c 



382 



IJ wintered 

 well where 

 stores were abun- 

 dant, but the 

 mild winter kept 

 them breeding 

 and many got 

 out of stores be- 

 fore spring. I 



have been feeding raw sugar and water in 

 outside feeders when weather permitted the 

 bees to fly. Beeswax must be scarce as I 

 was offered 48 cents a pound two days ago." 

 — F. P. Clare, Toronto, Out., May 1. 



' ' Swarming usually occurs during the first 

 part of June here. This spring I cut queen- 

 cells as early as Apr. 20, and one colony cast 

 a swarm May 5." — E. M. Barteau, Suffolk 

 County, L. I. 



"I do not know as I understand fully 

 why the smoker is used. I have not been 

 using it recently. I wear a bee -veil but 

 work in short sleeves and use no gloves. 

 Have never been stung. ' ' — Carrie Greenlee 

 Davidson, Hidalgo County, Tex. 



"This has not been a good season in our 

 district. In the spring there was great 

 promise, but there was no nectar in the 

 bloom. We have had a very dry summer, 

 following a dry winter." — Geo. Lewis, 

 Galston, N. S. W., Jan., 1919. 



"As to sacking beehives, this is not a 

 new thing. We have used the plan for the 

 past ten years and at one time used 500 

 yards of cheese cloth made into sacks to 

 move an apiary. It seemed the most practi- 

 cal plan, especially where hives are old and 

 can not be made bee-tight, also in moving 

 old box colonies." — G. W. Bercaw, Los An- 

 geles County, Calif. 



"Is it ominous? Not since 24 years ago 

 have the hives been so overrunning with 

 bees during the month of April, and the 

 beekeepers in this section will remember, no 

 dcubt, that feeding for winter was the rule 

 in the fall of 1895. Here is hoping that 

 there will be no parallel between the years 

 of 1895 and 1919 in the matter of nectar se- 

 cretion at least." — J. B. Howe, Cattaraugus 

 County, N. Y. 



"Along the Atchafalaya Eiver, from its 

 source at Eed Eiver to the Gulf, is a veri- 

 table paradise for bees. There are numer- 

 ous peaces where as many as 500 colonies 

 could be kept in one yard. One producer in 

 this territory last season having 250 colonies 

 of bees (spring count) produced more than 

 $5,000 worth of honey and at the same time 

 increased his colonies to 329." — T. C. Davis, 

 Specialist in Bee Culture, Louisiana State 

 I^niversity. 



' * When the weather is cool and rainy and 

 the bees must be fed, I feed loaf sugar in 

 the back of the hive on the bottom-board. 

 Push the hive body forward until the open- 

 ing is wide enough to admit the sugar. Be- 

 fore placing on the bottom-board I use a 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



BEES,; MEN ANDJTHINGS 



(You may find it here) 



1 



Junk, 1919 



medicine - drop- 

 per and drop one 

 or two drops of 

 water on each 

 loaf. This way 

 of feeding has 

 been very satis- 

 factory with me. 

 Just as soon as 

 the natural 

 stores begin coming in the bees will desert 

 the sugar. ' ' — Theodore Scharff, Greene 

 County, Mo. 



"Can bees hear? That is plain — bees 

 can hear. But is theirs the same hearing as 

 ours or not? I don't know. Perhaps bees 

 can tell, think, smell, and so on. But it is 

 an unknown thing whether it is the same of 

 man or not. Our hearing, seeing, telling, 

 thinking, smelling., etc., are not the same in 

 musicians, artists, poets, philosophers, co- 

 logne-makers, and others. The bees can see 

 but they are blind for some colors. So they 

 can hear, but in a different manner and 

 sense from humans, I think. ' ' — Yasuo Hirat- 

 suka, Tara, Gifu-ken, Japan, March 2. 



' ' People here laugh at me because I take 

 so much trouble to make the hives and spend 

 money on material and tools. They say that 

 they get just as much honey out of ordinary 

 boxes, but I do not believe it. Anyway, my 

 honey is nicer and clearer, and I have no dif- 

 ficulty to sell it at 6 cents more than my 

 competitors. I should like very much to 

 get some Italian bees, as I think that the 

 natives (both men and bees) are rather lazy. 

 The largest beekeeper in this vicinity has 

 about 100 boxes of bees and made last year 

 2,000 pounds of honey and considerable wax. 

 The record colony last year, so far as I 

 know, produced 180 pounds of honey." — 

 Alberto Hunernadel, San Geronimo, Eepub- 

 lic Argentina, S. A., March 26. 



"Bees are not as common among the 

 farmers in France as in the U. S., but I have 

 seen several large apiaries. I have never 

 seen a better kept apiary than one of these. 

 The hives were in rows, each row on a ter- 

 race about two feet higher than the row in 

 front of it. The hives were all alike, but 

 the fronts were painted in different colors. 

 The grass was cropped close and the shrub- 

 bery neatly trimmed. The honey-house, 

 built of carved stone, contained hundreds 

 of drawn combs and two extractors. The 

 supers w^hich contained the drawn combs 

 were piled in stacks and the cracks sealed 

 with paper. The keeper told me that he 

 took from 50 to 70 pounds from each colony 

 and received about 50c per pound. When 

 you find a farmer owning bees, which is not 

 "often, you find them using straw hives with 

 the cracks filled with cement. Sometimes 

 you find a farmer having homemade wooden 

 hives. I think they commonly use straw- 

 hives because lumber is so scarce and high- 

 priced." — J. L. Clark, Headquarters Co., 

 109th Field Signal Bureau, A. P. O. No. 911, 

 American Forces. 



