o38 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



filled with honey in the spring, which does not often 

 occur. 



J consider, from niy short experience, that this is 

 an improvement on any plan of transferring that I 

 know of; at least, so far as time is concerned, and I 

 think it is reliable. There may be some objections 

 found on further trial. I should like very much to 

 hear from others who have had experience in trans- 

 ferring-. Our object is, if possible, to learn the best 

 ways to do every thing about the apiary. 



North Springfield, Mo. W. H. Rittre. 



Friend R., the success of yotir plan de- 

 pends upon being able to find colonies with- 

 out brood. I believe it is laid down in the 

 books, that all strong stocks commence rear- 

 ing brood about the first of January ; and 

 about the first of April they should contain 

 quite a quantity of brood. I am well aware, 

 however, that common black bees, withont 

 attention, are often withont brood when the 

 first pollen commences to come in. Such 

 can be transferred on the plan you mention, 

 with little or no trouble. I have done the 

 same thing in the fall of the year, when a 

 weak colony in a box hive was destitute of 

 brood, and nearly destitute of stores. I did 

 not take the trouble to drum them out, how- 

 ever. I simply bumped the hive on the 

 ground until I bumped out the bees and 

 queen ; and if some of the combs went along 

 with them it did not matter much. A frame 

 of brood from some other hive gave them a 

 start in their new quarters, and the transfer- 

 ring was all done in ab(jut two minutes. 

 The old combs were, of course, tunibled into 

 the wax-extractor. In onr locality, bees 

 seldom have a surplus of pollen at any sea- 

 son of the year. On this account I have al- 

 ways felt that your plan and Ileddon's was 

 something of a loss, especially where much 

 pollen had been gathered in the spring, be- 

 fore transferring. 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SYR- 

 IAN HONEY-BEE. 



THEY FLY TAIL FOHEMOST. 



T SAID I liked them, but the like is the same as 

 (lit ^'^'' '^sborn, of Cuba, Avrites me— they pile up 

 ^f the honey. He says he can stand the stinging 

 '^ of a superior honey-gatherer, which the Syrians 

 are. I have two varieties*of Syrians — the 

 Jones-Harrington Syrians, and what Mr. Bentpn 

 terms the Mt. Lebanon strain. This Mt. Lebanon 

 bee can stand more smoke, and do more stinging, 

 than any other I have yet handled. They scarcely 

 get out of the way of smoke at all. Instead of run- 

 ning down the hive when smoked, they buzz and 

 whirl around, trying to drive off the smoke, and 

 keep trying. They act exactly as you have seen 

 bees when on opening up a nest of ants upon them. 

 If compelled to retreat, it is but a short distance to 

 get breath, and back again in a moment they come, 

 dilating their wings, and driving away the smoke. 

 It seems as though you might smoke them to death 

 before they would give up. 



They do more ott'-hand stinging, or stinging on the 

 wing, than either the Italian or brown bee. In fact, 

 they seldom alight to sting. This is the case with 

 the Mt. Lebanon variety. Even when they have in- 

 serted the sting they do not alight, but fly round 

 and round to extract it. During the past week, 



more than twenty have stung the back of my hands 

 without alighting. They seem to come tail fore- 

 most, and come with a vim at that. 



I removed the queen of a very populous colony, 

 when they at once commenced the construction of 

 queen-cells, and in ten days fertile workers had 

 filled nearly every vacant cell, both worker and 

 drone, with eggs. This I had never before noticed. 

 I have frequently seen fertile workers depositing 

 eggs after the loss of a queen, and when all hopes 

 were gone of rearing one (no eggs or larvre within 

 the hive), but it was something new to me to see 

 eggs immediately deposited on the removal of the 

 queen. The Syrians have more fertile workers than 

 any other race I am acquainted with. But few col- 

 onies nppear to be free from them. 



W. P. Henderson. 



Murfrecsboro, Tenn., May 29, 1886. 



A PRACTICAL METHOD FOR CON- 

 TROLLING SWARMING. 



REVERSING THE BHOOD-NEST, TO INDUCE BEES TO 

 GO TO WORK AGAIN? 



ELL, if I have not beaten the bees in a pret- 

 ty easy way, and so completely, too, then I 

 a!u mistaken. I never used or saw a rever- 

 sible hive until this year; but now I have 

 several in use, and, of course, the natural 

 tendency is to experiment with them. 



The first swarm that came out was put into one 

 of our new reversible hives. When the bees had 

 filled the hive with comb as much as they usually 

 do— that is, within half an inch of the bottom-bars 

 of the frame, the hive was reversed, to see what the 

 efl'ect would be. The first three days thereafter be- 

 ing unfavorable for honey-gathering, there was no 

 change; but on the fifth day the bees began to 

 build the combs to the top-bars (what was the bot- 

 tom-bar), and to make each comb solid within the 

 frame, by fastening it on all sides to the wood. All 

 this was natural enough; but here is another exper^ 

 iment no one has thought of— or, at least, no one 

 has mentioned it up to date. I had transferred 

 about ten colonies from frame hives to the new re- 

 versible frames, and wanted the bees to stay in 

 them and work in sections, but they would swarm 

 in spite of me; after thinking the matter over for a 

 while, and considering how best to get the better of 

 the little rascals, and keep them at work in the old 

 hive, and also to keep the old queen laying, and the 

 colony in good working condition, I hit upon the 

 following plan: 



When a swarm came off I removed the queenr 

 trap and sections; and before the bees could miss 

 their queen and return to the parent hive, the 

 brood-nest was reversed. By and by the bees re- 

 turned and entered the old hive as if nothing had 

 happened; and while they were going in, the queen 

 was released from the trap, and the work was done. 

 Now, the fine little trick I played on the bees was 

 this: 



When the bees entered the old hive and found 

 the combs, queen-cells, and all revei'sed, they were 

 so surprised f.nd astonished that they i-eally thought 

 they had been hived, and were occupying a new 

 house, and the idea of swarming again was given 

 up. By this opei-atiou the " wind is completely tak- 

 en out of their sails," and is what I call using the 

 reversible hive to some purpose. 



