546 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



JUIA' 1. 



they are not gentle, and they are not up to 

 either in beauty. 



Now. the fact is, there are a great many pur- 

 chasers (I almost said breeders) of five-banded 

 bees who never saw a 7'eal flve-batided bee; 

 and a queen that gives a good per cent of real 

 five-banded bees is something very remarkable. 

 The great majority of them give bees that are 

 yellow three-banded, and whose bees vary in 

 color quite a good deal. " Golden " is a correct 

 name for them. If it is money you wish to make, 

 and can supply a large demand, by return mail, 

 you want to breed goldens, and goldensonly. 

 You can sell ten of them to one of imported 

 stock. But there is nothing to be gained in 

 any way by mixing them For reasons that 

 are satisfactory to me, I keep only imported 

 queens, and their daughters ; but I have no 

 quarrel to pick with the man who would not 

 have any thing but the goldens. They simply 

 suit my climate and range the best ; but do not 

 go to mixing them. 



EIGHT AND TEN FRAME HIVES. 



The expression has become almost stereotyp- 

 ed, that eight Langstroth frames are enough 

 for an ordinary Italian <iueen. I wish to go on 

 record as disputing this (though I use eight- 

 frame hives, and have 2.5 sound ten-frame hives 

 which I do not use). The point is here: A 

 colony will do about as well on eight as on ten 

 Langstroth frames, and I don't know but they 

 will do better, as a ten-frame colony's brood- 

 nest is the wrong shape. But make the eight- 

 frame hive the same capacity as the ten-frame, 

 by adding iwo inches in depth to the frames, 

 and they will rear as great a percentage of 

 brood in it as they did when it was only the 

 Langstroth depth. You can still further add 

 depth by making the frame the depth of a 

 body and super, and still get your percentage 

 of brood. But you can not get the same results, 

 as suggested in a footnote, by adding the half- 

 depth frames (this is one of the cases where it 

 should be, but the bees say it is not). A brood- 

 frame this depth, nearly 14 inches, is too deep 

 for practical work. It's liabfe to break down 

 and melt, and many other mishaps ; and if 

 hives are set at the slant and angle we see most 

 of them vvh( n going over the country, a comb 

 of this depth would extend across about the 

 space of three combs. It is, I say. impracticable 

 for ordinary use. But by way of experiment, 

 an ordinary Italian queen will use as great a 

 per cent of comb for brood in a hive of this size 

 as her ordinary sister will use in an eight-frame 

 hive; but the man who would make an apiary 

 of all this size of frames would regret it; and if 

 the eight-frame hive is reduced in length a 

 half, making the frames 9i4;x!)i4, percentage of 

 of brood will be the sanv. There seems to be 

 some trouble in getting colonies of equal 

 strength for experimental and othi-r purposes. 

 This, to me, does not seem very diflicult. Choose 

 colonies in which you believe the queens to be 



equal. Remove the queens and let them alone 

 two or three days. Then take the colonies to 

 the honey-house (which has been made bee- 

 tight); shake all the bees off the combs togeth- 

 er, and let them cluster. After they are all clus- 

 tered, have boxes prepared, and a funnel", about 

 as you do when bees are shipped by the pound. 

 Set one of the boxes on the scales, and set the 

 scales at the weight of bees wanted (remember- 

 ing that bees full of honey, as they will be, will 

 not be as numerous as the scales indicate; 5 lbs. 

 will be only 3 to 3K lbs. of bees). By using care 

 there should be about the same quality of bees in 

 each box. Set the boxes away for a few hours. 

 Divide the brood as even as possible. When 

 evening comes, shake the bees in front of the 

 hives containing the brood, and release the 

 queen which you wish to occupy the hive, and 

 you have colonies as nearly even as they can be 

 made, and the bees will be from different 

 queens. 

 Atlantic, la.. June 11. 



[It is indeed true, that the rage seems to be 

 for yellow color, both in queens and bees. If 

 they are yellow the customer is satisfied, no mat- 

 ter what their other characteristics may be. 

 (See editorials.) 



Our imported stock, while dark or leather- 

 colored, are remarkably uniform in good temper, 

 prolificness. and good working qualities. Here 

 is what a subscriber thinks of them:] 



THE IMPORTED ITALIAN STOCK. 



GOOD WINTERING QUALITIES, ETC. 



By Harry Lnthrop 



Mr. Roof;— In 1883 I bought an imported Ital- 

 ian queen of you, paying S>9.00 for her in May. 

 She was of a fine yellowish cast, very active and 

 prolific. I Italianized two-thirds of my apiary 

 of 100 colonies that same season; and during 

 the cold winter that followed, that same im- 

 ported blood was quieter during the winter 

 months, and came oiit stronger, than any oth- 

 ers, not coming out on the cellar bottom to die, 

 as the others did in 1884. She proved to be very 

 l^rolific, and was ready to cast a swarm about 

 May 20. As they failed to swarm I opened the 

 hive ten days after, and, behold, there were as 

 many as 20 large queen-cells, all seaUd up, and 

 not an egg in the hive. I said. "Good-by. old 

 queen; " but in looking over the hive I discov- 

 ered my queen. She had grown very small, and 

 I saw I must have accidentally hurt her in my 

 previous overhauling of the hive. I took out 

 one frame of brood with all the adhering bees 

 and old queen, and put it away in another hive, 

 and added more young bees, and brood ready to 

 hatch. In a few days she began to lay. and the 

 bees began to build queen-cells; and in duetime | 

 a fine yellow queen hatched and mated, and 

 went to laying with the mother-queen, and re- 

 mained. I took out the young queen, and the 

 bees built moie cells, and another laying queen 



