?42 



GLEANINGS IN liElL CULTUKE. 



Oct. 



shall have to g'o into Blnstod Hopes, but It is the 

 first time in 22 years. I can not blame mj- little pets, 

 for it has been so dry hero that it was impossible 

 for the fall blooms to mature, and at this writing 

 it is still dry. We had a very good white-clover 

 crop; but for some unaccountable cause it did not 

 secrete honey sufficient to keep the bees living-. 

 Berthaville, Mo., Aug. 34, 1887. A. T. Doyle. 



" BUG-JUICK ; " IS IT SAFE TO LET THE BEES 

 WINTER ON IT ? 



For two months my bees have not made a living. 

 1 have bought sugar, and have part of them fed, 

 but here comes a flow of bug-juice. T hardly 

 know whether to call it a misfortune or a blessing. 

 If they do not get too much they will use it before 

 cold weather; but if it continues a week at the 

 present rate they will fill their hive§ full. The 

 honey is very thick, and tastes a little like bumble- 

 bee honey. They are getting it off the willows. 

 The twigs are almost black with bugs. They are 

 on the chestnut, oak, and hickory. It does not 

 taste like the honey-dew of 1884, but is a good deal 

 better. It is so thick I could not extract it if I 

 wanted to. I might remove the four center combs, 

 put in empty ones, and feed sugar. What would 

 you do? Wm. WiTHROw. 



Paint Valley, ()., Sept. 1ft, 188'.. 



You would be on the safer side to remove 

 the four center combs and feed syrup, 

 though T am inclined to think the hbney- 

 dew you describe would be safe enough. 

 W^hile no doubt the bug-juice has been re- 

 sponsible for some of the winter losses, yet 

 we have had several leports where bees 

 have wintered very successfully on this 

 honey-dew. See page (iSfJ, last issue. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELUl 



THE USE OF I)IVIS10N-»0AUI>S. 



BOUGHT a one-story chaff hive ol' you this 

 summer. t>ut I did not get my bees in it until 

 .luly i;ith. 1 don't think they will (luite till the 

 ten bottom frames. Would you advise me to 

 take stinie of the outside frames out and use a 

 chatf division-board on each side, such as you de- 

 scribe in your price list, or do you use them only in 

 the Simplicity hive? if I use them, will the brood- 

 frames need to be the same distance apart for win- 

 tering, and how many full ones will it require to 

 winter them, without fet:ding this fall? 

 Huntsville, Pa., Aug. 2;i, 18ST. W. H. Hudson. 



We use tlie chatf division-board on each 

 side of the bees in the brood-chamber of 

 chaff hives, in winter/ng, contract the 

 brood-chamber l)y taking out the frames un- 

 til there is just enough left to hold all the 

 bees in the hive. For wintering, it is better 

 to space the frames a little furtlier apart 

 than in summer ; and be careful tliat they 

 have enough feed in the frames you do 

 leave in. 



ItEES ANI) KllUlT ; THE ANTS AND .NOT THK IlKES 

 THE fUTIl/rV CULI'lUTS. 



I notice in Gleanings, Sept. 1, page IJB;.', that 

 Mr. Berry is inclined to think the Italians will eat 

 fruit worse than other bees; but 1 think it is just 

 as you say— the bees could find nothing else, and it 



was eat peaches or starve. I have Italian bees, and 

 we had quite a crop of peaches this year, and I 

 have never seen a bee on them. A great many of 

 them were partly eaten by ants, thus giving the 

 bees a chance to eat them. The bees have been 

 gathering honey very fast the past two weeks. 

 Friend Doolittle recommends prepai'ing bees for 

 winter the last of August or first of September. I 

 have no doubt it is best in that locality to prepare 

 thus early; but this month is generally the best we 

 have for surplus honey, as we do not have much 

 clover honey and no basswood. 

 Linn, Kan., Sept. 10, 1887. J. T. VanPetten. 



Friend Y., you will have to make allow- 

 ances for difference in locality for all the 

 teachings in Gleanings. Friend Doolittle 

 is away up in York State, and you are away 

 down .south in Kansas. Of coiuse, you can 

 not make pieparations for winter while the 

 bees are storing honey. I think friend D. 

 simply means this : As soon its it is proba- 

 ble that no more honey of any account will 

 be gathered, make all necessary arrange- 

 ments for wintering, in the way of stores 

 and whatever else is needed. 



\riNERAL wool; QUESTIONS BY .\N ABC SCHOLAR. 



I am a member of your ABC class, but I can not 

 find any answer to the following question: Would it 

 be advisable to feed bees a little at the close of the 

 fall honey-flow, so that they would be stimulated to 

 cure and cap all of their unfinished honey-cells for 

 winter use? 1 am a beginner in bee-keeping, and 1 

 have six colonies of Italians. The season has been 

 so bad that I have* scarcely any spring honey, and 

 am dependent on buckwheat for winter supply, and 

 that yields very poorly; for example, T have six col- 

 onies of bees within 500 yards of as fine a field of 

 buckwheat as any one would wish to see (8 acres), 

 and my bees hn\e gathmed hardly enough for win- 

 ter use — not a pound of sui-plus. Have you tried 

 mineral wool lor packing hives to winter on sum- 

 mer stands? I intend to try it this winter. -As it is 

 indestructible, I imagine it can be used over and 

 over again to good advantage. K. ScH!MiitT. 



Millington, N. .7., Sept. l(i, 18H7. 



What you jiropose is exactly light. Feed 

 the bees until they cap the cells over with 

 nice sealed stores.— ^Ve have never tried 

 mineral wool, but have had sam])les sent us. 

 We have no doubt it would ;ins\ver ([uite 

 well. However, by reason of its expense 

 and extni weight for packing material, we 

 should ver> much prefer chaff. It is true, 

 that mineral wool would never rot ; but we 

 have chaff hives in use now that were pack- 

 ed with chalf ten years ago. and we can not 

 discover liut that the packing is nearly if 

 not quite as good now 9s when tirst put into 

 the hives. 



SUCCESSFUI^ IN SPITE OF THE SEASON. 



The queen recei\ed of you in April has acquitted 

 herself most splendidly, and the progeny of queens 

 raised from her are fine ,\ ellow bees. We gave tlie 

 (jueeu and half-pound of bees three frames of brood, 

 and have drawn on them fretjuently for brood since; 

 still, through all the honey famine they have kept 

 very strong, on very little feed. The season here 

 w as showery, and favorable until in July, when the 

 drought set in. Still, there was no honey, and some 

 hives were eutirclv destitute of stores. On the 13th 



