S(>4 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUIIE. 



Nov. 



portal ; and, what was my astonishment to find her 

 making her way out at the base of the cell— a long 

 fine one! Well, I thought, what kind of a queen is 

 this? and as I could not brook delay I used my pen- 

 knife to emancipate her "royal highness," and out 

 came— a majestic graceful form? No; a flirting, 

 mincing worker. Of course, I had read of such 

 things, but this wp.s my first experience. I want to 

 add, this colony has a queen now that is still laying, 

 in spite of the cold days and nights. 



240 LBS. OF EXTRACTED HONEY I'ER COLONY. 



Mj' bees have averaged me 240 lbs. to the colony 

 (spring count). I have extracted most of mi' honey, 

 and marketed it, in a clear white-glass jar, manu- 

 factured by the Independent Glass Co., Pittsburgh, 

 Pa. Pints cost only $8.-50 per gros.s. They hold l^^ 

 lbs. I notice Mason is making a flint jar now. The 

 old Mason jar, with the green tinge, was not a desir 

 able receptacle, as it gave the honey a bad appear- 

 ance. The jars I speak of have a glass top which 

 screws down upon a rubber. With all, they make a 

 very nice and attractive parcel. I have received 

 30 cts. for every jar, so you see my bees have 

 brought me in roundly. In all this I remember 

 Him who is the soui'ce and measure of all God's 

 goodness, and I send vip most gratefully the in- 

 cense of praise. Frank C. IJlount. 



Lawndale, 111., Oct. 10, 1886. 



Friend 13., I have never tliought of the 

 reason you give for preferring leaves to any 

 thing else for packing ; namely, that there 

 is nothing in the leaves that" mice would 

 want ; and I believe reports seem to indi- 

 cate that there is no better absorbent known 

 than forest-leaves. By the way, forest- 

 leaves are coming much in favor, not only 

 for protection, but as a fertilizing material, 

 and to make hard clay soils light and fria- 

 ble. — There is another advantage in using 

 fruit-jars for honey— they are always worth 

 to the purchaser all they cost, and I have 

 many times wondered why they were not 

 nsed in place of the common jars and bot- 

 tles that are of little or no use after the hon- 

 ey is consumed. Jars made of Hint glass 

 are rapidly coming into favor. 



CAN A BLACK QUEEN BE THE MOTHER OF A PURE 

 ITALIAN QUEEN AND OF A BLACK QUEEN? 



What is it? Well, I am going to leave it for you 

 to name for me. I have invitet^all my bee-keeping 

 friends here in New Bedford to see a queen I raised 

 this year, the last of June. They say they think I 

 have a curiosity. In the fli-st place I had a black 

 queen in a swarm that came to me two years ago, 

 and I hived it June, 1884. Last May she cast a 

 swarm the 24th, 2r)th, and 26th, with Alley's queen- 

 trap attached to the entrance. The swarm went 

 back twice. The third day the queen got hung try- 

 ing to force her way through the perforated zinc, 

 and, as a result, died. I felt sorry, for she had been 

 a very profitable queen. She left one queen hatch- 

 ed, one still in the cell. May 28th I divided the colo- 

 ny. I liberated the confined queen, and let her run 

 with one.-half the bees. 1 put the liberated queen 

 and the second half into another hive. No. 1 has a 

 black queen; has filled both the upper and lower 

 stories with bees, and I shall get some surplus from 

 them. No. 2 has a queen, large and prolific, with 

 three distinct yellow bands, and is as handsome as 

 any one wants to look at. I have six hives, all Ital- 

 ans save one. I closed the hybrid drones in until 



after she was fertilized. Her young bees have 

 been examined by the best judge I can get here, 

 and not the least trace of hybrid can be found in 

 the hive, all the old ones having died out. 



July 21st I took a small handful of bees and gave 

 them two frames of brood, one with eggs. They 

 raised a queen, which was purely mated. When 

 the queen was laying I gave her bees a frame of 

 brood, and another partly filled with empty comb. 

 August 21st she had four frames well covered with 

 bees and brood. Two days ago I gave them one more 

 frame of empty comb, Avith 3 or 4 lbs. of sealed hon- 

 ey, and one frame of fdn. They have six frames 

 now, and a prospect of doing well. This is my first 

 nucleus. If I can get them to cover si.v frames I 

 can carry them through the winter all right, and 

 have a good start in the spring. I think a great 

 deal of fall queens. 



What is a pound of new comb worth when the 

 selling price of honey is 2.5 cts. per lb., and .50 lbs. is 

 considered a good yield per hive? 



New Bedford, Mass. Chas. L. Eldridoe. 



I think the queen you mention, with three 

 distinct yellow bands, is, without question, 

 at least partly black blood ; and having met 

 an Italian drone it is nothing strange that 

 her worker-bees are all of them well marked. 

 No doubt many queens have been pronounc- 

 ed fidl blood whose worker-bees were one- 

 fourth or more black bees ; and. on the oth- 

 er hand, many have, very likely, been pro- 

 nounced nybrid that were full-blood Italian. 

 The reason why the two queens, although 

 from the same mother, have given queens so 

 unlike, is probably in a line with the fact 

 that many Italian queens, after having met 

 a black drone, produce worker -progeny, 

 some black, some three-banded, and some 

 apparently hybrid. — Your concluding query, 

 I presume, refers to the value per pound of 

 new white comb to tit into section boxes. 

 If it were not for the additional trouble of 

 fastening in these pieces of white comb, 

 compared with putting in foundation, I 

 should think they might be worth SI. 00 per 

 pound, or even more. 



MAKING HIVES OF PLASTER OF PARIS. 



I see that John Craycaft, of Altoona, Orange 

 Co., Florida, has got started on this road. Why 

 not adopt my invention? I have been using 

 cement hives for six years. I mold mine 

 out of plaster of Paris. I have about 100 of 

 them in use. I have some that I have wintered 

 six j'ears in succession. They are warmer in 

 winter and cooler in summer; are moth-proof as 

 well as robber-proof, and cheaper than any wood- 

 en hive in the North. The lower story needs to be 

 molded lai-ge enough to take in a box so as to 

 leave a chamber of two inches all around and un- 

 der it to fill with chaff; then put chaff on top of 

 the swarm. They will winter well in this cold 

 latitude. In the South, the cement is all that is 

 needed. They need no paint, and have given good 

 satisfactioi^ where tried. They can be molded so 

 as to fit any frame. 



I started in the spring with 70 colonies, and in- 

 creased to 120, mostly by artificial swarming. I 

 have taken 2.500 lbs. of extracted and 1500 lbs. of 

 comb honey in 1-lb. sections. The extracted is 

 selling at 9 cts., and comb 12^^ cts. The season 

 opened up as well as I ever saw. I had a good 



