1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



777 



use except feeding, and I shall not need 

 that, for all of the colonies have about thir- 

 ty to forty pounds each for winter, which is 

 much more than is necessar3' in this sec- 

 tion. I have an idea of leaving- it on the 

 hives, and just about the time they begin 

 bringing in pollen next spring I intend 

 taking the supers ofi and letting the bees 

 clean out the sections by the slow-robbing 

 plan. Would it not be better to uncap the 

 honey, or, still better, extract it? After 

 they have cleaned up the combs, and new 

 honey is coming in, I will put the supers 

 with the drawn combs back on the hives, 

 and the bees can fill them rapidly with the 

 new honey. Would you leave the supers 

 on the hives, or take them off ? I am sure 

 that I can keep them on the hives; but if 1 

 take them oft" now I shall have to do some- 

 thing to keep out the wax-worms. Winter- 

 ing here is no problem, as there is never 

 ten days that the bees can not fly. 



Hazlehurst, Miss. J. S. Wise. 



[I would take the honey off now. If left 

 on the hives the bees might, later on, take 

 it down in the brood-nest, but during the 

 time they would soil and discolor the sec- 

 tions. 



If the honey is bitter, and unfit for win- 

 ter food, I would feed it out by the slow- 

 robbing process as directed in the ABC 

 of Bee Culture, next spring. It is not nec- 

 essary to uncap the combs, for the bees can 

 do it cheaper than you can. In your local- 

 ity the bitter honey would do no harm, 

 probably, if fed out by the slow-robbing 

 process at any time. 



Stack the supers oft" to one side of the 

 yard, and make an entrance so narrow 

 that only one bee can get in at a time — Ed.] 



THE ORTON TENEMENT HIVE IN THE ABC. 



You will do me a great favor by answer- 

 ing the following questions: 



Is Orton's tenement hive double-walled 

 itself, and packed between ? 



When this hive is used, are bees left in 

 all summer? If they are, why could they 

 not be taken out during summer ? 



If it is not double-walled and packed, is 

 there any packing material used between 

 the hives? 



I use your eight-frame Dovetailed hive. 



Callaway, "Va. B. L. Fisher. 



[The Orton tenement hive, as described 

 in the A B C, is packed between the walls. 

 The kind of packing is not very material, 

 provided it is loose and porous. Planer 

 shavings, wheat or oat chaft", forest leaves, 

 dry straw, any and all of them will do 

 very well. 



Yes, the bees are left on the hive all 

 summer, though they may be taken out if 

 preferred. In the case of all tenement 

 hives, there is no packing material used 

 between the several brood-nests. Very 

 often a cluster of one colony will be close 

 up to the separating wall on the tenement 

 side of which there is another cluster, and 



the combined heat of the two serves mate- 

 rially to keep up the warmth of the cluster. 

 — Ei).] 



BRUSHED SWARMS ; MORE QUESTIONS CON- 

 CERNING. 



I am much interested in your article on 

 "Brushed or Shook Swarms " (page 640). 

 Will you kindly answer the following ques- 

 tions? 



1. What do you do with the hive the bees 

 come from? 



2. Do 3'ou give it a new queen? or, after 

 the bees are all hatched, shake them in 

 front of the other? 



3. What month would you do this in 

 Massachusetts? 



4. Do you make the Danz. hive with self- 

 spacing frames? 



There are some of us who would like to 

 try them, but we do not want closed-end 

 frames. 



I have asked two of your supply men, and 

 they claim that the Danz. hive has only 

 closed-end frames. 



Ayer, Mass., Aug. 11. F. P. Briggs. 



[1. The hives from which the bees come 

 can be placed alongside of the new hive if 

 the old stands are put in a new location. 



2. The old hive may be given a laying 

 queen, or it may be allowed to raise a queen 

 of its own from a cell. 



3. The time to make brushed swarms 

 will all depend on the time when the honey 

 begins to come in. No definite time on the 

 calendar could be assigned, as the seasons 

 vary so from year to year; but when the 

 honey- flow commences, then the swarms 

 should be brushed. 



4. We make the Danzenbaker hives with 

 self -spacing frames to accommodate a cer- 

 tain class of customers who do not like the 

 closed-end frames. — Ed.] 



SWEET CLOVER IN THE SOUTH, AND ITS 

 YIELD PER COLONY. 



I can report the best crop for several 

 years. My bees averaged a little over 100 

 pounds per colony, and a good many of 

 them went 150, and some of them nearly 

 200, all extracted. The bees had practical- 

 ly no attention at all except to clean off the 

 honey-boards in the spring and rob them 

 twice. The crop could easily have been 

 made to average ISO pounds, and I dare 

 say such men as Miller, Doolittle, and 

 Coggshall would Viave got an average of 

 200 pounds. The principal part of our 

 crop here is from sweet clover. 



J. M. CUTTS. 



Montgomery, Ala., Aug. 25. 



A PLAN TO GET BEES UP INTO THE SIMPERS. 



As I see some are having the same diffi- 

 culty in getting bees to go up into the su- 

 pers that I had, I will tell you my experi- 

 ence. I put two or three sections of honey 

 in the super, and the lower part of the hive; 

 the combs were not all filled in the bottom 



