l88o 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTtTfiE. 



65 



ready, and could only Sdy, "(iod bless you, my 

 friends; God bless you." 



Professor Cook was feeling first rate— was in the 

 best of humor. He looks as if he lived on apples, 

 pears, peaches, strawberries and cream, with oat- 

 meal and o:rahani bread, and never tasted of pon- 

 horse, pigs' feet, sausage, headcheese, and mince 

 pies. I tell you, it makes a pile of dififerenco what a 

 man is made of. 



I could talk to you by the ho\ir of what I saw 

 at the convention, but I am afraid of the editor's 

 gavel, " Out of order! " Mus. L. Harrison. 



Peoria, 111. 



Now, my good friend Mrs. II., I ain going 

 to add to the list of people who were there. 

 In the first place, you were there yourself, 

 and It always does me good to see your geni- 

 al face when I get to any of the bee-conven- 

 tions. Miss LettieWilkins was also there, 

 and quite a goodly number of ladies whose 

 names I have forgotten. And now you have 

 told about what ive did, I am going to tell 

 the children that, when I had to leave to 

 take the train, you said you wanted to throw 

 your old shoes after me for good luck, and I 

 remembered it too. You say that President 

 Koot wouldn't tell how he got such lots and 

 lots of honey. Perhaps the reason why is 

 because he has already told it in his excel- 

 lent book, Quinby"s New Bee-Keeping, and 

 he does not want to be telling it over and 

 over. 



GOOD REPORT FROM A JUVENILE. 



AT„SO A KIN I 



WOIiD roR OVH FKIKM) OI.IVKR 

 FOSTER. 



CHARLIE'S EXPERIENCE WITH BEES. 



WHY DO BEKS RVSH TO THE FIELDS WHEN FED IN 

 THE HIVE? 



T WILL send our report for 1885. My brother 

 ^ Herbert started in the spring with a stand (if 

 ^t hybrids. He bought a nucleus (one pound of 

 ■*■ bees), with tested queen, of Oliver Foster (and 

 he is a square man to deal with). We got it 

 May 2L In all my brother obtained ~05 lbs. of comb 

 honey, of which 70 lbs. came from the nucleus, be- 

 sides moving the nucleus when they were sti'ong in 

 bees, and letting the field-bees go to make another 

 swarm. He sold all his honey at from 1.5 to ITiJ cts. 

 per lb., giving him fljl..50 for his honey. Herbert 

 has now 3 stands, strong in bees and honey. The 

 rest of us had 3 stands in the spring, and increased 

 to 8. We bought two more nuclei of friend Foster, 

 after July 15. They did well, and mine made 20 

 lbs. of surplus in sections, besides being full below. 

 All together we sold .535 lbs. of comb honey, selling 

 the most of it for 15 cts. per lb. We have 13 hives 

 in all. They are packed for winter on their sum- 

 mer stands, with plenty of honey in the hives, and 

 about 200 lbs. in frames, to feed in the spring. We 

 have the ABC book, and could not get along with- 

 out Gleanings. We keep our bees mostly in the 

 Kretchmer Simplicity hive. Florence Green. 

 Emerson, Iowa, Jan. 5, 1886. 



Friend Florence, your report is a i-eal good 

 one. And so a nucleus, bought after July 

 1-5, gave you 20 lbs. of comb honey, did it V 

 Now, this 20 ll)s. of comb honey probably 

 paid the cost of the nucleus, and you have 

 the bees and stores left. If we could all do 

 as well as that, bee culture Avould be fun, 

 wouldn't it V We are glad, also, to know 

 that friend Foster succeeds so well in pleas- 

 ing all his customers. 



R. IK^OT:— This winter has been a mild one 

 so far. The thermometer has ranged be- 

 tween 30° and 40° nearly every daj', and 

 many nights it has not got down to freez- 

 ing. The bees have had several flights 

 during December, and they also Hew on New Year's 

 day. The way we prepared our bees for winter was 

 to fill the upper story of the hive with soft dry oat 

 chaff thrown in loosely. Most of our swarms gath- 

 ered enough honey to winter on, but some of them 

 had to be fed in the fall. To avoid robbers we fed 

 at night. If we fed them before it was really dark, 

 sometimes one of the swarms that we fed would 

 rush out in great clouds, roar about through the 

 air, come into the house, and some of them in their 

 e.\citement would go out to the buckwheat flowers, 

 although it would be nearly dark. They were very 

 cross at these times. They would return at dark, 

 and in the morning would be as peaceful and quiet 

 as if nothing of the kind had happened. While do- 

 ing this, not a bee would be moving about the other 

 hives, so it could not be robbing. 1 think that a bee 

 may liave stolen a load from the vessel containing 

 syrup when it was sometimes set out to cool, for 

 often I saw a robber at the syrup. When be emp- 

 tied his load and again started forth, part of the 

 swarm followed him. Do you think this was the 

 cause of it? From this we took warning not to put 

 syrup within the robbers' reach any more. We also 

 fed some in December when the days were warm 

 enough for the bees to fly. 



moving a weak colony THAT HAS BEEN ROB- 

 BING, A COUPLE OF MILES AWAY. 



Last spring we had a box hive that got so weak 

 that only a small handful of bees remained, and 

 they could scarcel.v be seen at all, away back 

 among the combs. The robbers bothered it so that 

 we at last moved it a couple of miles away. This 

 was during locust bloom, and before basswood 

 blossomed it had built up to a heavy swarm. We 

 had another swarm a little larger than this one that 

 built up and cast two swarms. 



THE ADVANCE GUARD THAT PRECEDES THE SWARM; 

 PUTTING A LARGE SWARM INTO A SMALL HIVE. 



In swarming time last summer a runaway swarm 

 came past me, in which I noticed that a little band 

 of bees were going along in advance, followed bj' 

 the main body. In 1884 we put a large swarm into a 

 hive that was too small for it. It absconded; and 

 while attempting to get them into another hive the 

 queen must have accidentally got killed, for the 

 swarm attempted to return to the hive that they ab- 

 sconded from, and were nearly all killed, because 

 they got into another hive near by containing bees. 

 They rushed through the hive and into the air with 

 sad, wailing sounds, clearly indicating trouble and 

 distress, and that trouble was undoubtedly the loss 

 of their queen. 



A CAUTION IN REGARD TO .I.^RRING HIVES UN- 

 NECESSARILY. 



Will bees consume honey wastefully when .jarred? 

 In the fall, one of our swarms was jarred so that it 

 tore open some of its honey, and filled themselves 

 with it, and every time for some time after that, 

 that I looked into them (although I would not jar 

 them at all), they would seem excited, and would 



