7U-1 



(! LEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



mentioned ; and even of late 1 notice that 

 patting my hands in very cold water soon 

 produces an unpleasant feeling across my 

 lungs. Will those afflicted with weak lungs 

 please look into the matter? 



UNFINISHED SECTIONS IN THE FALL. 



AVU.VT WE SHALL DO WITH THEJl. 



gVBRY producer of comb honey meets with 

 two drawbacks which the producer of ex- 

 tracted honey escapes. There are others, 

 but for tlie present I will speak of only two. 

 The first is the difficulty of g:etting- the bees 

 started at work in the sections at the beginning- of 

 the season. The second is the liability of having a 

 great many unfinished sections on hand at its close. 

 The first often causes considerable loss of honey 

 that might have been saved covild the bees have 

 been induced to start work in the surplus apart- 

 ment at the very beginning of the honey-flow. It 

 often helps, too, I think, to start that mania for 

 swarming that breaks out sometimes .iust at the 

 time the bees should be doing their very best in the 

 boxes. 



The second drawback is a very serious one: The 

 bee-keeper on a large scale is liable to have several 

 thousand unfinished sections on hand at the close 

 of the season. From these he must extract the 

 honey and then go to more or less trouble to keep 

 them from dust, mice, etc., until they are wanted 

 the next j^ear. I think there is no one who would 

 not rather have a thousand finished sections in the 

 fall than twice the number of half-finished ones to 

 be used the next summer. Some, I know, consider 

 such sections very valuable to start with, but I can 

 not see it. I would much rather start with new 

 sections and fresh foundation. 



Several years ago I experimented carefully on a 

 large scale with sections left over from the year 

 before, containing comb in all stages, from un- 

 touched foundation to finished though empty 

 combs. These were compared with sheets of fresh 

 foundation. The result showed that, while the bees 

 began first on those containing comb, they were, on 

 an average, finished last of all. The honey stored in 

 such sections is almost invariably poorer in appear- 

 ance and quality than that made entirely new, and 

 brings considerably less in the market. As all the 

 advantages to be gained from the use of such sec- 

 tions can be had in a much better way, 1 think it 

 will pay to melt up all unfinished combs— all, at 

 least, that are not in first-class condition, and burn 

 the sections, rather than use them again. I know 

 this looks wasteful, but I believe it pays. The least 

 harmful way of using them, if you think you must, 

 is to keep them on hand, made up into cases ready 

 to set on the hives. Then if a heavy honey-flow 

 gets beyond the comb-building capacity of the bees 

 you can put on these cases of empty combs and so 

 save honey that would otherwise be lost. 



Unless the honey is extracted Irom partly filled 

 sections, I feel sure it would pay better to burn up 

 sections, combs, and honey, than to give them to 

 the bees to finish during a good honey-yield. I do 

 not exactly know why it is, but while giving bees 

 new combs partly built seems to stimulate them, 

 old combs with honey in them have just the oppo- 

 site effect. I recall au instance where I filled two 

 hives with nearly finished old sections just at the 



beginning of the yield from white clover, thinking 

 they would be finished in a few days. Ten pounds 

 of honey would have finished either lot. They did 

 not get along very fast with it; and as I was busy 1 

 let them alone until I began to take off honey from 

 the others. Those sections were not all completed 

 yet, and looked scarcely better than when put in. 

 1 had given them about forty pounds of honey to 

 start with, yet that with all they had made was 

 not worth as much as what other colonies had made 

 in the meantime on foundation starters. 



1 started out to tell the readers of Gleanings 

 how to dispense with a great deal of the expense 

 and annoyance of unfinished sections in the fall; 

 but I have spent so much time in preparing the way 

 that I must leave it for another article. 



Dayton, 111. J. A. Gkebn. 



Friend G., this is a most important matter 

 indeed. We have had considerable written 

 in regard to it from time to time, but no one 

 seems to have noticed, as carefully as you 

 have done, just how the thing works. 1 am 

 very well aware, that a trifling thing will 

 many times cause a powerful colony of bees 

 to lose many pounds of the very best of onr 

 honey. 1 have before mentioned, that a 

 few capi:ii)gs or bits of comb, placed in the 

 upper part of the hive, during the height of 

 the clover se;ison. will cause them to stay at 

 home when colonies to the right and to the 

 left are bringing in their 8 and 10 lbs. of 

 honey a day. I have seen a new swarm lose 

 fully ten pounds of honey, I think, in a 

 single day, because they were not pleased 

 with something about their new quarters, 

 and would not start out to the fields ; and 

 since you mention it, I remember some of 

 my experiences with old dauby sections, just 

 about as you relate it ; and I decided at the 

 time that it would have been better to burn 

 up, or bury in the ground, these odd bits 

 that I was trying to save by my raistakep 

 economy. We shall be very glad indeed to 

 have reports from others iii regard to this 

 important matter. 



^ ■ — ^ 



BEE-HUNTING. 



HOW A NATIVE AUSTRALIAN DOES IT. 



fol HE editor of Gleanings is doubtless ac- 

 ^ quainted with the Youth's Companion, and 

 ^ probably he agrees with the writer in the 

 conviction that it is a. charming compnnion. 

 Few papers for young people are so pure in 

 character, so high in their aims, or contain so much 

 of the pure gold of thought in their articles. 

 Gleanings and the Companion make two excellent 

 guests to entertain for a whole year, and the writer 

 hopes that they will go together into a great many 

 new homes this year. Sometimes the Companion 

 wanders into the field of bee culture, and then its 

 notes are always valuable. Looking over last 

 year's bound Companions, in a September number 

 the writer ran across this odd bit of bee lore. Per- 

 haps the readers of Gleanings will find it as inter- 

 esting as she did. 



dee-hunting. 

 The native of Australia adopts a peculiar method 

 for discovering wild honey. He knows that bees 

 never wander far from home, seldom more than 

 two miles; and he also knows, that when a bee is 

 laden with honey it makes as nearly as possible a 

 straight line for home. 



All that is necessary, then, is to find a bee that is 

 well laden, and follow it. But that is more easily 



