1886 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



8(i5 



flow until the drought set in, which was about the 

 middle of May. They gathered but little foul 

 honey, and are in good condition for wintering. 



New Sharon, la., Oct. T, 188(5. George Bkiogs. 



No doubt, friend B., plaster of Paris will 

 answer excellently for bee-hives, but I think 

 most of us would tind it more expensive in 

 the end, aside from the fact that it is so 

 easily injvired. I think I should want my 

 hives painted for looks, if for nothing more ; 

 and painted plaster of J'aris looks about as 

 misightly as a thing can well look, after it 

 gets bumped and punched, and the corners 

 are knocked oft'. 



A queen's love fok her old ho.me. 



Will you kindly throw a little light on a small 

 matter that puzzled me somewhat in my bee-keep- 

 ing this summer, and that seems to me to be rather 

 unusual? 1 give you an extract from my diary: 



Monday, Aug. 3, 1 p. M.— I caught and killed an 

 old queen in black colony No. 6. At the same time 

 I caught and caged a handsome, young, prolific Ital- 

 ian queen in colony No. 4, standing about twenty 

 feet north-east from No. 6, both hives facing south. 

 I pul the caged queen on top of the frames in No. 6 

 till evening. At T p. m. I found the bees quiet about 

 the cage. 1 removed the drone-trap (Jones's), 

 smoked the bees and let the queen run in at the en- 

 trance, according to J. E. Pond, page ii'X). I replac- 

 ed the drone-trap, and thought all was right. Fri- 

 day, Aug. f:, I examined Italian colony No. 4, and 

 was pleased to find 1.') royal cells in different stages 

 of development. Saturday evening, the Tth, 1 e.x- 

 amined black No. 6, to see if my young Italian 

 (jueen was all i-ight, but I could not find her. Mon- 

 day afternoon, Aug. 9, looking over Italian No. 4, I 

 was surprised to find not a vestige of a i-oyal cell 

 left, but found quite a number of royal cells start- 

 ed in black No. (5. Tuesday morning, the 10th, with 

 the help of my son, I examined Italian No. 4, and 

 found the queen back in her own family again all 

 right. I then went to black No. 6, cut out all royal 

 cells, and gave Italian brood, which perhaps I might 

 have avoided, as I found very young larva>, appar- 

 ently from eggs left by the young queen. About 

 the end of August I introduced her to a hybrid 

 stock iu the same way, about 40 feet west. She was 

 received, and remains quiet. F. Clare. 



L'Original, Ont., Can., Sept. 27, 1886. 



The circumstance you relate is not com- 

 mon, yet instances of similar character have 

 appeared in (iLEANiNtTS at different times. 

 As the queen was, I should judge, fertilized 

 in No. -i. she had no difticnlty, after leaving 

 the black colony, in hnding her old home. 



A VISIT TO M. H. HUNT'S APIARY; THE 

 ADVANTAGES OF WINDBREAKS. 



On the 13lh and 14th of the present month I made 

 a visit to the apiary of Mr. M. H. Hunt, of Hell 

 Branch, and was so Jwell pleased with his manner 

 of handling bees and honey that I have decided to 

 follow his mode of manipulation until I am certain 

 that I have found something better. My experi- 

 ence in wintering in single-walled hives is decidedly 

 in fa'vor of good windbreaks. P'ourteen colonies 

 (9 weak, .'> strong), with good packing and wind- 

 break, all came through in good condition; of Hi 

 colonics, all strong in bees and stores, with good 

 packing and no windbreak, ]~ died before sjjring 

 opened; and I think there could have been no 



difference in their stores, as it would not exceed 

 60 feet from one corner of my apiary to the other, 

 and all had natural stores. I shall start this winter 

 with 25 colonies, all strong in bees and stoi'es, and 

 hope to be able to make a good report in the 

 spring. Isaac T. Gould. 



Corunna, Mich., Sept. 27, 1886. 



DOES DAMP AIR RISE'? 



I am ever so much pleaded with those bee- 

 feeders. As soon as I got them unpacked I had to 

 sell some of them to my neighbors for bread-pans 

 and custard-dishes, and I don't know what else 

 they were going to use them for. I want to ask 

 you one question: Does foul or damp air settle 

 to the bottom a bee-house, or does it rise to the 

 top? This question I have never got solved. 

 Almost evci-y one disagrees on it. My ventilator 

 at the bottom of is one inch in diameter, coming up 

 through the flour. My ventilator at the top is a 

 flve-inch pipe; and what I want to know is, how 

 near to the flour does my upper ventilation need 

 to come down? Ren.i. E. Rice. 



Boscobel, Wis., Oct. 4, ISeo. 



Friend R., your question is not an easy 

 one to answer. Damp air is certainly light- 

 er than dry air at the same temperature. In 

 a bee-house, however, the bees warm the 

 air at the same time that they dampen it by 

 the moisture from their breath, and this 

 damp warm air, of course, rises, and w^ould 

 pass out of the ventilator if there were room 

 enough for cold air to come up through the 

 tloor and take its place ; but a passage one 

 inch in diameter would by no means admit 

 of this. Where the tube can be attached to 

 a stovepipe, so as to get up a considerable 

 draft, it is usually run down to within a few 

 inches of the floor, that it may draw up the 

 cold air and take it away. In this case it 

 would also remove any carbonic acid that 

 might have been given oft' by the bees and 

 settled at the bottom. Carbonic-acid gas is 

 a great deal heavier than common air, and 

 sometimes collects over the bottom of the 

 floor, making the air poisonous. If your 

 ventilator is not connected with a chimney 

 or stovepipe, I would have it reach just 

 through the ceiling. 



THE HEDDON HIVE. 



I spent a day at the convention at Indianapolis 

 last week, and was very much Interested in the pro- 

 ceedings, and in examining the various articles ex- 

 hibited. I wanted to see that marvelous hive of 

 Mr. Heddon's. It is a beauty, but I do not think it 

 will suit us in this climate. We can not afford to 

 have a summer hive and a winter hive. We must 

 have one that will answer for both. For that pur- 

 pose we must have a chaff hive. I see no way of 

 making a chaff hive out of the Heddon hive. It 

 may be very fine for summer, but will not do for 

 wintering on the summer stands. I know nothing 

 better than your chaff hive for that purpose. I 

 have 26 of them in my apiary now, and they work 

 nicely. The only objection to them is, that they are 

 inconvenient in the summer, when you have the top 

 part full of wide f rami s, and want to get into the 

 lower part. How do you manage it? What is the 

 reason you can not construct a case like the Hed- 

 don surplus-case, or like the surplui5-case that was 

 on the hive exhibited by Bro. Demaree, and have it 

 to fit into your chaff hive, so you could lift out the 



