2t>4 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



and a queen or queen-cell be introduced if necessa- 

 ry. The nucleus can now be used for rearing queens, 

 or can be built up into a good coionj-. by occasional- 

 ly inserting empty comb, foundation, or brood- 

 combs from other colonics. The further a nucleus 

 is removed from its parent colony, the more bees 

 will remain with it. I rarely remove a nucleus less 

 than four or five rods, and more than that if pos- 

 sible. 



I believe this method I have detailed is all old, un- 

 less it may be the temporary giving to the nucleus 

 as many empty combs with their adhering bees as I 

 do brood-combs. Since using this method f am rare- 

 ly troubled by too few bees remaining with the nu- 

 cleus, but tbey are, of course, nearly all young bees. 



Mr. Doolittle lately told how he forms his nuclei by 

 Covering a frame of hatching brood with wire cloth, 

 and leaving it in the center of a populous colony; 

 but it seems as thoiigh that must certainly be a much 

 tnore troublesome method than the one I use, and 

 gives poorer results, with the one exception of intro- 

 ducing the queen, which I do not think is anywhere 

 near of sufhcient importance to pay for the extra la- 

 bor. O. O. POPPLETON. 



Williamstown, Iowh, March 29, 1881. 



Thanks, friend P. Your method differs 

 but little Irom the one we practice, only we 

 greatly prefer to have a coinb containing a 

 queen-cell nearly ready to hatch, when we 

 start nucleus colonies. The bees on this 

 comb, and, in fact, all belonging to the same 

 hive, will stick pretty well, as a rule, to any 

 comb containing a mature queen-cell. You 

 know that friend JJoolittle suggested taking 

 the old queen along a day or two, to make 

 the bees feel satisfied, and stick to their lo- 

 cation. Putting a shingle before the hive, 

 we have never practiced ; but it may answer 

 an excellent purpose by inducing the bees to 

 pay more attention to places out of which 

 they go. If a good many of the bees go off 

 with the colony, there will usually be enough 

 hatched by the time a young queen is ready 

 for business, to make a pretty fair colony. 

 '• Neighbor II.'- practices carrying the bees 

 about three miles from his liiver apiary to 

 his Home apiary. 



AN A B ( SCHOLAR ASKS QUESIIOIVS. 



HE FINDS SOME THINGS HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND. 



^ON'T your ABC scholars bother you mightily? 

 I believe the '* little fellows " are generally a 

 troublesome class. Well, I am at the foot in 

 the ABC class, but I suppose that we shall have 

 some more new scholars before long; and then, as I 

 profit so much by the lessons I get from Gleanings 

 and experience, I think I won't be at the foot much 

 longer. F'or the present, however, 1 am going to 

 presume that you, like all good teachers, sympa- 

 thize with all fresh arrivals; and now, as 1 have se- 

 cured your sympathy, I am going to ask you a few 

 questions that I presume will appear so simple you 

 will laugh at our ignorance. Before doing this, 

 however, I want to tell j ou what I saw while watch- 

 ing some bees during a warm day in February. I 

 had put some nice sugar on the alighting-board in 

 front of two hives that I had bought and brought 

 home in January, and after moistening with water I 

 took my seat just in front of one of them, and was 

 watching them sipping at the sugar, when, all of a 



sudden, two bees grasped each other and Seenifed to 

 be engaged in a deadly conflict. This lasted only a 

 second or two, when they released their grasp, one 

 of , them flying away, the other one remaining mo- 

 tionless near the outer edge of the alighting-board. 

 Supposing that the one had been killed by a sting 

 from the other, I thought no more about it until a 

 few minutes later, when another bee that had walk- 

 ed away from where the group was feeding on the 

 sugar, chanced to pass the one that had been slain 

 in battle. Suddenly he stopped, turned around till 

 he faced the motionless body of his comrade, and 

 then commenced such a series of maneuvers around 

 and against its inanimate body, that I supposed it 

 was going to pitch the dead overboard. Shortly he 

 was joined by another, and then another, and an- 

 other, until there were six of them surrounding this 

 apparently lifeless body, all of them engaged just as 

 the first one had been; but to my surprise they 

 would never allow it to be pushed near the edge of 

 the alighting-board, although they kept it continu- 

 ally moving. Imagine ray surprise to see this ap- 

 parently lifeless bee, after being thus "manipu- 

 lated " for a minute or two by its fellows, suddenly 

 regain consciousness, take wing, and fly away. 

 While meditating on what I just witnessed, I passed 

 to the other hive, where I saw the same thing enact- 

 ed again, with the exception that the motionless 

 Dody of the bee was lying on the alighting-board 

 when I first noticed it. 



Now. is it any wonder that, when my A B C book 

 arrived a few days after, I just turned right over to 

 " U," to see if there was any thing in that book 

 [ about "Resurrection." Won't some of you pro- 

 I fessors tell us something ab )Ut it? 1 should proba- 

 bly have stated, that those manipulating never 

 passed over the body of the inanimate, nor changed 

 I their relative positions, nor turned the body over, 

 j but kept it continually moving. Now for my ques- 

 { tions: 



I 1. Is there any thing to be gained by feeding bees 

 ; that have plenty of honey in their hives, throughout 

 1 the winter? 



I 3. If you had a 2-story Simplicity hive, and there 

 should be half of the top frames full of honey left, 

 after the winter is over, would you remove this sur- 

 plus, say the Ist of April, or would it lessen the 

 chances of an increase by natural swarming? 



;i. If I should set one Simplicity hive over another, 

 thus making a two-story hive, would it not be well 

 enough to make an entrance for the bees at the bot- 

 tom of the top story, or would it give more light to 

 the inside uf the hive than the bees would appre- 

 ciate? 



If you will please answer through Gleanings, you 

 will confer a great favor on a new beginner. 

 Sparta, Miss. L. Hall. 



I Friend II., I should say that your imagin- 

 ation supplied a little, perhaps, in the ac- 

 I count of the adventures you mention having 

 j seen. You gave the bees a feed, and this, 

 j with the warm weather and outdoor air, 

 I stirred them up into a feeling of general re- 

 joicing. The buzzing around each other, 

 and other antics, was simply their way of 

 manifesting their satisfaction. I do not 

 think there was any stinging about it. In 

 regard to the bee that appeared to be dead, 

 I do not know how to explain it, unless 

 it was one that had got chilled so as 

 to be in a dormant state, and perhaps got 



