1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1021 



Now in the face of these facts comes friend 

 Niver with his jovial epistle and knocks our 

 arg'ument all out of existence. It may seem 

 stranf^^e to some of the readers of Glean- 

 ings how honest and reliable men, as bee- 

 keepers generally are, can give such up- 

 and-down contradicting- testimonies. But 

 this is easily explained. I can reconcile 

 this matter to a mutual agreement and to 

 the entire satisfaction of all concerned. 

 Friends, j^ou all are right, and a little 

 wrong too. You have given your side of 

 the question, and left the other all out of 

 consideration. Didn't you know that it 

 made all the diflFerence in the world about 

 warping and twisting where and how the 

 timber grew, whether old, large timber, or 

 small, second -growth trees? I am not a 

 sjcientist, and can not explain the matter in 

 a scientific way; but during an existence 

 of sixt}^ years which I can boast of, I have 

 had some striking experiences, made vari- 

 ous observations, and laid up quite a num- 

 ber of recollections. 



In my earlier da3's, some forty years ago, 

 I was occasionally called on to assist in 

 clearing up and fencing land, all suitable 

 timber being split into rails. The timber 

 was mostly beech and maple, with now 

 and then large basswoods from three to 

 four feet in diameter. These latter we cut 

 into logs twelve or fourteen feet long, and 

 with maul and wedges split them into rails. 

 The logs of some trees split very easily. 

 After starting the end with an ax, two or 

 three wedges driven from the top into the 

 opening would be sufficient to roll the halves 

 apart. The split surface of these half- logs 

 would sometimes be so straight and true 

 that nothing short of a saw could have bet- 

 tered it. The grain ran true in every way, 

 something like pine; in fact, lumber cut 

 from such trees, as I did in latter years, 

 would fill the bill of pine for many pur- 

 poses. Other trees, only a few rods from 

 the first, would act very differently — 

 whether on account of different soil or a 

 little difference in the lay of the land, I 

 can not say; but the fact remains the same, 

 all our efforts to split the logs cut from 

 them would fail. Even the application of 

 gunpowder, blasting-rock fashion, would 

 nut separate the halves. The grain of these 

 seemed to wind around the tree — so much 

 so that, in the length of our logs, it would 

 make a quarter revolution; besides, the dif- 

 ferent layers were so completely braided 

 or woven together that those logs which we 

 did succeed in splitting had to be chopped 

 the whole length before they would sep- 

 arate. I imagine that friend Niver's Gro- 

 ton top-bars were made of lumber like the 

 former, and venture the assertion that his 

 confidence in basswood top-bars would van- 

 ish like dew before the rising sun if he 

 should ever come in contact with some made 

 of the latter kind. 



I could relate other instances of a similar 

 nature, especially one, when I cut on one 

 of our steep Naples side-hills a lot of extra 

 nice, straight, second-growth basswoods 



and tried to have them sawed into ladder- 

 sides. This was extremely annoying; but 

 it would not change friend N. 's experience. 



I am not all bound up in my own notions, 

 and am willing to give the Devil his due. 



There is one good point about basswood. 

 It is generally free from pine knots, which 

 is quite an advantage where clear pine is 

 so very scarce, and you all know how our 

 little saws hate them. This was the main 

 reason that induced us to try basswood for 

 top-bars. 



One more point. The way friend Niver 

 quotes "tried it once" has the appearance 

 of unintentional misrepresentation, and may 

 be misleading. It was not a trial of one 

 frame or the frames to one hive, but it was 

 a season's work of manufacturing many 

 hundred frames, a sufificient quantity to 

 give us a fair chance for observation. 



Yes, Dr. Miller is right about supersed- 

 ing queens in August; at least my experi- 

 ence leads me to think so. I hived one 

 swarm with a virgin queen to-day, Aug. 

 23, and quite a number during the last two 

 weeks ; and how many superseded without 

 swarming I don't know. Dr. Miller did 

 not mention one point — that is, the time of 

 superseding is somewhat governed by cir- 

 cumstances. The following year after one 

 of little or no swarming, superseding takes 

 place early — about the time when we gen- 

 erally have our first normal swarms. Last 

 year being one of that kind, several of my 

 first swarms, during the honey-flow in 

 June, had virgin queens that I know of, 

 and undoubtedly some of the other swarms, 

 where I did not happen to see the queens, 

 had virgins too. But the year after one of 

 general swarming, like the present, queens 

 are superseded later on, after the main 

 hone3'-flow is past. 



BEES IN A TREE. 



How fo Get them Out Without Cutting it, or, if Nec- 

 essary, Without even Chopping a Hole in it. 



BY S. R. BLAKLEY. 



I have taken out 18 colonies of bees this 

 season without cutting the trees. I have a 

 ten-foot ladder and a pair of climbers. I 

 climb the tree, take my rope and pulley 

 up with me, and fasten the pulley above 

 the bees. I then come down and hook the 

 rope on my ladder and pull it up the tree, 

 and wire it fast to the tree. The top ladder 

 has a platform on it. I get every thing in 

 order. If I am allowed to cut a hole in the 

 tree I make a long narrow one where I 

 think the hone\' lies. I find the brood- 

 comb, and cut it about the right size to fit 

 the frame, then take out all the honey and 

 let it down to the ground. I fasten the 

 brood -comb in the frame, and pull the hive 

 up on the platform. I then take a dipper 

 and dip the bees up and pour them into 

 the hive slowlj', watch until I get the queen 

 in the hive, then I smoke the bees out of the 

 tree. They soon find the queen. I leave 



