S54 



(iLJi AGINGS IN BKE CULTUUl^:. 



Kov. 



propose to do. At that time there are usually a few 

 fall flowers for the bees to work on, so the bees don't 

 crowd after honey very bad. 



Our bees are now in ver.y good condition. They 

 are strong, and have plenty of honey. In all there 

 ar6 about 500 colonies; or, more e.xactly, 514. Two 

 or three in each yai-d are queenless, but I don't 

 know po.sitively ju§t how many, so we call it 500. 

 How comes it that there are so many queenless? 

 Wo seldom look over all our bees after we finish ex- 

 tracting, which usually is about from the 10th to 

 the 20th of July. This year we went over all the 

 last of July, to see if all had good queens. In every 

 hive where there was no laying queen, we put in 

 one or more combs of young brood and eggs, that 

 the bees might raise a queen if they had none; but 

 after all, there will be some failures. I don't know 

 but that the king-birds have had something to do 

 about it, by catching the young queens when they 

 are out to meet the drones. 



gUEENLESSNESS, AND HOW IT MAY SOMETIMES BE 

 DETECTED WITHOUT OPENING THE HIVE. 



Just now very few hives have any brood at all, or 

 eggs; but I can generally tell if the bees are out on 

 the wing pretty lively whether there are any queen- 

 less colonies, by walking over the yard and noting 

 the actions of the bees, especially at this time of 

 year. There will be but few bees in a queenless 

 hive, and a good share of them will be about the en- 

 trance, keeping guard, very few flying off. Open 

 the hive and very likely the first thing we notice is 

 a lot of drones and a few bees. Those drones have 

 no business in so weak a colony, if they had a good 

 queen. What do we do with a queenless colony? 

 If discovered before the first of September, give 

 them some good brood-combs, some of them con- 

 taining eggs. But if queenless at this time of year, 

 we don't do any thing with them. What few bees 

 there are will take care of the combs until the 

 weather is too cool for the worms to make much 

 headway on the combs. If the combs contain con- 

 siderable honey they could be used to fill out some 

 other colony that was short of honey. We general- 

 ly leave them as they are, and let the other bees 

 take the honey when they find it. Doesn't that set 

 the robbers at work on other colonies? Not with 

 us, strange as it may appear. We always let our 

 bees clean out the honey in any hive that has lost 

 its bees from any cause, and I never thought that 

 there were any bad results. In fact, we can not 

 very well help it. The most of our bees are several 

 miles from home, and we seldom see them after the 

 extracting is done, until we fl.\ them up for winter. 

 After they are in winter trim we don't see them un- 

 til warm days in March. We aim to have plenty of 

 honey in the hives to last them until they can gath- 

 er in the spring. A little too much honey is bet- 

 ter than not enough. If any colonies die in the win- 

 ter, the other bees take care of the honey during 

 the warm days in the spring. Then if a swarm de- 

 serts its hive in the spring, the other bees are sure 

 to take the honey that is left, and very quickly too. 

 Now, in the last case if it is seen by the apiarist 

 that the bees are engaged in carrying out the hon- 

 ey, which is best, to take the honey away and put it 

 where the bees can not get at it, or let the bees 

 finish it up where it is, I think the safest plan is to 

 let it alone. If we take the honey away, the bees 

 will crowd into other hives, and may overpower 

 them and carry otf their honey, when, if we had let 

 the bees work on the honey until the.v had fin- 



ished it, they would keep on looking for more in the 

 same place. Finding iioiie they would quit. 



FRANCE'S METHOD OK ASCERTAINING THE AMOUNT 



OK STORES. 



How do we know that the bees have enough hon- 

 ey to winter? Do we weigh it? Do we open every 

 hive to find out? No, we don't do either. We don't 

 want to open hives late if we can help it. We go to 

 a yard, and, no matter how many there are there, 

 we scarcely ever open over ten colonies. If we find 

 those ten all have, in our opinion, plenty of honey 

 (we guess by the looks of the combs) then we de- 

 cide that that yard will do, and don't open any 

 more, as all have had the same chance. But if we 

 should find a doubtful one, then we would open 

 more. We don'ttake the combs out. We turn back 

 half of the top cover over on to the other half, then 

 pry up the two honey-boards that are uncovered. 

 Now, if the sun shines we can, by smoking the bees 

 down, see all we want to without parting the combs. 

 But if we can not see how much honey they have, 

 without parting the combs, then we part them, and 

 sometimes wellift out some of the combs, to make 

 sure that we know just how they are off for winter 

 stores. We always look into the last new colonies 

 made during the season. If any are short of stores 

 they are most likely to be the ones. 



"8ATISFED IF THEY GET THERE. " 



I find in reading over our bee-papei-s that no two 

 of us will work just alike. Each has his own style 

 or way to manage his bees and do his work. We 

 are something like a lot of farmers going to market, 

 each taking a different road, but all leading to the 

 same place. There may not be much difterence in 

 the roads; they are all satisfied if the.y get there. 

 Each man knows his own road, and if there are any 

 bad places on it he learns how to get over them 

 easily. Another man would have more or less both- 

 er. So it is with the bee-men— each has drifted 

 into his own channel, and he can work there better 

 than anywhere 'else. Every man has a way of his 

 own. But we can learn very much of each other, 

 in a general way. We can even profit by another's 

 mistakes. I read all I can get in relation to bee 

 culture. Every little while I find something I can 

 adopt that will help me along. I don't know that 

 my scratching will help any one very much; but it 

 may some of the beginners; and the veterans can 

 profit, perhaps, by my mistakes. E. FrtANCK. 



Platteville, Wis. 



Friend F., I have been in the habit of de- 

 tecting queenless colonies in very much the 

 same way you indicate ; and afier one has 

 practiced he can judge pretty unerringly by 

 simply seeing the bees around the entrance. 

 Your method of ascertaining the amount of 

 stores required is also about as we do it; 

 but one who has not had practice might be 

 very likely to make an expensive blunder. 

 Your plan of leaving colonies where the 

 bees have died out, to be taken care of by 

 neighboring stocks, is recommended by 

 some, I know— Dr. Miller, I believe, among 

 them ; but 1 do not believe it well for any 

 but a veteran to let the bees go ahead in 

 cleaning out even a hive containing no bees. 

 It seems to me it is a bad plan to work on. 

 Your concluding remark, about the differ- 

 ent ways we have of working, is a great 

 truth, and it should teach us to have chari- 

 ty one for another. 



