1887 



GLEANINGS JN BEE CULTURE. 



541 



With the tins lor supports, separators the full 

 leng-thot' the case maybe used between the sections 

 as well as at the ends of the rows of the sections. 

 Full bee-space is provided at the bottom and top of 

 the super, and the super is invortible without any 

 adjusting-, t'ussinff, or tinkering. .1. M. Shuck. 



Des Moines, Iowa, .June i;(, 1887. 



LITTLE HONEY IN MISSISSIPPI. 



HOW MANY DKONKS MAY BE CAUGHT IN A KKONK- 

 TRAP. 



Y bees commenced well and early in the 

 spring:, but at present they are gathering 

 but little honey. 1 commenced this spring 

 with H colonies. I bought 3 in bo.x hives, 

 which I transferred into new hives. One 

 colony, the Italians, cast a very large swarm on the 

 38th of April. Two black colonies cast swarms on 

 the 29th. The same two blacks cast swarms a few 

 days later, making 5 new swarms. None of the 

 others have swarmed, and I believe they have giv- 

 en up all idea of swarming, as they went to work 

 killing off their drones. One of the colonies I 

 bought I did not transfer until May 26, waiting for 

 them to swarm out; but they seemed to have an 

 oversupply of drones, so I set my Alley drone-trap 

 in front of it two evenings, and myself and wife 

 counted what we caught, and were surprised to 

 tind we had about 22tKi, and there still seemed to be 

 plenty, which the bees went to work at and are 

 killing. 

 I have taken otf in Mb. sections, about JJUO lbs. 

 I sent and got an extractor, and thought to use 

 it; but as the honey-How slacked off T have not 

 done so. 



I learned, a few days ago, that friend Gentry's 

 bees were dying, and that he said from starvation. 

 He had shipped some honey in barrels, so he order- 

 ed it sent back to feed his bees with. I understand 

 that another gentleman at Beulah was losing his 

 bees in the same way. They have their ai)iaries 

 some 7 or 8 miles apart, on the east side of the 

 Mississippi River, while my own is located on the 

 west side, and near the river. Mine are in a dense- 

 ly wooded country. I have sold what honey I have 

 had so far at home, or at our little county seat, at 

 from 12 to 15 cts. per section. My neighbor bee- 

 keepers run for extracted honey, and generally 

 ship in molasses-barrels, and get but little for it. 



WHISKY VERSUS BEE-STINGS. 



On Saturday, June 4, a negro man in the neigh- 

 borhood (Henry Wilson) having, a few days before, 

 found a bee-tree, concluded that he would cut it 

 and get the honey; so, filling himself with whisky 

 he cut the tree and went straight in to where the 

 bees were. They covered him up. There being a 

 bayou of water close at hand, he sprang into it, 

 thinking thereby to get clear of the bees; but, not 

 80. They still clung to him. His companions got 

 him out, but before they could get the bees off 

 from him he was dead. Thus you see bees and 

 whisky will not work well together. 



R. J. Mathews. 



Kiverton, Bolivar Co., Miss., June 2:^, 1887. 



Friend M., [ do not want to liave anybody 

 think I am glad to hear that any due is 

 dead ; but when I saw your heading I was a 



little afraid that you might have another 

 item recommending whisky as a remedial 

 agent for bee-stings ; but I "am just fanatic 

 enough to prefer not to have reiK)rts of that 

 kind, even when appearances indicate that 

 whisky saved a life, lietter let a man die 

 occasionally than to start so nian\ to diink- 

 ing because '' the doctor advised it.^" Well. 

 you see your report is just the kind we 

 wanted. This colored man got full of whis- 

 ky, evidently with the idea that it would 

 counteract the poison of the sting. It di«I 

 not. however, and he died. Perhaps we 

 can't tell exactly whether it was the whisky, 

 the stings, or the water, that killed him. 

 But this we do know pretty surely— if he 

 had not taken the whisky he would not have 

 died. In regard to selling off the honey so 

 as to let the bees die, I would advise your 

 friends not to extract (piite so closely. 

 Leave a pretty good siipi)ly in the brood- 

 chamber. 



CELLAR WINTERING AND OUTDOOR 

 WINTERING. 



FRIEND I'OPPLETON CONSIUERS A STRONG STATE- 

 MENT IN MR. HUTCHINSON'S NEW HOOK. 



fRIEND ROOT:-On the first page of Glean- 

 ings for June 1, appears a review of a letter 

 of mine to friend Hutchinson. The differ- 

 ences of views between friend H. and myself 

 are on subjects of interest to bee-keepers; 

 and a further discussion, not controversy, may be 

 wise. 



In figuring up the cost of cellar wintering, friend 

 H. has only, it seems to me, gi\en the shell and 

 left out the kernel of the matter. He has allowed 

 nothing for the wear and tear, and even a cellar 

 won't last always without some work and e.xpense 

 on it, and he has made no calculation whatever 

 for care and supervision of the cellar while the 

 bees are in it. I have had but little practical ex- 

 perience with cellar wintering, but have always 

 understood that the best-constructed cellars had to 

 be watched more or less during the winter, to pre- 

 serve proper temperature, etc. Nearly all persons 

 with whom I have at times talked, who have win- 

 tered bees successfully in cellars, have insisted on 

 the necessity of keeping fires in the rooms over the 

 bee-cellar all winter. This supervision, if really 

 necessarj-, as I am led to believe it is, is really 

 much more costly than all the items enumerated by 

 Mr. H.; and, above all, it is one of the things which 

 can not be trusted to any one except the master 

 himself. 



During four different winters I have been away 

 from my bees (in Florida) from about Dec. Ist un- 

 til the latter part of March, and later. I should not 

 have dared to risk this, had my bees been in any 

 ordinary cellar, such as could ha\e been built for 

 less than three or four times the cost of those he 

 bases his ai-guments on. This being free to do 

 something else in winter has been worth man.\- 

 times over the value of the 2(X) or 300 lbs. of honey 

 that cellar wintering would have saved me. I still 

 think that the amount saved by cellar wintering, 

 all things considered, is too infinitesimal to he 

 taken into a<^count. 



Frienil H., your explanation of what you meant 

 by a "perfect system " only makes it worse than 



