860 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. l.j. 



a single board. [Yes, one board will help to off- 

 set the naughtiness of the other.— Ed.] 



Robbers. That way of fighting them, men- 

 tioned on p. 83.5, I've practiced successfully for 

 years, using grass, hay, or straw. But don't 

 use half-way measures. Pile up to the top of 

 the hive, and then pour on water by the pail- 

 ful, and keep it poured on. 



One reason, perhaps, that queens went up 

 and down from one story to another for me 

 more than for C. A. Hatch was, that I had % 

 inch of burr-combs and honey between the two 

 stories. [I had thick-top frames and no burr- 

 combs, and the queen went up " all 'e samee."— 

 Ed.] 



Laying workers, according to Herr Duerr, 

 in Gravenhorst's Bierienzeitunq , come about in 

 this way: When the colony becomes queenless, 

 the nurse-bees, having nothing to feed, have 

 themselves the benefit of the extra nourish- 

 ment they would have fed to larvie, and thus 

 are stimulated to laying. 



In Germany, beginners applying to the sec- 

 retary of the Schleswig-Holstein Association 

 can have a suitable person sent to instruct and 

 assist in putting bees in winter quarters or in 

 taking them out. Charges, 12K cents for an 

 apiary, or 2}.^ cents per colony if there are more 

 than five colonies in the apiary. 



Those small, frames mentioned on page 789 

 were certainly not very small — about 2 ft. 

 square— but it should have read "<i square 

 decimeters,"' or something like 9x10 inches. 

 " Six decimeters carres" is not "six decimeters 

 square," but "six square decimeters."— [You 

 are doubtless right, but we had no way of know- 

 ing any thing about it aside from what Mr. 

 Norman wrote.— Ed.] 



"Weeds and things" is my "best holt," 

 Ernest. I lose less money on them than on any 

 other crop I can put in, aside from their use to 

 " mark the locality." See p. 833. [Your yard 

 was no worse in point of weeds than the yards 

 of most bee-keepers I have visited. The fact is, 

 many of them furnish either pollen or a little 

 honey. Sweet clover grows rank and thick 

 about most bee-keepers' homes. But, say, the 

 way that small boy "marked your locality" 

 was a joke too good to keep.— Ed.] 



In Russia, Tseselsky reports the average 

 consumption of honey from Nov. 15th to April 

 1st thus: In single-wall hives, 11.68 lbs.; in 

 double-wall hives, 8.93 lbs.; in a cave with 

 temperature varying from 33 to .50°, 4.63 lbs.; in 

 a dark room kept steadily at 64°, 4.56 lbs.; 

 buried in the earth, temperature 46°, 4.52 lbs. 

 This was in a mild winter, the thermometer 

 never going below 3° above 0, Fahr. I've al- 

 ways thought of Russian winters as colder than 

 that. [Here indeed are some valuable data. 

 They are not far from right, because they agree 

 essentially with some experiments in this coun- 

 try.— Ed.J 



Our Symposium. 

 LARGE OR^MALL HIVES. 



The Effect of Locality, Season, and Size of Colony ; 

 The Hives that Averaged those Barrels of 

 Honey in Florida ; Misconceptions Corrected, 

 and a Little Pepper and Salt thrown in ; Tend- 

 ency of Swarming in Small Hives; Valuable 

 Testimony from Some of the Brightest and 

 Most Extensive Honey - Producers in the 

 World. 



that "sweetened water;" eight - fkamk 



HIVES three stories HIGH PREFERRED To 

 THE TEN-FRAME TWO-STORY. 



By H. IT'. MitclifU. 



In Gleanings for Oct. 15 I find an interesting 

 article by A. F. Brown, giving statistics of the 

 honey crop in this location that are, in the 

 main, correct. But he makes a grave charge 

 when he states that " some harvested sweet- 

 ened water instead of good No. 1 honey— notice- 

 ably those who had secured the big yields." 



Friend Brown would certainly not publish a 

 charge of such import unless he were absolute- 

 ly sure of his facts: so, as one of the bee-keep- 

 ers who must plead guilty to having a "big 

 yield" this season I call on him for facts and 

 names; and even if it works injury to one or 

 two bee- keepers, that surely would be the less- 

 er of two evils; for, as the statement now 

 stands, it will injure every bee-keeper in this 

 section (excepting Mr. Brown, whose honey is 

 presumably good No. 1), inasmuch as it will in- 

 jure the sale of their product; for no buyer can 

 be certain that he is not dealing with one of 

 the bee-keepers who have been putting up 

 "sweetened water." "Those who secured the 

 big yields" is rather too sweeping a classifica- 

 tion; for if, as Mr. Brown asserts, "200 lbs. 

 would be about the correct average," then 

 about all the bee-keepers mentioned in his ar- 

 ticle would come under the head of " big yields," 

 for they obtained considerably more than the 

 " correct average." 



I am inclined to think that friend Brown has 

 either gone too far in what he states, or not far 

 enough. 



In footnote on page 794. you express a desire ' 

 to know more in regard to the size of hive used, 

 etc. I use the eight- frame Dovetailed hive, 

 three stories high, exclusively, in my own api- 

 ary. For several years I used the two-story 

 ten-frame hive, but greatly prefer the eight- 

 frame three stories high, as it enables me to 

 gain all the advantages of a large hive without! 

 having to do any heavy lifting. I use seven 

 frames in the two upper stories, for extracting' 

 from, and practice tiering up to thoroughly 

 ripen my honey; at the same time I give the| 

 bees plenty of room to store. 



I extract from the upper story, then lift up 

 the second one, and place the extracted one 

 underneath. This placing of seven emptyj 

 combs right in the middle of hive seems to in- 



