500 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



A Sicilian apiary, Taormina. Photographed by Mr. Chase. 



Covering the hands and wrists with soap 

 before working in propolis aids in prevent- 

 ing poisoning, and assists in removing' 

 propolis from the hands. 



Tlie following recipes are recommended : 



1. Borax, two drachms; glycerine, two 

 ounces ; water, two ounces. Mix, and apply- 

 to inflamed skin. 



2. Oxide of zinc, two drachms; lead wa- 



ter, one drachm ; wine of opium, 4 drachms ; 

 rose water, four ounces. 



3. Baunie analgesique bengue will give 

 relief, but will smart the eyes or other ten- 

 der portions of the body. It can be se- 

 cured from chemists. 



Bear in mind that most of these prescrip- 

 tions are poisons, and should be kept out 

 of the reach of children. 



Hayden, Utah. 



THE USE OF WME SCREENS AS A SEPARATOR IN THE ALEXANDER 

 METHOD FOR WEAK COLONIES 



BY JOSEPH J. ANDERSON 



The Alexander method of building up weak 

 colonies requires placing the weak colony 

 over a strong one with a queen-excluder 

 between. My experience has been that the 

 bees from the strong colony below will fre- 

 quently kill the queen of the weaker colony 

 above, and so the practice of putting a 

 sheet of wire screen over the excluder was 

 resorted to, removing it at night after the 

 bees were all settled and quiet with very 

 satisfactory results. To save the trouble of 

 going to the bees at night — quite a chore 

 where one has outyards at some distance — 



I thought it would work all right to place a 

 sheet of newspaper over the excluder, leav- 

 ing the bees to eat their way through the 

 paper and enter the upper hive-body at 

 their leisure. Two seasons of this proced- 

 ure have resulted in a loss of fully seventy- 

 five per cent of the queens of the weak 

 colonies. The paper idea won't do. It is 

 unnecessary here to discuss the reasons. 



On May 6 of this year I treated weak 

 colonies at the home yard, some of them 

 with not more than a few square inches of 

 1)100(1. As T went throueh the bees I mark- 



