1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



71 



Uniting to Spot a Good Queen. 



It has long been a " notion " in my mind that fall uniting 

 furnishes about the only way we have to discover which of 

 several queens is really the best — best queen sure to be the 

 first one to get infuriated ; and her antagonists are stung and 

 dead before they get their fighting trousers on. I like to 

 unite a half dozen or more colonies into one great one with 

 just this object in view, to discover an extra nice queen. — E. 

 E. Hasty, in Review. 



Clipping ftueens' Wings. 



Some folks are still harping on the foolish theory that 

 clipping the wings of queens will finally cause them to be- 

 come permanently impaired, or even cause the disappearance 

 of those members entirely. If every keeper in the land prac- 

 ticed clipping on all queens, there might be some logic in this 

 kind of " argufyen " (as the negro said), and about the year 

 2599 our posterity might notice some of the bad effects, but 

 even this is doubtful. I presume people have practiced cut- 

 ting the finger-nails for many centuries past, but the most of 

 us have finger-nails yet, unless we have been unfortunate 

 enough to have dropped some heavy weight on one or more of 

 them, and thus been temporarily deprived of them. So long 

 as all queens sent out by breeders have wings, it is hardly 

 necessary to send up a cry against clipping. I suppose these 

 fellows get this idea from what scientists and naturalists tell 

 us about the penguins and other fowls, and insects, losing the 

 use of their wings because they get too fat and lazy to use 

 them. Nevermind! Whenever our queens commence com- 

 ing out of the cells with cropped wings, we will quit cropping, 

 for a year or two at least. — S. E. Milleb, in Progressive. 



Wintering Bees — Weak Colonies. 



Since we gave large entrances at the sides of the combs by 

 raising one side of the hive, and putting under a half-inch 

 block (our hives are not nailed, but clamped at the corners), 

 we have lost no colonies if they were in proper condition when 

 put into the cellar with queens and sufficient honey. From 

 three or four, when being piled up in the cellar, the block 

 came out, letting the sides down, which gave them only their 

 front entrances at the ends of the combs. They all came 

 through in bad condition, and most of them kept dwindling 

 down, and died before white clover came, showing that close 

 confinement makes bees unhealthy. We generally leave the 

 honey-board on top of the frames, and lay on the second honey- 

 board ; the slats between mal<e a dead-air space. They were 

 put in the cellar about the middle of November. We like that 

 time better than to wait longer, unless warm weather contin- 

 ues. In that case we watch the weather, and put in with the 

 coming of cold wave. 



We don't try to winter weak colonies, but unite ; but on the 

 weakest ones, in point of numbers, of the good colonies, so far 

 as we can judge, we tie a red string, and set them in the cen- 

 ter of the cellar, and leave them in the latest in the spring, not 

 leaving any later than the 1st to 10th of April. Several 

 springs, our cellar being so full, we would take some out the 

 middle of March, and once the first of March, so we could keep 

 the rest cool enough until about the 1st of April. Then we 

 took out the greater part, but left some few in until the last of 

 April. The last ones taken out gave but very little surplus 

 honey, not having built up into strong colonies soon enough. 

 Those taken out the first and middle of March were better 

 than those left in until the last of April. — Mrs. L. C. Axtbll, 

 of Illinois, in Gleanings. 



Doolittle's Beginning. » 



When I first commenced bee-keeping I was greatly bene- 

 fitted by the writings of E. Gallup, M. Quinby, L. L. Lang- 

 stroth, Adam Grimm, and many others, for by their writings I 

 learned my A B C in bee-culture. My first year of bee-keep- 

 ing resulted in 12 pounds of surplus box or comb honey and 

 one swarm, from the two I bought to commence with in the 

 spring. The next season I obtained about 25 pounds surplus 



from each hive I had in the spring, on an average. The next 

 season I conceived the idea that more honey might be obtained 

 by making my hives smaller, as regards the brood-chamber, 

 than were those then in use, so that year I placed dummies in 

 a part of my hives, to take the place of three frames, or one- 

 fourth of the room, as the hive 1 had been using held 11 Gal- 

 lup frames. The hives thus contracted gave me a much larger 

 yield of surplus honey than did the others left as I had form- 

 erly used them, so in the spring of the fourth season the larger 

 part of my hives had dummies in them, and when the end of 

 the season came I chronicled an average of 80 pounds of box 

 honey, as the average surplus for each colony I had in the 

 spring. During these four years I had studied, read and prac- 

 ticed all my wakeful hours, about the bees, for I never spent 

 an hour in my life in work pertaining to bee-culture without 

 Its being a real pleasure to me. Many a night have I laid 

 awake from one to three hours, planning how to accomplish 

 some result I desired to achieve in regard to the practical part 

 of apiculture. Although I had scarcely the advantage of a 

 common school education, and was not versed in either gram- 

 mar or writing for publication, I felt that I ought to write for 

 the bee-papers, thereby adding the little I might discover 

 from time to time, to the general fund of knowledge, thus 

 helping others what I could, to pay in a small measure the debt 

 of gratitude I owed for the instruction I had gained from the 

 writing of others. So I began to write, and as the editor 

 kindly fixed up my articles so that they were presentable I was 

 encouraged to keep on, and to-day finds me still scribbling 

 away, trying to tell what I know concerning practical bee- 

 keeping. — G. M. DooLiTTLE, in Progressive Bee-Keeper. 



Young Queens Breed Late. 



We know that a great many bee-keepers practice requeen- 

 ing late in the summer after the honey-flow ceases. The ques- 

 tion may well be asked : Is this a good practice in all locali- 

 ties ? It is known that queens answering the above descrip- 

 tion continue to lay for a greater length of time after the 

 honey-flow ceases and are generally more readily stimulated to 

 brood-rearing. In some localities there is a scant fall pasture 

 for beessufficient tokeep them breeding, and this is liable to be 

 so late that young bees do not get a cleansing flight before 

 they go into winter quarters. When you add to this a young 

 queen the danger is very much intensified. A large number 

 of our best bee-keepers are ready to admit that if the honey- 

 flow stops after the linden flow, and there is no more brood- 

 rearing, the bees retain in that quiescent condition their vital- 

 ity. There is, as it were, in nature an evening up. No honey- 

 gathering, no breeding, no, or little, loss of vitality ; honey- 

 gathering, loss of vitality and breeding. Again a still larger 

 number admit that young bees must have a cleansing flight 

 before going into winter quarters. If they do not get this 

 flight they are restless, become diseased and die and probably 

 disturb the older and well-matured bees in the hive, setting up 

 disease and death. We should very much like to have the 

 opinions and experiences of our readers on the above subject. 

 — Canadian Bee .Tournal. 



Weight of Bees, and Bee-Loads. 



The editor of the Review, while admitting that it may be 

 interesting in a scientific way to know the exact weight of a 

 bee and the amount of nectar it can carry at a load, fails to 

 see any practical benefit to the honey-producer. If our print- 

 ed matter were to be confined simply to the methods for con- 

 verting the labor of our minds and hands into bread and but- 

 ter, and honey to put on it, some of the best literature of our 

 bee-journals would have to be eliminated. Man does not live 

 by bread alone, neither should he try to. The practical bear- 

 ing on some questions is not always at once apparent. 



In the case of the bee's weight, or the the weight of honey 

 it can carry, there is a practical side. The knowledge of the 

 average bee-load of nectar gives us the key to the solution of 

 the problem of the number of bees necessary to carry a pound 

 of nectar, and the number of trips that have to be made to the 

 fields. Indirectly we learn how many workers a colony should 

 have in order to get the best results from a certain honey-flow. 

 But perhaps Mr. Hutchinson would ask, "How about the 

 weight of a bee?" In order to know the weight of a bee-Joad 

 we must know the weight of the bee itself. 



Then, too, there have in times past been all sorts of rude 

 guesses as to how many bees there were in a iO-frame colony. 

 Our knowledge is now much more exact ; and hence, in discuss- 

 ing practical questions — those that involve bread-and-butter- 

 getting — our conparisons and our statements of bee-forces will 

 be more in keeping with facts, and hence lead to more exact 

 results. — Gleanings. 



