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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



outside cover so the sun's rays could not strike 

 the entrance. The bees wintered finely; and 

 when I removed the covering early in May the 

 brood and pollen were plentiful. I did not use a 

 super. Hervey B. Jones. 



Summit, N. J. 



DOES NOISE OF .ANY KIND H.AVE .ANY EFFECT IN 

 BRINGING DOWN SVV.ARMS .' 



This morning the second swarm of the season 

 came out. It went very^ high, and I was afraid 

 it would alight on a tail tree. My son blew his 

 cornet, and they came down and alighted in 

 three different bunches. In a few minutes one 

 bunch divided and joined the two other clusters. 

 They all came from the same hive. Do you 

 thinic there C')uld have been two queens.? We 

 had a hard time in getting them down, as they 

 were in a brushy place: Hattie E. Graves. 



Walpole, N. H., June 9, 1908. 



[The blowing of a horn or trumpet would not, 

 in our judgment, have any effect upon the swarm 

 while in the air. It has been said that the noise 

 drowns the note of the queen, but we doubt it. 

 The swarm in this case clustered because it would 

 have done so any way. In all probability there 

 was one or more queens, and this was the cause 

 of the separate clusters, otherwise they all would 

 have clustered in one spot or gone back to the 

 parent hive. 



It sometimes happens that, when two or more 

 swarms come out, there will be a division of the 

 bees and a general mix-up. From what you 

 write, we take it that there was only one swarm 

 which divided as explained. — Ed.] 



CATCHING A SWAR.M WITH THE QUEEN ON A 

 POLE. 



A friend of mine had clipped his queen's wings, 

 and when the colony swarmed he found the 

 queen. He picked her up and put her on a forked 

 stick. He next went into the big field where 

 they were all scattered, and held her up; and ev- 

 ery bee came and lit on the pole. 



Sandy Spring, Md. Jack Bentley. 



[It would be perfectly feasible to hive a swarm 

 in the manner related in your letter. This has 

 been done; but the usual rule is to put the queen 

 in a cage, fasten the cage to a pole, and then 

 plac e the pole where the bees are Hying the 

 thickest. — Ed.] 



DO COLONIES WITH .MANV DRONES PRODUCE THE 

 MOST HONEY ? 



I have noticed that the hives that raised no 

 diones to speak of store but little honey, and 

 that the hives that raise considerable numbers of 

 drones store the most honey. Of course if the 

 diones are too numerous, they consume consider- 

 able honey; but even if there are a large num- 

 ber, the hive stores more than hives having but 

 few drones. I am speaking of colonies that are 

 about equal in strength of worker bees. 



I have thought sometimes that the presence of 

 a considerable number of drones in a hive en- 

 courages the bees to work harder, or that the 

 drones help in some way — perhaps by keeping 

 up the warmth of the hive, if in no other v\ay. 

 It a drone is held in the hand he feels quite 



warm, and no doubt throws off a good deal of 

 lieat in the hive. 10. E. Waitf. 



Mystic, Conn. 



[That the drones throw off bodily heat which 

 is useful in keeping up the temperature of the 

 supers is generally believed ; but that the best 

 honey-gatherers are those that have the most 

 drones may be true of blacks, hybrids, and Cau- 

 casians, hut we think is not necessarily true of 

 Italians. — Ed. ] 



HOW ARE SECTIONS CLEANED RAPIDLY ? 



In Gleanings for Dec. 15, 1907, page 1597, is 

 an article by F. J. Farr, of Longmont Colo., on 

 cleaning sections. He says he knew a Mrs. Ma- 

 rian Fuller, of Beloit, Wis., who cleaned and 

 packed 125 cases of 24 sections each, between 7 

 and 5 o'clock, which is 9)4 hours, taking half 

 an hour for dinner. This would be cleaning 

 and packing 3000 sections in 570 minutes, or 

 nearly S^ sections a minute. We have no slow- 

 er or more tedious work than cleaning honey. I 

 can at best clean only about 15 cases in a day. 

 The fastest cleaner I have heard of in this part of 

 the country claimed to have cleaned 20 cases in 

 a day. If Mr. Farr will tell us how we can do 

 the work more rapidly he will confer a great fa- 

 vor upon comb-honey producers. 



Miss Willie White. 



Fallbrook, Cal, Dec. 28, 1907. 



[Perhaps the style of super or section would 

 have something to do with the extraordinary 

 speed, or possibly the propolis was not as abun- 

 dant in the one case as in the other. At any 

 rate, we should be glad to hear from any of our 

 readers on the subject. — Ed.] 



THE CHITTIVI-TREE; A WESTERN HONEY-YIELDER. 



While the bee-keepers of the East are casting 

 about for a tree that is valuable otherwise than 

 for honey, I should like to call their attention 

 to the chittim (Cascara sa^rada) that grows 

 plentifully here in the coast country, and is con- 

 sidered a good honey-product r. All know the 

 value of cascara bark, and the wood makes a 

 fence-post equal to black locust. The tree is of 

 small growth. Eight to ten inches in diameter 

 is considered a large tree. It remains in bloom 

 a month, and is visited by the bees from the first 

 out in the morning to the last ones at night. It 

 has been in bloom for two weeks, and the bees 

 are filling the sections with chittim honey. 



Halsey, Oregon, May 24. J. Waddell. 



BEES THAT CAP HONEY WATERY NOT ALWAYS 

 BEST. 



In answer to your footnote, page 431, April 1. 

 I will say I have often h ad Italians cap the sec- 

 tions watery; but they were medium, to the 

 poorest honev-gatherers — never among the best. 



Corinth, Me. S. W. Cressy. 



YELLOW SWEET CLOVER; a' GOOD YIELD FROM IT. 



Bees are doing very nicely, and are well along 

 with the second super. There seems to be no- 

 thing doing in white clover, but a fine yield 

 from yellow sweet clover now blooming. 



Brooksville, Ky., June 12. E. E. Corliss. 



