534 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



pi-oven successful, and four queens so hatehetl are 

 now laying' queens; the fifth has the appearance 

 and actions of a fertile queen; but when last exam- 

 ined, no positive evidence of her fertility was dis- 

 cernible. The sixth is too youns' to expect any 

 thing- from at this writing. 



Now, Mr. Root, you liuow I am one of those little 

 fellows; that is, I am in the A B C class, and the 

 above may not be new or strange to you or your 

 readers; but in view of your statement concerning 

 the introduction of young queens by caging, 1 

 concluded I would write j'ou concerning it. 



Where can I find a description of friend Heddon's 

 non-swarming method? S. W. Lakin. 



Eurelfa, 111., Juno 13, 1886. 



Friend L., this matter is by no means 

 new. The whole thing has been gone over 

 in our back journals. As a rule, virgin 

 queens can not be introduced by caging, al- 

 though at times there seem to be a good 

 many exceptions to this rule. The most 

 successful way of getting them into the col- 

 ony is to let them loose among bees just as 

 soon as they are hatched ; and the success of 

 the lamp-nursery depends upon this peculiar 

 fact. Queens that come oft' with an after- 

 swarm are in no way different from those 

 hatched in the lamp-nursery ; that is, pro- 

 viding they are introduced to the colony very 

 soon after being hatched, as those in the 

 lamp-mirsery always should be. Your suc- 

 cess is a little remarkable, although it is 

 quite common to see bees accept of almost 

 any thing you give when honey is coming in 

 bountifully, as I suppose it was at the time 

 of your experiments. Caging queen-cells 

 has been discussed a good many times ; but 

 after a while the plan has been dropped. 

 Friend Doolittle's plan, given in our last is- 

 sue, may, however, bring it into general use. 

 We have decided that as many, or more, 

 cells are lost when giving the queenless col- 

 ony a capped queen-cell than by giving them 

 virgin queens newly hatched.— I sliould think 

 you were having quite encouraging success, 

 friend L., even if you are but a "■ little fel- 

 low" in bee-lore.— Ileddon's plan of non- 

 swarming is fully described in his new book, 

 which we mail from this othce on receipt of 

 lifty cents. 



^ I ^ 



FLORIDA AND ITS FLORA. 



THE NATIVE BEES EXTREMELY LAZV. 



§0 much having been written in Gleaninos 

 about Florida, I thought I would try to en- 

 lighten some of the bee-keepei's who contem- 

 plate coming to the northern part of the 

 State. Anybody, however, who settles in this 

 section will not lind it nearly as productive of hon- 

 ey as almost any of the Northern States. The bees 

 gather just enough honey to winter on (what little 

 winter there is), and an exti-a populous colony may 

 make a few pounds of surplus; but now for the 

 reason. 



The native bee is extremely lazy, working only a 

 short time morning and night. The rest of the time 

 is spent, like the Floridian, trying to keep cool, and 

 no amount of smoking will drive them up in the 

 c(mibs and start them to work. Thinking that 

 queens not indigenous to this climate would surely 



be an improvement, I had a number sent me from 

 the North, but I found they very soon became be- 

 lievers in the maxim, "When in Rome, do as the 

 Romans do." 



Northern Florida would be an excellent place for 

 queen-rearing if it were not for the dragon-tiies 

 (Devil's darning-needle of the North). They con- 

 gregate like tiocks of pigeons; and the poor bee, 

 laden with honey, finds it a difficult task to evade so 

 many of its enemies in its flight to the hive. If the 

 queen took her wedding-trip in the heat of the day 

 all this would be avoided, as they seem to gather in 

 large numbers only at evening; but she generally 

 takes wing when most of the bees are flying. If the 

 bees gathered nectar in proportion to the yield of 

 flowers, the amount of honey produced would cer- 

 tainly be large. In February, after the bees are over 

 with wintering, they commence gathering honey 

 from the honeysuckle, yellow jessamine, and, during 

 the latter part of the month, from orange-blossoms; 

 then continues one long list of honey-producing- 

 plants and trees, such as black gum, holly, persim- 

 mon, gallberry, palmetto, etc. From the two last 

 mentioned they gather what surplus they make. 

 All of the honey is remarkably white and thick. 

 Many persons, who are competent judges, regard 

 that made from orange-blossoms as superior to 

 white clover. 



There is a ready sale at all times for honey in 

 Florida. It is now selling- at 20 c. per lb. ; and dur- 

 ing the winter, when every thing is booming-, the 

 price ranges from 25 to 30 cents, and sometimes 

 even more. C. Moobhouse. 



Hibernia, Florida, June 9, 1886. 



DISPOSING OF THE HOUSE-SLOPS. 



FRIEND TERRY GIVES US SOME PRACTICAL IDEAS 



ON THE SUBJECT, TOGETHER WITH 



SOME FACTS FROM ACTUAL 



EXPERIENCE. 



fRIEND ROOT:— There was a great deal of sick- 

 ness in the family that lived on this farm for 

 some time before I came here. Their physi- 

 cian once told me he felt ashamed of having 

 to come here so much. I think about all of 

 them are now dead. They may not have been a 

 healthy family, but still I feel sure the cause of much 

 of their ill health lay inside of the dooryard fence. 

 My friends, when they heai-d I had bought the 

 place, said, "Don't take your family there to live; 

 it is an unhealthy locality." After looking around 

 awhile I decided it was a bad place to live in, the 

 shape it then was, but that it could be made a very 

 healthy and pleasant home. This is about the shape 

 we found things in: A wing of the house extended 

 over the well, and was used as a kitchen and a place 

 to make cheese, butter, etc. The slops and whey 

 that was not used for feeding, were simply emptied 

 right out the doors. I should judge this had been 

 done for a good many years. About 30 feet away 

 stood the old dilapidated privy, or, rather, the re- 

 mains of it. This had been in use, say 40 years, and 

 probably never once cleaned out. The soil in the 

 dooryard was a gravelly loam, about 16 feet deep; 

 then came clay. The well was dug down through 

 this gravelly earth and about two feet into the clay. 

 The water in it was simply what soaked through the 

 gravel, and stopped when it came to the clay. 

 Now, when we consider all these circumstances, 



