1140 



GLEANIN(.S IN BEE CULTURE 



Sept. 15 



SAGE YIELDS HONEY IN IDAHO. 



In answer to Mr. Fr. Holmes, Aug. 1, p. 952, 

 as to whether sage yields honey in Idaho and 

 Utah, I v\ill say my neighbor, Mr. Garhi-ld, ex- 

 perimented with one colony of bees by taking it 

 eight or nine miles away from alfalfa or any oth- 

 er cultivated fields, and setting it among the 

 white sage. He went out to look, after it eveiy 

 week, and took fresh water. We do not know 

 the exact amount of honey the bees gathert-d, but 

 they did fully as well as those left at home near 

 the alfalfa. The honey was of that water-white 

 color peculiar to the California sage honey. Mr 

 Garfield stnt samples to Californ a, and it was 

 pronounced A 1 white sage; so we are convinced 

 that the white sage of South Idaho dot-s > ield 

 just as much and just as good honey as that of 

 any other State. 



Caldwf-U, Idaho. J. E. Miller. 



WHAT TO DO WITH GRANULATED COMB HoNEY. 



I have granulated comb honey which 1 wish to 

 feed to the bees for winter. Could I let the bees 

 rob it.? or if I took the trouble to melt it over the 

 fire would it again granulate in the hive next 

 winter.? M. P. Leggei't. 



Malvern, Pa. 



[We would advise melting the granulated comb 

 honey, thus liquefying the honey and separating 

 it Irona the wax. If you keep it at a warm tt- m- 

 perature for several hours it will not be so likely 

 to granulate duiing the winter, although some 

 kinds of honey granulate so quickly that it is 

 next to impossible to keep it, even in the- hives. 

 Ordinarily, in such a case, we should think it 

 would I e better to feed back syrup in the fall 

 rather than to risk using such honey Your le- 

 sults would then be entirely satisf ictory S" far as 

 the winter tond is concerned, and \ou would not 

 run the risk that vou would if you used this hon- 

 ey which you mention. — Ed.] 



HOW to INTRODUCE A QUEEN IN A LAYING-VVoRK- 

 ER COLONY. 



I notice on page 948 of the Aug 1st issue that 

 Mr. Edw.ird Lester thinks it strange that his 

 queen was not killed when introduced on two 

 fiamesot bees taken from another colony. Now, 

 we ha\e introduced many queens into laying- 

 worker colonies by simply taking a comb of 

 brood with adhering bees and the que> n from a 

 normal colony, and exchanging it tor the comb 

 in the laying-worker colony that contained the 

 most brood, alwajs leaving all the bees on each 

 coinb. Bv so doing I think we usually get the 

 laying workers, or part of them, on the comb we 

 takeout. Any way, this plan works eight out 

 of ten times, and, of course, it is easy to put a 

 queen into the dequeened colony. 



Longmont, Col. G. C. MATTHews. 



WHO CAN BEAT IT? 



Friend Root-. — You remember my wiit ng \ou 

 a year ago last winter about ten swarms of bees I 

 was wintering, that I took from trees that fall as 

 late as Nov< mber — the last one the day before 

 Thanksgiving Well, last season wa-i a total 

 failure, and I fed over a ton of sugar to carry my 



bees through the winter. Of this bunch of ten I 

 pulled all through the winter, but lost two from 

 spring dwindling. I increased the eiijht to hf- 

 teen, and extracted 1500 lbs. of honey from them. 

 One of these was my champion. They gave me 

 a surplus of 425 lbs. of white extracted honey. 

 Who can beat it.? My crop this season is 15,000 

 lbs. Elias Fox. 



Hillsboro, Wis. 



FEEDING LOAF SUGAR TO BEES IN CELLAR. 



I have fed my bees in the cellar cube sugar in 

 this way: I covered the bees with a board having 

 two holes that would allow the neck of a Mason 

 jar to fit in snug 1 fill the jar with the cube su- 

 gar, not wetting it. I place my fingers over the 

 mouth of the jar and invert, placing my hand 

 over the hole and withdrawing quickly. The 

 moisture from the bees will make it so they can 

 use it. I have tried it and it works well. 



Massillon, O. E. A. Newell. 



SWARMS WITH VIRGINS I EAVE THE PARENT COL- 

 ONY QUEENLESS. 



Replying to Stray Stra>^s, page 988, in regard 

 to swarms with virgin queens leaving the parent 

 colony queenless, I can give positive iniormation. 

 Previous to the past season we never had a swarm 

 with a virgin queen go off and leave the parent 

 colony queenless. The bees would always go 

 back, although sometimes not until the next day. 



We have the following to report: Our bees were 

 very strong last spring, and commenced to swarm 

 on apple-bloom about May 20 to 25. At our 

 out-yards we shook them a< we usually do from 

 May 20 to June 10, to see how strong they were. 

 We took the brood and made ten-frame nuclei 

 (about 50 of them), giving (to each) ten frames of 

 bro 'd and one sealed queen-cell. Only a few 

 young bees were left on this brood to keep it 

 from starving. 



The results were, that about a third of these 

 made colonies swarmed, and ran away and left 

 the parent nuclei hopelessly queenless, and they 

 had to be requeened later on. We were surpris- 

 ed. We caught some of them at it, and missed 

 the bees from others. We had several queenless 

 colonies in the spring. We filled them up with 

 ten frames of brood, and gave a sealed queen-cell, 

 and they all swarmed and ran away, as I was at 

 each yard only once a week. 



It was the greatest honey year in forty years; 

 but our crop is short of last year by quite a lot — 

 say half a crop, all on account of this swarming 

 fever. Some swarms came out, and, without 

 clustering, went for the hills. We never saw the 

 like before, and hope never to again. 



New Milford, Pa. F. W. Dean. 



I had a colony that swarmed out with a virgin 

 queen, leaving no cells nor any thing whereby 

 the colony might again become "queenright." 

 After leaving the colony a week, to be absolute- 

 ly sure they were queenless, I gave them a frame 

 of brood, when they started queen-cells and rear- 

 ed another queen. I regard this as a proven fact, 

 that they will, in some cases at least, leave when 

 the parent colony has no means of rearing anoth- 

 er queen. Chas. E. Sweet. 



Fulton, Mich. 



