144 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



few drops of melted beeswax will hold it till 

 the bees fasten it." 



" But some of the places in my combs have 

 only an inch or two of the drone size of 

 cells. Will it not be a big job to fix all of 

 them? " 



"For small patches, from one to four 

 inches in diameter, you can use punches of 

 the proper size, made of old fruit-cans. 

 These can be found about hotels and eating- 

 houses, if canned fruit is not used in your 

 own family, and need not cost any thing. 

 For the smaller sizes old empty baking- 

 powder cans are just the thing." 



"But how am I to fix these so I can use 

 them? " 



"When you have collected your different 

 sizes, place them on a hot stove, when the 

 solder will melt, thus letting the bottom 

 drop. In the same way melt off the top. 

 After the tops and bottoms are melted off, 

 make the whole circumference of one end 

 sharp with a file or grindstone, sharpening 

 wholly from the outside. Now lay the comb 

 down on a smooth board, and with the right 

 size of punch cut out the patch of drone 

 comb by twirling the punch or can around 

 as you press down upon it. Now push out 

 this piece of drone comb, and with the same 

 punch, and in the same way, cut out from 

 some discarded comb a piece of worker 

 comb, which will, of course, exactly fit the 

 place from which you took the drone comb. 

 In this way it is no great task to rid all of 

 the frames of drone comb, especially if you 

 have the combs away from the bees so you 

 can do it on stormy winter days." 



"But a part of my frames have honey in 

 them, so I can not tell just where the drone 

 comb is situated. What of these? " 



"If you do not wish to warm them up and 

 extract the honey from them, the better way 

 is to leave them till the bees can take the 

 honey out in the spring, when they can be 

 fixed in the same way." 



"I have a few combs that were drawn out 

 from foundation in wired frames. Some of 

 these, on account of mice, or because moths 

 or moldy pollen caused the bees to cut out 

 portions of them, have either holes or drone 

 comb in them. Is there any way I can fix 

 these during the winter?" 



" Such combs I prefer to leave for the 

 bees to fix, as I told you about at first ; but 

 even these can be fixed in the winter. After 

 the drone comb is out, cut away the cells 

 all around the hole about one or two cells 

 back, cutting only just down to the septum, 

 on one side. Then cut a piece of foundation 

 the size of the place and lay it down so that 

 it will cover the hole and the cutaway cells 

 as well. Now put a few drops of hot bees- 

 wax about the edges — just enough to hold 

 the foundation in place. The bees will draw 

 out the foundation into comb next summer, 

 fixing it as good as new, providing you 

 give such combs to the bees just at a time 

 when they are securing honey enough to 

 build comb. If you give frames of comb, 

 patched in this way, to a colony when no 

 honey is coming in from the fields, or not 



enough so that wax is secreted, the bees are 

 likely to tear away the edges of the comb or 

 foundation, on the principle that ' Satan 

 finds some mischief still for idle hands to 

 do.'" 



THE VALUE OF BEES AS FERTILIZERS OF 

 FRUIT-BLOSSOMS. 



The Ontario Agricultural and Experiment- 

 al Union, with over 7000 experimenters, con- 

 sisting of many of the best agriculturists in 

 the province, at its annual meeting at the 

 Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, Dec. 

 9 and 10, passed a resolution requesting the 

 Minister of Agriculture to arrange to have a 

 series of experiments carried out to determine 

 the value of bees in the fertilization of blos- 

 soms such as fruit, clover, and buckwheat. 

 Prof. H. L. Hutt, B. S. A., Horticulturist at 

 the college, is strongly impressed with the 

 value of bees for his line of agriculture. He 

 gave the following extract from his recent 

 report to the Fruit Experiment Station 

 Board : 



In closing this report I wish to call attention to 

 some of the conditions which have materially affected 

 the fruit crop of the province during the past season. 



In the first place, the weather has been exceptiocal. 

 The winter was not severe, and fruit-trees as a rule 

 wintered well. Bloom was abundant; but during the 

 time the trees were in bloom the weather was cold 

 and windy, and unfavorable for the working of bees, 

 which are the most active agents in the poUenation 

 of the blossoms. In fact, there were only two bright 

 warm days, and these several days apart, during the 

 whole season of bloom when the bees worked at all 

 freely. Mr. Murray Pettit informed me that he no- 

 ticed two distinct settings of the fruit on his cherry- 

 trees, which he believed corresponded to the two 

 good days the bees had for poUenation. 



In the second place, there was an unusual scarcity 

 of honey-bees this year to do all the poUenation nec- 

 essary to the setting of a full crop of fruit. I was in- 

 formed by a leading bee-keeper that not more than 20 

 per cent of the honey-bees of the province were win- 

 tered successfully last winter. This being the case, 

 it is easy to understand the effect that a scarcity of 

 bees with unfavorable weather for their work had in 

 giving a light crop of fruit. I have noted repeatedly 

 in various parts of the province that some of the most 

 productive orchards have been those in which honey- 

 bees are kept, and there is no question in my mind 

 but that it would pay fruit-growers well to keep a few 

 hives of bees merely for the purpose of insuring fer- 

 tilization of fruit-blossoms. In sections where fruit- 

 farms are close together, as they are in the Niagara 

 district, the growers within a radius of one or two 

 miles might cooperate and employ a competent bee- 

 keeper to look after a good-sized apiary. 



PLURALITY OF QUEENS. 



At the Harrisburg convention and in oth- 

 er places I have expressed doubts that the 

 presence of two or more queens in a hive 

 will prevent swarming. It was pointed out 

 that in running for extracted honey, and re- 

 moving the honey from the supers as soon 



