GLEANINGS IN BEK CULTURE 



the baby nuclei, and how best to mate queens in large 

 numbers, as we have been literally swamped with 

 orders, and could have filled them all but for our 

 mating troubles. 



We should like to have a system of mating by 

 which we could secure our full quota of honey, or 

 nearly so, and still get our queens mated. 



L.-^TSH.xw Honey Co. 



Carlisle, Ind., July 30. 



[This subject of mating is a science or a trade in 

 itself. In the first place, for the rearing of drones 

 you must have queens two years old, of fine stock, 

 and give them drone comb every now and then. 

 These colonies should never suffer from want of 

 stores ; or rather, we should say, after the season 

 for honey coming in stops they should be fed grad- 

 ually and contiiniously, otherwise the bees will kill 

 off the drones. A drone-raising colony is a good 

 deal like a cell-building colony — both must have a 

 continuous supply of nectar or a syrup. For feed- 

 ing we use about two parts of water to one of sugar 

 in a Boardman feeder, all the holes soldered up 

 except one or two. 



With the twin baby nuclei you can mate more 

 queens for a given number of bees for a given 

 amount of help than from the same number of full- 

 sized two-frame Langstroth nuclei. It is less trouble 

 to introduce virgins to the small number of bees; 

 takes less time to find the queens, and less food or 

 syrup to take care of them. But one trouble with 

 the baby nuclei is that queens must be taken out 

 as soon as the queen begins laying. Unless you can 

 have your orders regulated to come in just as fast 

 as you can raise the queens, you must arrange to 

 have the queens as fast as they begin laying in the 

 baby hives kept in larger nuclei. This is so incon- 

 venient that many queen-breeders prefer full stand- 

 ard Langstroth frames, two in number, for a nu- 

 cleus. 



We do not believe it practicable to make a com- 

 bined nucleus and shipping box, as their function is 

 so entirely different. For your purpose we think it 

 would be more satisfactory for you to have two- 

 frame nuclei, either in a single box or two nuclei in 

 an eight-frame hive-body with a close-fitting division- 

 board between. The entrances should be at the op- 

 posite ends of the hive. Such nuclei have the ad- 

 vantage of combined heat, and will hold the queens 

 until you can use them for orders. 



You might find it a little more satisfactory to 

 come here for a day or two and talk with our men. 

 We have no trade secrets but that we are willing to 

 give to the public, and should be glad to see you or 

 any of you at any time. 



We use both kinds of nuclei for mating queens — 

 the twin babies in the yard where we raised queens 

 only, and the full-sized two-frame Langstroth (two 

 in an eight-frame hive with a tight-fitting division- 

 board between), at our other yards where we raise 

 queens, nuclei, and bees for pound packages. The 

 full-sized nuclei can be used for the nucleus trade, 

 and sometimes they will furnish one pound or half 

 a pound of bees. In good seasons the nucleus frames 

 at our yards are extracted, as queen-reariHg opera- 

 tions can not go on in a nucleus where the queen 

 is honey-bound. When the baby nuclei get overfilled 

 with honey we take out one frame of comb and put 

 in an empty one and hold the filled one as a reserve, 

 to be used when needed later on. 



You do not understand how we can get honey 

 from an apiary where we are raising queens from 

 baby nuclei. Easy enough. The cell-builders and 

 other colonies held in reserve for cell-building pur- 

 poses must be strong. Such colonies will produce 

 honey the same as an^ strong colony. Some years, 

 like this season, it is not necessary to feed them 

 any appreciable amount. This season honey began 

 coming in almost from the time of fruit-bloom to 

 the close of sweet clover, which is usually our last 



supply of nectar. Cell-builders will swarm unless 

 they are kept down by extracting, and hence the 

 colonies at our basswood apiary were extracted. 

 They were thus able to produce their full quota of 

 honey. — Ed.] 



The Cheapest Way to Ship Bees Long Distances 



I have about 100 colonies of bees; and as I can 

 not sell them here for as much as I can get for the 

 honey that is in the boxes I am taking the honey 

 from them. 



I am going to move back to Pennsylvania, and 

 thought it possible to save the bees and express them 

 through. My idea is to make a box, say about seven 

 feet long, out of light material, and divide it into 

 about 18 compartments, five by five inches; put in 

 a pound section of honey for the bees to feed on, 

 and put the queen with, say, two or three hundred 

 bees in each compartment. On arriving in Penn- 

 sylvania I contemplate purchasing enough bees to 

 take some racks and put in the new boxes in which 

 I place my bees when taken out of the box in which 

 I ship them. Of course I shall expect to feed the 

 bees through the winter. 



Hamilton, Mont., Aug. 8. C. A. Mabksbuey. 



[Your plan of expressing bees back to Pennsyl- 

 vania in long boxes we do not think would be prac- 

 ticable. You would have difficulty in uniting them 

 to other bees on arrival in the East. Would it not 

 be better f»r you to advertise yeur 100 colonies at 

 a low price, sell them if possible, and take that mon- 

 ey to buy bees in Pennsylvania when you go back? 

 Your express on such packages of bees would be 

 considerable ; and our experience convinces us that 

 many if not most of the bees ■vypuld be dead on ar- 

 rival at destination for this reason: 



Combs in the sections will not stand hard bang- 

 ing ; and the result is that they would be broken 

 out and many of the bees in bad shape. It would be 

 much more practicable for you to shake your bees 

 into 3-lb. packages, as was illustrated in Gleanings 

 in the April 15th issue. We have had phenomenal 

 success in shippinig bees this way, but found it nec- 

 essary to use a bottle of water in connection with 

 the candy. — Ed.] 



Early Cutting of Alfalfa Means Less Tonnage of 

 Hay 



The reason that the farmers of Colorado cut 

 their alfalfa before blooming is because their custsm- 

 ers, the dairymen, want it that way, claiming it is 

 a better milk-producer when cut before it blooms. 

 No doubt Mr. Turner could induce some of his neigh- 

 bors to let their alfalfa go to bloom by paying them 

 to do so. Cutting alfalfa before it blooms gradually 

 reduces the tonnage, and eventually kills the plant 

 altogether. 



Glenrock, Wyo., Aug. 22. J. E. HlGOINS. 



Wintering Surplus Queens in Nuclei 



I find it a good practice to winter over a number 

 of nuclei to provide for any loss of queens that may 

 occur in the apiary ; and if there should be no such 

 loss, these nuclei se.rve a good purpose in strength- 

 ening up weak colonies in the spring. They are nice, 

 also, for mating early queens, or they may be left 

 to grow into strong colonies for the buckwheat flow. 



Ithaca, N. Y. E. L. Dresser. 



The Connecticut Foul-Brood-Inspection Law 



I have read your editorial note regarding our 

 apiary-inspection bill. The original bill asked for 

 an appropriation of $1500 annually, but this was 

 reduced one-half by the appropriation committee. 



New Haven, Ct., July 30. W. E. Britton. 



