1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



469 



loss has been quite heavy, and is larg-ely attril)Utable 

 to the Ions' severe winter— the liees l)eing: unable to 

 take suHioicnt flifrhls, so they beeanio uneasy and 

 diseased. I know mine did not die of starvation, 

 for til ey had an abundance of good stores. In pur- 

 suance of the above facts, is there any preventive, 

 except emigration to some fairer clime? 



Makci.v a. Dougi.as. 

 Shorcham, Vt., IVIjiy ~>^, b'^f^T. 



My gond fiieiKl, cinnuiistances have much 

 to do in decidiiij; tlie best way to stock your 

 hives again with bees. If new swarms can 

 be purchased cheaply near you, tiiat will be, 

 perliai>s, the simplest way ; and if you wish 

 to have the Italians, purchase some Italian 

 queens and then divide each swarm into 

 three or four parts, giving to the (pieeidess 

 parts one of your Italian (jueens. H' you 

 liave to send to a distance to buy the bees, 

 one pound of bees, with a (lueen put in (hir- 

 ing the month of June, will usually make a 

 good coh)ny l)y fall. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS, 



A CAUPENTEFJ DHONE-BEK. 



T SEND you by to-day's mail one drone carpen- 

 (M terbee. I caught him while he was looking for 

 ^l a mate. The blossoms are out here, and now 

 ^■^ is the time they are mating. If he is alive 

 when you receive him, you can handle him 

 without fear of a sting. If the drone carpenter 

 bee survives the winter, why will not the drone 

 bumble-beo? G. J. Fi.ansbukgh. 



So. BL-thlehem, N. Y., May IG, 1887. 



We sent the letter to Prof. Cook, and lie 

 replies as below: 



The bee is in truth the drone carpenter bee, or 

 Xi/lucapa Viiyinica. That it should be around at 

 tliis season, and should mate now, does indeed 

 seem strange, and contrary to the habits and econ- 

 omy of its near congeners. It is true, however, 

 that these bees are very different from other species 

 of A'p'diV. They bore into solid wood (sec Manu- 

 n', page 2S), and thus make a nest, where they are 

 measurably well in'otected. Tims there would 

 not seem to be the same ne^cs.'-ity for them to come 

 late in the season. They also hibernate, and so 

 their living over the winter would not involve 

 such consumption of food as would that of the hon- 

 ey-bee. The whole subject needs investigating. 



A. J. Cook. 



Agricultural College, Mich., May 23, 188T. 



I'UTTING FOUNDATION IN SECTIONS. 



I take my one-piece sections and rip through the 

 penter with my buzz-saw what is to be the top when 

 folded, ripping five or six at one time; then when 

 folding I fold and fasten in place one-half of the slit 

 top, and, alter pinching the fdn. to this piece, I fold 

 the other half down, which secures it so no bee can 

 pull it down unless they bite it off. I can put in the 

 fdn., when I am folding the sections, about as fast 

 as I can fold them without. I have tried this way 

 for two or |hrco years, and do not find that it weak- 

 ens them nuich. J. L. HYDE. 



Poinfret Landing, Ct., May 31. J887. 



your plan of putting foundatiofi iHto sec- 



tions will work nicely, and, if I am correct, 

 has been used by various ones. The same 

 pi >ii is eini)loyed l)y our English friends for 

 fastening full siieets of foundation in the 

 top-bar of brood-frames. Tliei-e are one or 

 two objections, however, which I would urge 

 against this method. In the lirst place, it is 

 not every one who has a l)u/.z-saw. In the 

 second place, it mntilat^es, not to say disfig- 

 ures, the section. In the third place, I hard- 

 ly think it is as good a plan as the method of 

 fastening I'oundation to the top of the sec- 

 tion by compression. This is done with the 

 foundation fasleueis advertised for the pur- 

 pose, any one of which will fasten the foun- 

 dation neatly, (juickly, and sccinely into the 

 section, without the necessity of grooving 

 the under part of the section, or sawing into 

 it. 



TIIK NEW .lAl'ANESE }UJClvWHEAT. 



On the IKth of March you sent me a .5 cent packet 

 of.Tsipancse buckwheat. About the l.'jth of April I 

 planted one-half the seed (1 gave the other half to a 

 brother bee keeper) in a piece of ground, about 

 3x7 yards, in drill.s 1.5 inches apart. When (5 inches 

 high I gave it a hoeing. It is now waving and bow- 

 ing to the earth with maturing grain. This new 

 grain I expect to return to the earth in about two 

 weeks as a second crop. I think this variety of 

 buckwheat will do well here in the South, as it 

 seems to thrive here right along in dry weather— a 

 thing silveihuU fails to do. This latter neither 

 produces groin nor nectar in time if drought. 



Whitney, Ala. A. P. Stair. 



Friend S., your postal card upset me en- 

 tirely. Here I have been buying this buck- 

 wheat in ten-bushel lots at a time, and pay- 

 ing em rmous prices for it, when I might 

 just as well have had a crop maturing in 

 ample time to sow again this season as well 

 as not. It just makes me ashnmed of my- 

 self to think of it. Here I have green- 

 houses, hot-beds, cold-frames, nice ground, 

 and every arrangement to forward the crop, 

 and it never once entered my head that I 

 could raise two crops in a season and then 

 scatter the seed ever so much faster and 

 ever so unich more chetiply thnn I am now 

 doing it. There is no use in crying over 

 spilled milk. Our seed shall go into the 

 ground at once, and we shall liave a big 

 crop for next year, even if we don't do any 

 thing moie. 1 have understood there was 

 ditlicuUy in getting buckwheat to fill out the 

 iieads properly during the hottest summer 

 weather; l)ut I think good cultivation would 

 give a pretty lair crop, any way. While I 

 write, we have silverhull that sowed itself, 

 now in bloom, and it might just as well 

 have been tlie Japanese. 



now AN A B c sohoijAr, after transfekking, 



WAS REMINDED OF P. BENSON. 



I had a colony of hybrids in an old-fashioned box 

 gum. 1 bought two Sira))licity hives of friend 

 .Jenkins, at Wettimpka, apd one pneinitested queen. 

 I began the operation about 4 o'clock in the after- 

 noon, and completed the job about •' o'clock. Wheri 

 I got through 1 resembled P. Benson's picture in 

 May 1st Glkanings. Jly face was swollen out of 

 shape; T got stung all over— face, hands, arms, 

 legs, and on my back. I got them all in the ne^y 

 hive, and then canae the job of djviding. I resortet^ 



