956 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Dec. 



or, if you please, lose the soul or the affec- 

 tion, and influence over his sons and daugh- 

 ters V There is not a father or a mother 

 anywhere but that has a true love and re- 

 gard for their children ; but, alas ! they oft- 

 en wait until it is too late. Now, then, 

 dear friends, shall we not go to work and 

 fix up these reading-rooms, or, rather, fix 

 up the rooms we live in ? Go without al- 

 most any thing else rather than to scrimp 

 or discourage the children ; and by all man- 

 ner of means chop off the tobacco whenever 

 it in any sense stands in the way of a $350 

 library. May the Lord bless our good friend 

 John Gould for the example he has set us. 

 Perhaps he has told us of it himself in his 

 writings in the Ohio Farmer ; but if so, I 

 have never noticed it. Who is there among 

 our readers who will stand by him in giving 

 up tobacco for the sake of a good library ? 

 Come, now, let's see you stand up and give 

 us your promise through the Tobacco Col- 

 umn. 



MOVING BEES. 



THEODORE O. PEET TELES HOW HE DID IT. 



TN reading our text-books, we are told it is al- 

 |]P most impossible to move bees less than a mile 

 W away from their old stands. As I had occasion 

 ■*■ to move mine this spring only about two hun- 

 dred yards, 1 was at first a little puzzled as to 

 how I should do it. But " necessity is the mother 

 of invention;" and as I possess some little genius, 

 I set myself to thinking out how I should do it, and 

 with the following result. 



A year ago last spring I moved from Arlington, 

 N. J. (which is a small country town adjacent to 

 Newark, and only about one hour's ride from my 

 business in New York), to Brooklyn, N. Y. I had 

 two very nice swarms of bees which I desired to 

 keep possession of ; and as I could not take them 

 with me to the city, I obtained permission from a 

 neighbor, who kept a number of swarms, to place 

 mine in her yard. During the spring they swarmed, 

 and either went away or were gathered by my 

 neighbor, thinking they were hers. I did not care 

 particularly about this, as I only wanted to keep 

 my two colonies intact till I was ready to take them 

 again myself. This last spring I moved back again 

 to Arlington, and so wanted my bees back again. 

 My new home is only about two hundred yards 

 away from my neighbor's, as I told you before; but 

 I wanted my bees close by where I could look after 

 them with as little trouble as possible, as I have 

 very little time now after business, my whole time 

 belonging to my employers. 



On examining the colonies, I found one of them 

 was queenless; the other one was in good condi- 

 tion, the queen laying rapidly. I immediately sent 

 to a queen-breeder and obtained two queens. The 

 extra one was to start a colony for my next- 

 door neighbor, who had at one time kept some, but 

 had lost them. As soon as the queens arrived, I 

 took the queenless colony and divided it, giving 

 each queen two combs, and the bees that were cling 

 ing •> them, together with a comb of brood from 

 the colony that was all right. I put one of them in 

 my neighbor's attic, and the other one in my own 

 attic, arranging to let the bees fly out of the win- 

 dow. As soon as I took this colony away from the 



yard, I moved the other colony (which stood about 

 three feet from the one removed) about where the 

 space was between the two. This I did to catch any 

 bees that might wander back to the old spot. It 

 worked admirably, and I lost very few; in fact, I 

 think none were lost entirely. IJkept robbing the old 

 colony, with the laying queen, of hatching bees, 

 replacing with empty combs till the two new colo- 

 nies were thoroughly established, which soon came 

 about. Now, the question, " How should I get the 

 other one home?" arose, and this is the way I did 

 it: I just picked it up and carried it, hive and all, 

 and set it in my yard. I then took a shipping-box 

 that held four frames, and put two frames of empty 

 combs in it, and set it on the old stand. The next 

 night, after dark, I went and got it, brought it 

 home, found a couple of handfuls, or, say, about a 

 pint, of bees, clustered on the two combs. These I 

 quietly slipped into the old hive, and took the box 

 back again with one frame of comb in. The next 

 night I went after this, and found only half a dozen 

 bees in it. I concluded I had moved them success- 

 fully, and did not set my trap again. All these are 

 doing well now. I did not get any honey, but that 

 was on account of the almost incessant rains during 

 the season of bloom, and not the fault of the bees 

 or moving them. Theo. O. Peet. 



Arlington, Hudson Co., N. J., Nov. 19. 



Friend P., if you take a queenless colony, 

 or one that has been some time queenless, 

 and give them a queen, or, if you choose, 

 divide them and give each half a queen, 

 they will be pretty much in the condition of 

 a new swarm, and they will stick by their 

 new queen, no matter where you put them. 

 In the other case, where a pint of bees 

 went back to the old locality, you had about 

 the same success that we do as a rule. I 

 think, however, that perhaps as many more 

 scattered about and went into other hives. 

 I am surprised, however, to find that a sec- 

 ond night you found only a few bees. Most 

 of my experience resulted in finding just as 

 many the second night, the third, and soon ; 

 and I decided that 



A bee removed against his will 

 Is of the same opinion still,— 



unless you give them a new queen, or bring 

 some unusual influence to bear to make 

 them adhere to a new location. 



EXTRACTORS REVOLVING FOUR OR 

 MORE COMBS AT ONE TIME, ETC. 



OUR FRIEND J. F. M'lNTYRE GIVES US SOME IM- 

 PORTANT FACTS. 



TF our readers will turn to page 842, Nov. 

 m 1, they will be able to read the following 

 jit more understanding^ : 



M'INTYRE'S REVERSIBLE EXTRACTOR VER- 

 SUS THE TWO-FRAME NOVICE. 



Friend Boot:— Gleanings is just received. The 

 extractor cut is very fine, and shows the reversing 

 gear correctly. The only fault I can find is, that it 

 doesn't show the chains that keep the baskets from 

 swinging out too far, and the tin braces that sup- 

 port the wire cloth in the baskets. With regard to 

 your editorial comments, I suppose the inside gear 

 of my extractor will weigh four times as much as 

 one of yours, yet ray wife (who is not very strong 

 and weighs only 110 pounds) 6ays she will take hop- 



