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Gleanings in Bee Culture 



Watering Bees in a Cellar. 



I noticed In March, last year, my bees began to 

 raise brood, in consequence of which they became 

 very restless, after which I gave each colony a lit- 

 tle saucer of water, which seemed to satisfy them. 

 Is this the right thing to do? 



Omaha, Neb., .Jan. •'). H. C CooK. 



[Water has been given the bees while In the cel- 

 lar by some bee-keepers, and in a few cases it has 

 seemed to quiet them. Whether it is because they 

 needed the water for brood-rearing or what, we 

 can not say. A good deal will depend upon local 

 conditions. If water does encourage bees to rear 

 brood, we would say that we would question the 

 advisability of giving it to them in the cellar, be- 

 cause brood-rearing too early in the spring would 

 be a disadvantage. The bees would be uneasy, 

 rouse up. and make the colony too warm, and ren- 

 der it difficult to control the conditions properly.— 

 Ed.] 



A Diagonal Line of Drone-cells. 



A colony of bees superseded its queen in July. 

 Several of the virgins being of good stock they were 

 secured. They started laying Aug. 17. Two, that 

 proved to be purely mated, were saved. These 

 queens are somewhat slender in body, but appar- 

 ently prolific. The brood is compact and regular, 

 with the exception that drone brood is placed in 

 worker-cells running in almost perfect lines of sin- 

 gle cells diagonally across the comb, .Some drone 

 comb in the supers, to which these queens had ac- 

 cess, was neglected. About the time the drones rear- 

 ed in the worker-cells matured they were cast out. 

 During August and September two successive lots 

 of drones were reared that way. E:ach lot consist- 

 ed of about 100 such drones. J am a beginner; and, 

 with the exception of some little drone brood ap- 

 pearing in worker-cells in the early spring, f have 

 not experienced this condition. What do you 

 think of these queens ? 



Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. V.i. E. Rohner. 



[Perhaps these particular combs that contained 

 drone brood had sagged so that a line of cells was 

 stretched large enough so the queen laid drone 

 eggs in them. It is hard to conceive of only one 

 line of cells being stretched in this way; but this is 

 the only explanation we can think of. If the.se 

 combs are wired diagonally this might have some- 

 thing to do with the matter. You had better watch 

 those queens next season. — Ed.] 



Greasy Waste Dangerous. 



I note what you have to say concerning the foot- 

 note to my comments on cotton as smoker fuel, p. 

 664. Nov. 1. Greasy waste is nasty to handle. Re- 

 load the smoker and then handle some snowy sec- 

 tions of honey. It is dangerous to leave about. Its 

 tendency to spontaneous combustion is great, par- 

 ticularly when it contains certain oils and greases, 

 and the smoke from it stinks. There are plenty of 

 better things. Plain cotton, in waste rags, or yarn, 

 always makes trouble for me when used as smoker 

 fuel. Mr. Latham is very emphatic in its condem- 

 nation. Repeated use of tobacco, say on several 

 consecutive days, often causes trouble. 



Providence, R. I. Arthur C. Miller. 



(If a little care is used as to the place where the 

 waste is kei)t, there Is no danger of a fire. The 

 great advantage of this fuel over any other that we 

 have tried is that it lights at the touch of a match, 

 does not make a hot fire, and never goes out until 

 it is all used up,— Kd.) 



Meeting of the Ventura County Club. 



At a meeting of the Ventura County Bee-keepers" 

 Club, held at KlUmore, Cal.. January 6, liil2, it was 

 unanimously voted to join in a body the California 

 .State Bee-keepers" As.sociation. Inspector Allen 

 was upheld in the matter of quarantining all bees 

 and queens from outside the county, on account of 

 brood diseases. All queens and bees shipped into 

 Ventura Co. must bear an insoector"s certificate 

 or they will be destroyed when they arrive, 



Santa Paula. Cal. E. F. McDonald, Sec. 



" Grandma " Wilson a Honey Salesman. 



I wonder whether Dr. Miller realized what a fine 

 salesman he had when he started that fine old lady 

 on the road, page 659. Nov, 1, 1 have no means o( 

 knowing just how much she has benefited other 

 bee-keepers, but I know she has sold (luite a few 



pounds of honey for me. If bee-keepers did but 

 know it, right here is the secret of successful adver- 

 tising. Let those with large healthy families or 

 healthy old folks who consume honey regularly 

 have photos taken, and have them published in 

 their local pai^ers, and they will often be copied 

 widely. These articles are always interesting. I 

 clipped the inclosed from the Philadelphia Record. 



East Stroudsburg, Pa. George H. Bedford. 



[The clipping sent was a copy of the article as it 

 appeared in Gleanings, picture and all. Yes, such 

 items do good. — Ed.] 



Camphor in the Carbolic-cloth Solution. 



Carbolic cloths can not be surpassed by any kind 

 of smoker. I have handled blacks and hybrids, of 

 very vicious temper, with the greatest of ease, and 

 under many adverse conditions, as well as Italians. 

 I procure a 4-oz. medicine-bottle and get 1 oz. of 

 pure carbolic acid, also 2 oz. of camjjhor. (;4et a 

 pestle and mortar and break the camphor up fine, 

 then pour on the carbolic; and after it has dis- 

 solved the camphor, bottle for use. The reason I 

 mention a 4-oz. bottle is that I have always found 

 it handy in my pocket when out. 



Toronto, Ont. R. V. Keyhoe. 



How Many Kinds of Italian Bees are there? 



What kind of Italian bee is the best? How far 

 would it do to ship colonies of bees ? I should like 

 to buy some this spring. A. T. Danielson. 



[There are but two main divisions or kinds of 

 Italian bees — the leather-colored (often called the 

 three-banded) and the five-banded. The latter 

 bees have been tared especially for the color, and 

 sometimes are more irritable and less hardy than 

 the former. The red-clover Italians are simply one 

 strain of the ordinary leather-colored. 



Bees may be shipped almost any distance. By 

 express it is possible to ship across the country; 

 and if the bees are prepared in good shape they 

 should go through all right. — Ed.] 



No More Bees Shipped into Imperial Co., California. 



At a meeting of the Board of Supervisors of this 

 county an ordinance was passed for the protection 

 of the bee industry of this county. This goes into 

 effect Feb. 1, 1912. On and after that date no more 

 bees will be permitted to be brought into this 

 county. This act became necessary because so 

 many bees were being brought in from infected 

 counties. This county contains about 11,000 colo- 

 nies of bees: and with prospects of a poor season in 

 coast counties there was danger of importing brood 

 diseases. Any violation of this ordinance is pun- 

 ishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, 



A. F. Wagner, 

 Inspector of Apiaries of Imperial Co,, Cal. 



El Centro. Cal., Jan. 15. 



Clusters Hanging Clear to the Bottom-board in a 

 Temperature of 19*-' below Zero. 



I am afraid that a good many bees have " gone 

 the route,'" One man I know, who w'ill not spend a 

 dollar for a bee-journal, lost eight stands of bees 

 early in the fall. They all starved to death, 



I winter my colonies on their summer stands. 

 They are still all right. The clusters are hanging 

 clear to the bottom-board. Yesterday morning it 

 was 19 degrees below zero. 



Plattsmouth, Neb., Jan. 8. J. Nielson. 



Why did the Bees Destroy their Own Queen-cell 

 Cups ? 



I had a colony last spring. While I was looking 

 through it 1 found live queen-cell cups partially 

 built, and just laid in by the queen. About a week 

 later I went with a new hive, with the intention of 

 dividing, but there was not a cell to be found. 

 I wonder what had become of those cups or partly 

 built cells. 



Filer, Idaho. I>ofis A. B.\kbezat. 



[Is it not probable that a swarm had Issued mean- 

 while?— Kd.] 



Something Needed to Kill the Grass. 



What the bee-men want in this part of the coun- 

 try is some way to kill out the grass and weeds 

 among the hives so that the mountain or brush 

 fires will not destroy whole apiaries as they have 

 done this year. 



San Marcos, Cal., Jan. 9. G. F. Merriam. 



