they are 

 packed all around with chaff between the outside 

 shell and the hive. When sugar is low enough so it 

 can be afforded, the bees can be fed instead of put- 

 ting in the frames of honey as above; or they can 

 be fed at any time when sugar is high if the bee- 

 keeper thinks that sugar is preferable to honey to 

 winter on. 



AT WHAT TEMPERATURE DO BEES FLY ? 



On page 418,1889, I find these words: "Bees in 

 health seldom go out of their hives unless the tem- 

 perature of the air runs to about 65." As I can not 

 agree with this, I wish to say a few words on the 



