1886 



GLEANII^GS IN BEE CULTUilE. 



85:; 



iioi'th side, near the top of the ridg-e, with no wind- 

 break on the north. There was timber on the east, 

 close to the bees, and timber south near to the bees. 

 A house and big barn and some timber were on the 

 west, with a few trees among- the bees. Now, had 

 this yard been open to the east and south, and had 

 there been a good windbrcals north of them, they 

 would have been all right; but as it was, there was 

 too much shade, which kept the hives too damp and 

 cold in the spring:. The bees would come out, be- 

 come chilled, and dwindle badly. We moved this 

 apiary last June four miles to a better-protected lo- 

 cation. 



I am sure we can make bee-keeping- a success, and 

 winter our bees outdoors on their summer stands 

 in Ibis part of Wisconsin. If a man is g-oing- to com- 

 mence bee-keeping-, the first thing- is pasture for 

 his bees, and here the main dependence is white 

 clover and basswood. Then if he is g-oing- to winter 

 outdoors lie must have good windbreaks— timber 

 or hig-h blufls on the north and west sides. Locate 

 the apiary on the north side of a valley, facing the 

 south, and do not have shade-trees in the apiary. 

 They keep the hives too moist. Give the apiary the 

 benefit of the morning sun, to dry off the dew and 

 warm them up. Look out for an easy way to get 

 out of the apiary with the honey. Don't put the 

 bees too near the dwelling-house or barn or stock- 

 j'ard, nor near a public road, nor where the bees 

 will be liable to sting- folks about their work, or 

 when traveling along the road. Don't locate with a 

 meddlesome family, nor among- them. It will cause 

 no end of trouble and vexation. Locate with a good 

 respectable family, and pay them well for their 

 trouble. Keep on hand a few extra clean veils for 

 the use of visitors; and when they come, treat them 

 with due attention, and answer all their questions 

 carefully. Don't be afraid you will teach somebody 

 something. 



DO WE OWN TJIE L.\ND WHERE OUR An.VRlES .\RE 

 AWA\' FROM HOME':' 



No. All the land we own is -where we live and 

 keep our home apiary. Other places we pay rent 

 for, and we pay from $10.00 to ^15.00 a year for each 

 yard. We aim to pay about 35 to 33 cents a colony, 

 spring count. We have never paid over 30, and we 

 have no trouble in getting places at this price. The 

 family have nothing to do with tlie bees. Wo do all 

 the work; we visit each yard in the honey season 

 once a week or ten days. If we attend to them in 

 just a week, with no longer^ intervals, there will be 

 no swarms out. We keep the queens' wings clipped, 

 so in case they do swarm when we are away there 

 are no swarms lost. The bees go back, and usuallj' 

 the queen gets back also. But in case the queen 

 should be lost the last of June or first of July, or in 

 any part of July for that matter. It is no loss at all 

 as far as the honey crop is concerned. We never 

 get any sui-])lus honey after the ~2d of July. Two 

 years we have ceased our work on the 13th of .July. 

 Now, if we should lose a queen, say the3r)thof Jvine, 

 her eggs keep on hatching until fbout the L5th of 

 July. Those last-hatched bees won't get out to 

 gather any honey until the harvest is over. I think 

 we could get more honey with the queens taken 

 away the 35th to the 30th of June than we could 

 to have them remain, because then there would be 

 an interval, right jp the height of the honey-har- 

 vest, when there would not be a herd of hungry 

 larva^ to feed. The bees will raise a young queen, 

 so we shall have a young queen in the place of an 



old one to winter, and the young queen has plenty 

 of time to raise bees to winter. The bees will work 

 just as well without a queen as they will with one, 

 providing they have material out of which to raise 

 one. If I had a colony of bees that had the swarm- 

 ing fevei", I would take away their queen, and that 

 would cure them at once. But, of course, we should 

 have to attend to cutting- out queen-cells after that. 



I thinklha\e now answered all the questions I 

 have on hand. E. France. 



Plateville. Wis., :Mar. 37, l.Sf-6. 



Friend F., we are very much obliged in- 

 deed for the very valuable facts you give us. 

 Within a mile of where J am now writing is 

 a deep gully, surrounded on the north and 

 west by hills covered with tall forest-trees. 

 In this gully is a Hat spot and a l)eautiful 

 little spring; and for yeaislhave wanted 

 to locate an apiary just on that spot. As it 

 is, however, half a mile from any wagon- 

 road there would be some difliculty in get- 

 ting to and from it. But your experience 

 corroborates what I have long felt— that it 

 would pay us well to select such spots for 

 our bee-hives. On bleak cold days, when 

 icicles are hanging everywhere, we find a 

 pleasant summer temperature in protected 

 nooks like these. Another trouble with my 

 pet location is, there is not a house within 

 lialf a mile. I have been thinking I should 

 like to move some bees there and camp out 

 during clover and linden bloom, and I really 

 believe it would pay. 



DETEKMINATION OF SEX IN BEES. 



AN INTERESTING CASE SHOWING THAT THE SIZE 

 OF THE CELL PLAYS NO PART IN THE MATTER. 



fAVING read with interest several articles in 

 Gleanings on the subject of sex of the bee 

 as determined by the queen, I will add an 

 item which s?ems to me of some interest as 

 bearing on the question. 

 Last summer I had a colony of blacks that 

 became queenless. A comb of brood, with sev- 

 eral queen cells, was given. These were soon all 

 destroyed except two, and one of those was open at 

 the side; but the larva appeared uninjured. I 

 pressed the opening together closely, returned the 

 frame, and smoked the hees freely. No further ef- 

 fort was made to destroy the cells. They were not 

 again looked to till the young queen had been lay- 

 ing for several days. I then found part of one 

 comb filled with drone-larvse, as afterward proved 

 to be the case. These, apparently, she produced 

 first. I also found about two frames filled with 

 worker-eggs, evidently laid afterward. These last 

 were all in good shape, except that very few were 

 in the center of bottom, but on the side of the cell, 

 or near the side and on the base of the cell. The 

 (lueen was looked up, and was found to be deform- 

 ed. What seemed to be a scar, when seen under a 

 magnifying power of four or five diameters, was 

 found upon the upper right-hand surface of the ab- 

 domen, beginning in the first ring, and extending 

 backward and slightly forward across the second 

 and third rings, and terminating near the middle of 

 the fourth in a sort of knotty appearance, and with 

 a slight protuberance. The extremity of the abdo- 

 men was drawn to the right so much as to be nearly 

 Oil fi Jipc with tjie right side of the abdomen. The 



