1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



373 



lbs., comb and extracted honey, which was con- 

 sidered about half of the product of the State, 

 or, say, a total of no tons. It is a little curious 

 to note, that Mr. Richardson, of Ventura Coun- 

 ty, this State, produced 04 tons, or more than 

 the whole State of Vermont. 



I hear of quite a number of bee-keepers who 

 cut out pollen -laden combs, and let the bees 

 build new combs. I don't believe the plan pays. 

 Admit there is much pollen, I have never seen 

 combs so full of pollen in the fall but would use 

 it in the spring for brood-rearing, and that. too. 

 here in California. Cutters and slashers, 

 haven't you got a whim in your heads? 



A Stray Straw gives us a point on larv;v in 

 honey, and I fear there is much of it in honey 

 in California. Many honey-producers are very 

 careless in their methods of extracting, and 

 much larvfe is thrown out with the honey; and 

 where so many larvije and so much larval food 

 are mixed with the honey it certainly has an ef- 

 fect upon the flavor. The queen -excluding 

 honey-board is a sovereign remedy for the evil. 



Wonder if Somnambulist ever has the night- 

 mare. If so. he can sympathize with the Sting- 

 er. I have slept in the same hotel with the lat- 

 ter, and I know that he has the doubled and 

 twisted kind. Oh. no! Stinger's best girl has 

 not gone back on him. The Rambler used to 

 run a sawmill; it would run very slow or stop 

 altogether when the pond ran dry. Wonder if 

 that is what's the matter with the Stinger. 



Mrs. Atchley, says, in A. B. J., that it is hard 

 to introduce drones to a colony having a laying 

 ■queen. Quinby taught that the drones of an 

 apiary were rather promiscuous in choosing 

 their habitation; that they would be tolerated 

 in any hive during the swarmine season. I 

 have an idea that Quinby was right. But I 

 will not contradict a woman; no. sir, 'e; there's 

 trouble enough around the Rambler's shanty 

 now. 



I will continue to u«e propolized burlaps for 

 fuel for smoker", seeing that no less an authori- 

 ty than J. E. Crane, of Vermont, advocates it. 

 Bee keepers iu this State have told me that 

 propolized fuel of any kind would set bees to 

 robbing. I have seen no such effects. Burlaps 

 are good fuel for smokers here. Straw, a In 

 Mclntyre. does very well, but soon clogs the 

 smoker. Tliis is not a rotten-wooded country, 

 the»*efore give us the next best thing— burlaps. 



Yellow flowers carpet the ground through 

 March, and the head beauty of them all is the 

 poppy, the State flower. Mrs. Kellogg de- 

 scribes it thus: "Think of finest gold, of clear- 

 est lemon, of deepest orange on silkiest texture, 

 just bedewed with frostlike sheen, a silvery 

 film; multiply this by acres of waving color, 

 and you have a faint impression of what an 

 eschscholtzia is." The modest alfilaree. barely 

 peeping from the ground, spreads a purple car- 

 pet; the little blossom less that a half-inch in 



diameter gives u\) its nectar early in the morn- 

 ing, and bees work on it all through March. 



That is splendid advice given to would-be 

 emigrants, by Mrs. Atchley, and emphasized by 

 Editor York on page ;2y5, A. B. J. If we do live 

 in the far W<st, Mrs. A. and I, and ramble 

 around some, we do not have apiaries all cut 

 and dried for you to sit down on where you can 

 make untold wealth. We have had to write to 

 quite a number that we are not in the locating 

 business. Mes>ieurs Emigrants, please paste 

 the following in your hat, and look at it often: 



Wliilo on this subject, let us say that we think 

 th;it no one sliould rush off to a straiiffo part of the 

 (■(Uiniry. intending- to loc-jiio permanently, witliout 

 tirst liaviiiK llioiontilily and personally iincst ijialed 

 the advanlaKcs and (lisiidvarilafj-esof tlic new plare. 

 We believe in jie-iple try ng- to better themselves if 

 possible, but we also feel that every rlfht-niinded 

 person will a^ree with us in urRinjf deliberation 

 upon those who expect to make a permanent move. 



PLURALITY OF dUEENS IN A HIVE AT A 

 TIME. 



SENDING QUKENS TO AUSTRALIA A FAILURE; 

 A WA.SHING RECIPE FOR DR. MILLER. 



Two or more queens iu one hive seems to have 

 had a good deal of attention recently. Last 

 summer I caught six black queens and put all 

 in a small box together. They fought some, 

 but none were hurt, and I dumped the whole 

 lot into a queenless three-frame nucleus, and 

 next day I found five— four apparently all right, 

 and one pretty well "polished oft'" (no wings 

 left); but the bees were not offering to molest 

 her. I saw three of the sound ones in the act 

 of laying. Next day one of them disappeared, 

 and then for a week there were three good 

 queens and a crippled one, all in a three-frame 

 hive, and there was no honey coming in at the 

 time. I removed all of the queens at the end of 

 a week, and did not experiment further. 



I sent 9 queens to Australia. Sept. 14, 1893; and 

 of eight reported so far, only two live />ce.s in 

 the lot are able to fly, and the other nearly 

 dead. 



Now, friend Root, are you not a "little oft'" 

 ([). 941) about a dose of sea-water"? I never saw 

 an ocean steamer, but I doubt very much wheth- 

 er the mail would be allowed to get wet. The 

 cage I used was like? this: I took a ><-inch 

 board about ^]4'^'^}4 and bored two 1^-inch 



