350 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE 



The Beekeeper and his Hired Help. 



I have never read any thing in Gleanings about 

 hired help: so it may be of interest to aonie to give 

 my experience. When advertisements appear in 

 the bee journals they often contain a restricting 

 clause something like this: " Users of liquor and to- 

 bacco need not apply." This I am pleased to note, 

 for I always did and always shall oppose the use of 

 liquor and tobacco. But to return to the beekeep- 

 er who employs an assistant. What does he do? 

 Well, he tries to get out of his help all that he pos- 

 sibly can for the least money, with work every day, 

 on Sundays, and even on the most important holi- 

 days. Then he engages some local help, which is 

 easily done when the busy season is not yet at hand, 

 and the work is not so hard and rushing, but when 

 it is very much more Interesting. 



The employer seems to care little or nothing about 

 the local man's using tobacco, for he puts him to 

 work with the bees, and keeps his regular help at 

 shop work, when he ought to be (according to the 

 agreement) working with the bees and not all shop 

 work. Shop work is all right. It is very nM;e and 

 pleasant when there is nothing else to do : but work- 

 ing with the bees is by far more enjoyable. 



Now about the salary proposition. We agreed on 

 certain wages, including board and room. I had to 

 travel 2000 miles to reach my destination, and all 

 was lovely and well at the start. After the first 

 month or so the employer found that the landlady 

 at whose place his assistants got their daily bread 

 charged too much for board, and accordingly in- 

 formed his humble servants that they must change 

 to another boarding-place, which we were willing 

 to do. I say we. for there were two of us — myself 

 and a fellow worker for the season, both treated 

 alike. Upon finding bedbugs in the new place we 

 both frankly refused to change, as there were 

 enough of the vermin in the former place. Our 

 first landlady was already making war and a des- 

 perate battle on the bugs, and succeeded in getting 

 them pretty well exterminated. Bedbugs may 

 be all right for the class of people who never 

 knew what It is to be without them, having been 

 brought up and raised with them, but we didn't 

 happen to have been brought up that way. 



Being unwilling to stay at the new place we had 

 to pay the diflerence in the price of board. Right 

 here I want to say that all beekeepers contemplat- 

 ing engaging future and necessary help had better 

 make preparations before their employees arrive, 

 and thus avoid hard feelings, or else keep their ad- 

 vertisements out of the papers, for some of them 

 don't intend to live up to their agreement in the 

 first place. 



Then the likes of two bosses on one bee-ranch 

 sooner or later prove irksome and menacing, and 

 causes continual trouble. Throughout the whole 

 season the boss is tearing hives apart, and his as- 

 sistants are to take care of them and put them to- 

 gether again. By so doing some severe cases of 

 painful siinfiTinfir are encountered, which could have 

 been dispensed with by each individual taking care 

 of certain hives alone. In working alone at certain 

 hives one takes more pleasure and interest in the 

 work, and also accomplishes much more In the end. 

 I am not an amateur at beekeeping, neither am 

 I boasting of myself as a professional in the ever-in- 

 structive art of the apiary I am only giving a brief 

 article on my last year's experience in working on 

 an extensive bee-ranch on a large scale, with about 

 1000 colonies. 

 Lake City, Minn. E. A. Krinkk. 



Splicing in Pieces of Worker Comb where Drone 

 Comb is Cut Out. 



I am cutting out all the drone comb I can find. 

 Where there are corners or where the lower half is 

 drone, I am cutting that out and taking other work- 

 er comb, cutting pieces to fit where the larger cells 

 came out, and filling in worker. It has been my 

 experience that bees will rebuild drone comb if not 

 replaced. 



Crestline, Ohio. M. F. Soulb. 



[It has been our experience that if the combs con- 

 tain any great number of drone cells, they had bet- 

 ter be rendered for wax: for even if worker comb is 

 substituted in the space made vacant by the drone 

 comb removed, it will always be a patched up af- 

 fair and there will be a good many drone cells 

 along the line of intersection of the two pieces. 

 However, if there is only a small amount of the 

 drone comb in the corner say, it undoubtedly pays 



to cut it out and put a piece of worker comb in 

 its place. As you say, if you put in no worker 

 comb, the bees are likely to fill In with drone cells. 

 — EB.] 



More About the Census Figures in Regard to Bee- 

 keeping. 



I note what is said, p. 259, May 1, concerning the 

 United States census and bees. I was a census 

 enumerator in 1910: and, while we had no instruc- 

 tions to gather statistics of bees not kept on farms, 

 we were to take statistics of every colony kept on 

 farms. By the census rules, three acres constituted 

 a farm, I think Mr. Coburn is slightly wrong about 

 the necessity of the product amounting to 1400 be- 

 fore the apiary would be considered in statistics. 



I agree that the statistics of the bee industry are 

 not reliable, inasmuch as no count was made of 

 bees in towns. However, the same condition holds 

 true of the poultry industry. 



Allenville, Mich., May 4. W. K. Palmer. 



Another Reason Why the Census Figures were 

 not Accurate. 



I have read the editorial, May 1st, about the last 

 census of bees. Let me tell you how It was taken 

 here, or, rather, not taken. My mother, a widow, 

 was at a neighbor's when the census man called 

 there. He asked her to give in her list then, and 

 she told him that she could not give him an accu- 

 rate list, as we boys ran the farm and he would have 

 to see us about the stock, etc. He never called, and 

 some of us were at home all the time. He told my 

 brother in town it did not matter much, as he al- 

 ways put down what he thought was right. I don't 

 know he knew what was right. At that 

 time I had 110 colonies of bees. He did not know 

 that I kept bees, so none of these were listed. I 

 know of several other small beekeepers who are 

 farmers, who were not asked about their bees. I 

 feel sure that not over 25 per cent of the bees in this 

 (Bath) county were numbered. Is there any won- 

 der why beekeeping has declined (in figures) so 

 long as census-taking is only another pie-counter 

 for the politician. 



Sharpburg, Ky. Raymond Smather. 



Swarm, Swarm, Swarm. 



I think I can beat Mr. E. A. Day, page 280, May 1. 

 I had a colony of bees in a log gum which cast a 

 prime swarm April 22. I hived them on one-inch 

 foundation starters, and they began to draw out the 

 cells, but swarmed out and left the next day. A 

 second swarm Issued from the parent hive on May 

 2, but returned without clustering. They issued 

 again May 'i and clustered, but returned before I 

 could hive them. At 8 a.m., May 4, they came out 

 again and clustered. This time 1 succeeded in get- 

 ting them into a new hive, but they returned to 

 the old one in less than half an hour. At 11:30. the 

 same morning, they came out again and clustered. 

 I hived them again, and they have been working 

 nicely ever since. 



On May 5 a third swarm issued from the parent 

 colony and clustered, but returned in about 20 min- 

 utes. May 6 they swarmed out again about 8;30 

 A.M. and clustered. I was working about a mile 

 and a half from home, so they had to hang on the 

 bush until I came home to dinner. Just as I was 

 preparing to hive them they let go the limb on 

 which they had been all the morning, and left for 

 parts unknown. 



Huntsville, Ala. H. M. Webster. 



That Swarm that Did Not Cluster. 



In my experience with bees of over sixty years, I 

 have never known a swarm to issue and leave with- 

 out clustering unless they had previously issued 

 and returned to their parent hive, p. 284, May 1. In 

 this case, sometimes the queen will be unable to 

 fly: and, not returning with the swarm, the bees 

 will issue later with a virgin queen. Such swarms 

 are always very large, as hatching bees are added 

 until the siyarm is ready to reissue with a virgin 

 queen. In this case of Mr. Grams the bees no doubt 

 had previously swarmed and returned to the hive, 

 and in the interval had sent out scouts and located 

 that tree. 



South Bethlehem, N. Y. G. J Flansburgh. 



[See what A. I. Root has to say on this subject, p. 

 306, May 15.— Ed.] 



