1326 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



ally during winter, and the tliermometer rarely 

 goes lower than 32 (indoors). The province of 

 Kii, noted for its bee-iceeping from olden times, 

 is warmer than here. So you can see that we are 

 much favored in our bee-keeping so far as the 

 climate is concerned. 



THE PLANTS AND FLOWERS. 



As for the honey-plants, we can not say which 

 is the principal one, like clovers and basswood in 

 America. Each province or region has its own 

 trees and plants cultivated, such as apples, pears, 

 peaches, oranges, persimmons, buckwheat, beans, 

 and others. Moreover, as our lands are so thor- 

 oughly cultivated for different plants and vege- 

 tables we are not able to plant a honey-field on 

 such a large scale as you do. But besides these 

 cultivated plants we can have a great quantity of 

 wild ones along the mountain ranges which run 

 from one end to the other as if they were a back- 

 bone to our long island empire. So when we go 

 to Kii, Shinano, and some part of Kyushu, we 

 find many old-style bee-keepers who have col- 

 onies by hundreds. Generally speaking, our 

 country is abundant in flowers and fruit-trees as 

 well as plants and grasses. From nearly all of 

 them we can have a honey harvest. 



The time will soon be here when you will find 

 a bee country in the far East among its beautiful 

 sceneries. We hope, in the near future, to have 

 our people of every class tasting honey at tables. 

 We are praying for the time to come very soon 

 when thousands and tens of thousands may enjoy 

 this high, peaceful, profitable, and interesting 

 business. May these little busy angels reveal the 

 mysteries of His mighty works, and enlighten 

 the spiritual darkness of the heathen nations of 

 the East. 



Hakone, ]ji,zn. 



Heads of Grain 



From Different Fields 



FULL PARTICULARS ON HANDLING BEES BEFORE 



AN AUDIENCE. 



I should appreciate it very much if you would 

 describe the handling of bees in a wire cage, be- 

 fore an audience, from the time the operator en- 

 ters the cage until he leaves it. How do you 

 scoop them out of the dishpan without being 

 stung? I tried scooping them off a sheet, as I 

 was hiving a swarm this summer, and I never had 

 any desire to repeat that trial. What would be 

 a fair price to ask for performing this in a local 

 vaudeville theater — that is, how much for each 

 performance.'' 



What is the largest crop of comb honey that you 

 know to have been secured from a single colony, 

 any locality.? also extracted.' Where was each se- 

 cured.? L. R. Henline. 



Towanda, 111., Aug. 8. 



[The secret of handling bees by the handfuls 

 before an audience depends on three things: 

 First, the bees must be thoroughly frightened — 

 that is, forced into a state of panic. This may 

 be effected by blowing a little smoke over the 

 top of the hive, removing the frames in the regu- 

 lar way, and then shaking the bees off the frames 



into a large dishpan. The pan should then be 

 shaken something like a corn-popper, causing 

 the bees to be mixed up in endless confusion. 

 In this state they are thoroughly frightened, or, 

 perhaps, to put it more exactly, the colony spirit 

 and thought of defense have been thoroughly 

 taken out of them. 



The next important requirement is absolute 

 fearlessness on the part of the operator; and the 

 last is the quiet, gentle moving of the fingers un- 

 der the bunch of bees in such a way as not to 

 cause any pinching. The hand must be moved 

 so slowly that it will gather up the bees in such 

 a way that the movement will be almost imper- 

 ceptible to the audience. One can then scoop 

 the bees up by the handfuls, scatter them all over 

 the bare arms, and on top of his head. It seems 

 to make but very little difference what the strain 

 is. But throughout all of the demonstration the 

 operator must be exceedingly careful not to pinch 

 or rudely push a single bee or he will suffer for 

 his carelessness. 



At a demonstration given at our home yard be- 

 fore a company of 200 schoolteachers we showed 

 how the bees could be handled like kittens. One 

 of our men, observing how easily we performed 

 these stunts, attempted to do the same thing. 

 He pushed his hand into the cluster of bees and 

 received nearly fifty stings. But he had good 

 nerve, and went through the "performance." 

 On questionin/^ him afterward we found he push- 

 ed his hands into the cluster too rapidly, rudely 

 brushing and shoving the bees. If one shoves 

 his hands through the bunch fast enough to crowd 

 the bees unduly he may get stung very severely. 



If we remembet correctly, 400 pounds is the 

 largest amount of comb honey taken from a sin- 

 gle colony, but we do not now know the locali- 

 ty. Probably 750 lbs. is the largest amount of 

 extracted honey from a colony, and this was pro- 

 duced in Texas. — Ed.] 



WHY DID THE QUEEN FAIL.' 



We have just removed one of our own bred 

 queens that commenced to lay June 16, laying 

 all worker eggs only. To-day we find no un- 

 sealed brood at all, but sealed worker and sealed 

 drone brood in worker-cells, the latter predomi- 

 nating. The queen, when removed, was small, 

 with no trace of eggs when killed. The colony 

 had been well stimulated when the queen com- 

 menced laying. This is a rare exception with 

 US; and although queens will occasionally degen- 

 erate into drone-layers, having laid worker eggs 

 previously, it could, perhaps, be obviated if the 

 cause were known. Do you think a slight sting 

 from a worker would cause the destruction of 

 the laying organs? The queen mentioned was 

 destitute of a foot on the second right leg. 



Hemlock, O., Aug. 22. P. Bieseman. 



[Some of our best queens will turn drone-lay- 

 ers. In rare instances a queen will lay worker 

 and then drone eggs exclusively, and, after a 

 month or so, lay worker eggs again. In the last- 

 mentioned case there must be some functional 

 difficulty. In the other, where the queen turns 

 drone-layer, and stays so, she may have at one 

 time been chilled; she may have been pinched, 

 or she may at the time have been fertilized by an 

 impotent or poor drone. A microscopic examina- 



