AlGlST. 1919 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



HEADS OF GRAl>n iPf™MlQ rDlFFERENT FIELDS 



are piled. The supports shoulrl be higli 

 enough above the bottom so that there will 

 be room for the melted eombs beneath. I 

 use a piece of canvas to cover the can. Any- 

 thing that will make it tight will do. Two 

 pails of water are then put into the can, the 

 combs placed on the supports, the can cover- 

 ed, and a fire built under the can. The hot 

 steam soon melts the wax on the frames; 

 the combs become loose, and a few shar]) 

 raps on the frames while hot leave them 

 cleaned and sterilized, ready to put new 

 foundation into. The hot combs are stirred 

 up well and dipped out into the wax-press. 



In foul-brood cases, when sterilizing hives, 

 supers, etc., one should leave them covered 

 in boiling water for half an hour. 



Of course, there is some wax sticking to 

 frames and hives; but I find that the bees 

 sometimes use a part of this, so there is 

 practically no wax lost. D. Gibbs. 



Wapakoneta, O. 



An Easy Way of When visiting one of 



Painting Hives and the prominent b e e - 

 Supers. keepers of the county 



recently I found him 

 stacking up new supers approximately ten 

 high, the bottom one resting on a box about 

 15 inches tall. He then carefully straighten- 

 ed the supers so they were all even and laid 

 a piece of railroad iron on top, presumably 

 to hold them down. My curiosity was arous- 

 ed as to what was to be next, when he pick- 

 ed up a bucket of paint and a four-inch 

 brush and painted that stack of supers in 

 less time than I have seen taken to paint 

 one super or hive body. When I saw the 

 speed with which he did a very good job of 

 painting it struck me as a joke to reiuember 

 the painting of one super at a time and try- 

 ing to keep one's hands out of the paint 

 and then finding some convenient spot to 

 place the painted super to dry. Of course 

 the idea is ancient history and may have 

 been in the bee journals times without num- 

 ber before; no doubt Father Langstroth did 

 it first. But I have questioned other bee- 

 keepers and have found more than one who 

 had never thought of it and who stiU 

 wrestled with supers and hive bodies one at 

 a time while painting them. Maybe, after 

 all, there are a few of the younger genera- 

 tion who may save time by remembering 

 that with a wide brush a stack of supers 

 or hive bodies can be painted almost as 

 rapidly as a single one. J. H. Tibbs. 



Fincastle, Va. 



Ol lO ^^C B — to 



How Queens End What kind of a death 



Their Careers. a queen dies when she 



ends her career — this 

 I first learned of my old tutor in 1881, when 

 I saw a queen crawling outside of the hive. 

 Also careful observation since that time has 



confirmed what he said, that the queen when 

 slie commences to fail lays eggs in several 

 queen-cells, allows a queen to hatch and usu- 

 ally remains in the hive with her for a week 

 or two after she commences to lay. Then 

 the old queen leaves the hive and dies. But 

 I have found exceptions to this rule, as I 

 have found her sometimes on the comb and 

 a few times on the bottom-board nearly or 

 quite dead. 



If the conditions are normal, the bees or 

 young queen hardly ever kill her or drive 

 her out of the hive. (If the hive were dis- 

 turbed or robbers about, it would be dif- 

 ferent.) When the queen finds that she is 

 of no more account, she does the same as an 

 old bee does, just leaves and dies — why I do 

 not know; perhaps she is in pain, but of 

 this I suspect we shall never be certain. 



Binghamton, N. Y. C. W. Phelps. 



How Much Room I inclose a print of a 



Did These Bees colony of bees located 



Need? in a bush near my api- 



ary, first discovered on 

 the afternoon of April 30. Altho they had 

 all outdoors for room, and the sky for a 

 roof, they cast a swarm on the morning of 

 May 16 while I was working in my honey- 



Tliese bees swarmed with all outdoors for room and 

 the sky for a roof. 



house, which is between the bush and the 

 apiary. When smoking the bees back as in 

 the inclosed i^rint, I saw some honey in the 

 combs. Also there is sealed brood, which 

 is covered by bees in the evening. 



San Diego, Calif. Jas. A. Nelson. 



Esparcet Honey, In the time I have 



Better Known as been reading Glean- 



Sanfoin. ings (over four years 



now) I have never 

 seen any mention of the honey made from 

 esparcet. This plant is grown by some of 

 the ranchmen in this neighborhood for a 



