IS 



GLEAN l.NGS IN iiEE CULTUUE. 



June 



tlioughfc your bees had gone crazy. Proba- 

 bly a great part of the trouble was caused by 

 the ciiange in the way you locate your hives. 

 Why notdivlde them i)efore they are ready 

 to swarm, and not have any swarming.? 

 That is the way we do here; but then, we 

 doiTt raise comb honey, you know. No 

 wonder you wanted to sit down and fan 

 yourself with a rhubarb leaf. Sometimes 

 the bre-s seem to have a sort of mania when 

 they first commence swarming in the spring ; 

 but I think if you keep patient you will find 

 they will get over it and behave all right 

 after a little. 



MRS. HA.RRISOW IN REGARD TO THE 

 MISTAKES SHE HAS MADE. 



SH.VI.r^ BEES BE LET ALONE IN THE SPRING, OR 

 SH.iLL THEY BE FUSSED WITH? 



'HEN our littlo girl used to do any thing 

 wrong- she would say, " I made a mistak- 

 en;" and I have come to the conclusion, 

 that I have made many "mistakens" in 

 iny spring management of bees. Last fall, 

 when I fl.ved them up for their winter's rest I told 

 them that I would not meddle with tlieir house- 

 hold arrangements until aftev fruit-bloom, and I 

 have kept my word to them in good faith. I laid 

 some comb honey upon the frames of a few that 

 seemed light when carried from the cellar, and fed 

 in the open air all the odds and ends of honey that 

 liad accumulated in the honey-house during the 

 winter. I always keep a regular feeding-ground in 

 the same place, and I have never induced robbing 

 by so doing. 



One spring, following severe winter losses, I tried 

 to follow Mr. Doolittle, and I am confident I de- 

 stroyed many weak colonies that would have 

 pulled through if I had let them alone. There are 

 so many minor points and notes of warning that the 

 successful ones fail to give in their modus operan- 

 di, that what is safe in their hands often proves 

 a failure in the hands of others. Hereafter I shall 

 do my sptiwj work in the fall; i. e., I shall feed them 

 if they need it, abundantly, tuck them up snug and 

 warm, and let them manage their own affairs until 

 after fruit-bloom. I have had less balling of 

 queens, swarming out, etc., this season than ever 

 before, and they never so entirely alone paddled 

 their own canoe. Clover is blooming, with very 

 cool nights, and little honej' comiiTg- in. It is very 

 dry in this locality. Hives are running over with 

 bees, but few swarms. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Peoria, 111. 



Mrs. II., I, too, have come to the conclu- 

 sion tiiat we did our bees a serious damage 

 by cleaning out the hives, closing up the 

 brood -chamber, and too much manipulation 

 before the weather had got to be warm and 

 settled. I have seen them swarm out just 

 after their hives had been overhauled, when 

 the bees that had not been tinkered with be- 

 haved themselves aTl right. Now, I suspect 

 that the wisest way would be to give help 

 when help is needed, and do it when tlie 

 weathei- is suitable, but avoid any thing that 

 demoralizes them or discourages them when 

 they are tirst collecting their latent energies 

 in the spring. For instance: If the queen 

 should die during llie winter, which often 

 hai)pens, the colony would be lost with- 



out attention ; whereas it might be one of 

 the best colonies, if given a queen in season, 

 or sometimes if given only a frame of brood. 

 The same in regard to stores. 



NOT3S FROM THE BANNER APIARY. 



No. 18. 



i 



BENEFIT OF SPRING PACKING. 



TOOK the bees from the cellar the middle of 

 April. It did seem foolish, during the warm 

 ^i days that succeeded, to pack the bees with 

 chair upon their summer stands; but I did it— 

 i. e.. all except the two strongest colonies. At 

 this writing. May 25, they have been unpacked a 

 week, and it is easy to see that several of the pack- 

 ed colonies have outstripped the two left unpro- 

 tected. 



"A VEAR AMO.NG THE BEES." 



This is the title of a bee-book by one of my best 

 bee-friends. Dr. C. C. Miller. It has been said, that 

 the sale of a book depends verj' much upon its title. 

 If this is true, the doctor is to be congratulated, as 

 " A Year Among the Bees " was very happily chos- 

 en to stand at the head of that delightful little nar- 

 rative, descriptive of the apicultural journey of one 

 year; a jaunt that we bee-keepers all take each 

 year. " A Year Among the Bees "— how pat! 



The doctor does not claim to have made any great 

 discovery. He says: " At the risk of losing caste as 

 a beekeeper, I am obliged to confess that I never 

 got up 'a hive of my own,' never even tried to plan 

 one * * * " But I will tell you what he has done. 

 He has removed from our path numberless small 

 obstructions. He has smoothed our pathway, so to 

 speak, and has done the work well. When travel- 

 ing upon the highway it is no great annoyance to 

 go around the hills, to turn aside for some large 

 boulder; but the small stones and ruts in the road- 

 bed are often quite trying to the temper. Great 

 losses and disappointments ai"e sometimes borne 

 with greater equanimity than the petty annoyances 

 and trials that come to us almost dailj'. I feel sure 

 that my friend Miller will not consider it mean 

 praise when I say that he has done more than any 

 other author to show bee - keepers how to avoid 

 the thousand and one pesky little plagues with 

 which they are often tormented. Even if he had 

 not shown us how to receive any more surplus hon-; 

 ey, his book is abundantl.y worth its price, for the 

 simple reason that it shows ut, how to reduce the 

 friction to the minimum. I wish space would per- 

 mit me to go on and notice all the nice little hints 

 that are given. For instance, I have given be?s ac- 

 cess to combs of honey or partly filled sections, and 

 how often I have wished that they wouldn't be so 

 greedy as to t3ar the combs all down. Dr. Miller 

 says: "Pile them up in supers out of doors, cover- 

 ing them up and leaving a hole large enough for 

 only one or two bees to pass at a ti.iije." Why, to 

 be sure! how simple! and yet I had never thought 

 of it. I have tpied it this spring, and it works well. 

 Another thing: He leaves his cellar-doors open the 

 night before the bees are to be taken out, and in 

 the morning they are quiet, and do not cu-s/i from 

 the hives when taken out. He also tells how to 

 take sections from wide frames and supers, how to 

 put fdn. in the sections, about dress for the hottest 

 weather, double hives for full colonies, etc. There 

 are also many handy little implements described, 



