1884 



GLEANINGS IH BEE CULTUEE. 



263 



SENDING HONEY TO COmmiSSION MEN. 



A MATTER ON WHICH BEE-KEEPERS SHOULD BE 

 THOROUGHLY POSTED. 



l^ROTHER KOOT:— Mrs. Axtell was rightly in- 

 Jjm formed by her lawyer. It is a reasonable 



thing. If a commission agent sells your goods 



he is a trustee for you, and merely holds the goods 

 or proceeds as a bailee (as the law terms it), or sim- 

 ple custodian. If he sells the goods, and uses the 

 money for other purposes, and does not hand It over 

 to you on demand, he is guilty of "conversion," or 

 embezzlement, which is a crime. If the creditor or 

 principal accepts a note instead of the money, he 

 makes it a simple debt, and settles the original 

 claim, and removes the criminal part of the affair. 

 If the note is sued for non-payment, the creditor 

 gets a simple judgment, which is of no more value 

 against a dishonest man than a note or a verbal 

 promise to pay. I agree with you, that to go to law 

 to collect debts is a questionable business, and at 

 the best a losing affair. But to prosecute a thief is 

 a public duty. Did not our gentle Savior make a 

 whip, and drive the thieves out of the temple with it? 

 and the law is the whip we must use to keep men 

 honest (?) who would he rogues otherwise. And a 

 commission agent who sells your goods and pockets 

 your money is a thief in the eye of the law. There- 

 fore, never take a note from a commission agent in 

 payment (?) of a debt, due for goods sold. The rogues 

 know what it means; and when the note is given, 

 snap their fingers at you; but not one has been 

 known to refuse to pay (here in New York) when a 

 full settlement has been demanded by a lawyer. I 

 am not a lawyer, but have had practical experience 

 in getting money from such commission men. 



Hackensack, N. J., March, 1884. H. Stewart. 



Friend S., I quite agree with you in this 

 matter. There is one other point not yet 

 touched upon. It is this : Suppose a com- 

 mission man makes a plea that he was oblig- 

 ed to sell honey for less than half what it 

 was worth. In friend House's case they 

 pretended they could not get even ten cents 

 a pound for nice comb honey. I presume in 

 such a case we could demand a statement of 

 the sales made, and by investigation tind out 

 what amount of money was received. In 

 the case we now have before us, the com- 

 mission man had a w^ay of selling out and 

 losing his books every little while, so friend 

 House informs me. 



NUCLEUS ITIETHOD OF INCREASE. 



THE WAY FRIEND POPPLETON DOES IT. 



^K. RUSSELL, of Wakeman, O., has requested 

 me to describe in Gleanings the method I 

 use in forming nuclei; and as the subject is 

 a timely one, I will try to do as he wishes. I do not 

 think that I have any thing new to say on this sub- 

 ject, but I may be of some help to those who have 

 had little or no experience in working with nuclei. 



I came to the conclusion several years ago, that 

 there are but two methods of increase that I am sat- 

 isfied with. Those are "natural swarming," and 

 what is known as the " nucleus method." Which of 

 these two methods is the better, depends altogether 

 on our method of management. If I were raising 

 comb honey, I think I should prefer natural swarm- 

 ing; that Is, I should probably be forced to prefer it, 



as it is much easier for the comb-honey raiser to al- 

 low than to prevent natural swarming; but using 

 large single-story hives, for the production of ex- 

 tracted honey only, compels me to rely on some oth- 

 er method of increase, if I wish any. I have tried 

 nearly all the methods of dividing colonies that have 

 been given in the books and papers, but have never 

 yet found a way that was satisfactory. 



Nearly if not all the ways of dividing colonies re- 

 sult in giving the old bees to one of the divisions, 

 and the youngbees to the other, thus destroying the 

 normal condition of both divisions, and this usually 

 has to be done during a flow of honey. The part hav- 

 ing all the old bees has very little brood, and has to 

 devote two or three weeks (usually during the best 

 of the season) to brood-rearing Instead of honey- 

 gathering, while the other part has too few field- 

 workers to be of much value as honey-gatherers. 

 These objections would not be very serious ones in 

 localities that enjoy a continual flow of honey for 3 

 or 4 months; but such localities are few and far be- 

 tween in this northern latitude. 



The nucleus system of increase allows us to keep 

 our colonies always in a strong, normal condition, 

 ready to take full advantage of any flow of honey. 

 We can also do the most of the labor of making and 

 caring for the nuclei during intervals of more press- 

 ing work. 



The great practical difliculty in making nuclei is 

 to get a sufficient number of bees to remain with the 

 nucleus during the first few days after it is formed. 

 A perfect nucleus should be a miniature copy of a 

 normal colony; that is, should contain a laying 

 queen as soon as it is possible to give one, and a 

 proper proportion of old and youno bees.- This last 

 condition is the difficult one to obtain, and I know 

 of no practical method of doing so, except by form- 

 ing all nuclei from colonies kept at a distance of at 

 least two or three miles from where they are to re- 

 main. I have practiced this way somewhat, and ex- 

 pect to do so almost altogether hereafter. Any one 

 who has not tried it can hardly realize how much 

 better such a nucleus is than the one formed by any 

 method from a colony near by. However, as nearly 

 all nuclei are necessarily made and kept in the same 

 apiary with the parent stock, I will give the method 

 which has given me the best satisfaction, and which 

 of late I have used quite extensively. 



I use altogether, long single-story hives, capable 

 of holding any number of frames up to 25. During 

 the season for making nuclei, these hives always 

 have in them some combs that do not contain brood. 

 I make all my nuclei by the use of standard frames, 

 not using any smaller size especially for that pur- 

 pose. Selecting the colony I wish to take a nucleus 

 from, I place an empty hive near it, placing in it 

 either one, two, or three frames of the oldest capped 

 brood the colony contains, with all the adhering 

 bees. I usually make it a point to see the old queen, 

 so I can be sure she Is where I want her. I then add 

 to the nucleus hive, from the old one, as many 

 combs with adhering bees as I have taken brood- 

 combs. Fill the empty places in the old hive with 

 empty combs; close up both hives, and remove the 

 nucleus to the stand previously prepared, where It 

 is to remain. I keep the nucleus hive closed up till 

 the next morning, then open the entrance-blocks till 

 only one bee can pass at a time; set a small board 

 or shingle up in front of the entrance, and let them 

 alone for a day or two, after which the empty combs 

 (which have now become useless) can be removed, 



