406 



GLEANINGS IN BEE ClJLTUllE. 



JUNB 



bees, to do their best, must liave combs to 

 build ; and, therefore, to get the best yield 

 of honey, either comb or extracted, each col- 

 ony should be employed in doing some 

 cofnb-building. Now, if I am right in this, 

 and I think I am, it is not best to fill any 

 hive with old combs already built out. 

 Whether building out frames of fdn. will 

 give this same vigor as building natural 

 combs, I am not yet quite determined ; ])ut 

 I am inclined to think we should get a bet- 

 ter working force wliere the starters in the 

 sections do not completely lill them. Who 

 will tell us more about thisy 



A BOOM ON THE HONEY. 



I will extract some soon. We are in the midst 

 of a wonderful honey season. Bees hav^e filled up 

 lower stories until queens have not room enough. 

 Fkancis Trueblood. 



Archer, Florida, June 10, 1884. 



NEW HONEY. 



I took over 100 lbs. of comb honey from two col- 

 onies to-day, and have about a dozen more that 

 have their supers (50 lbs.) about completed. This 

 has all been gathered in about ten days, and prin- 

 cipally from locust-bloom. I have never seen such 

 a flow of honey; but the bees were ready for it, and 

 thej' were just commnn Italians tixt. All of my bees 

 are just booming. I think I have 80 colonies, but 

 haven't taken time to count them. 



Lekoy Vankikk. 



Washington, Pa., June 11, 1884. 



THAT FROST. 



It is the coldest hete now I ever saw it at this time 

 of year. It froze so hard last night and night before, 

 that it has killed every thing that frost ever kills, 

 even to clover that was knee high, and bees are very 

 nearly out of honey. lam feeding some; have 135 

 stands, mostly in good order, except honey. Clover 

 looked well before the frost, and raspberries never 

 looked better. C. J. Haight. 



Rush, Sus. Co., Pa., May 30, 1884. 



.\ still further IMPROVEMENT ON THE DRONE- 

 TRAP. 



I mail you a "drone and queen trap combined," 

 to-day. You will find them an improvement on the 

 other. While the others work well and catch all 

 the drones, you will notice wherein the one sent to- 

 day is much the best. I found, on watching the 

 bees, that the trouble with the zinc was not the 

 holes, but the smoothness of the metal. They could 

 not stick their " toe-nails " in so as to force their 

 bodies through. Now, you will see I have arranged 

 the zinc so that they can force themselves through 

 and use their whole strength to do so. I would sug- 

 gest that the front side of the zinc be roughened by 

 rubbing a piece of coarse sandpaper over it before 

 it is used; that will tend to help the bees to catch 

 on more firmly. You will notice that the bottom 

 chamber is 'i inch lower than those used before, 

 and that the tubes ai*e set nearer the front, thus 

 compelling the drones to pass up into the chamber 

 alone more rapidly. I have also nailed a piece of 

 the zinc over a hole in the end of the cage, and use 

 a tin top. The tin top will keep out the water, and 

 does not cost over one cent per cage, and works just 

 as well as though the whole top were of zinc. 



My bees have filled their hives with honey, and 

 work just as well with the traps as without them. 



Wenham, Mass., June 10, 1884. Henry Alley. 



1 will explain to our readers, that the 

 above improvement consists in having the 

 strip of zinc before the entrance on an in- 

 cline instead of being on a perpendicular. It 

 first rises about half an inch per]>eiulicularly, 

 and then is bent so that the remaining por- 

 tion is at an angle of about 45 degrees. This 

 will, without doubt, let the bees out faster, 

 but it seinus to me that, when they come to 

 go back with loads, it would hinder more 

 than the old style ; but as friend Alley has 

 tested the matter thoroughly, he is doubtless 

 right about it. The above, of course, refers 

 to the zinc with the small-sized perforations. 



STILL LATER IN REGARD TO THE ZINC HONEY- 

 BOARDS. 



Yes; the perforated zinc of your own make will 

 do. Send me 35 pieces, cut V3^i by 13='_{. 



J. S. Hughes. 



Mt. Zion, Macon Co., 111., June 13, 1884. 



Thank you, friend II. Your report comes 

 just in the nick of time. Now has anybody 

 else tried it, and is their verdict the same as 

 the above V 



DO ITALIAN BEES -WORK ON RED 

 CLOVER? 



A REPORT TH.\T SEEMS TO INDICATE IT DEPENDS 

 ON THE KIND OF ITALIANS. 



]^ NOTICE in last number of Gleanings, on page 

 I 373, Mr. Thaddeus Smith thinks as I once did. 

 I that it was a humbug to talk about Italians 

 ■ working on red clover. A few j-ears ago we sent 

 to Illinois and procured a well-marked and beau- 

 tiful light-colored Italian bee. I watched the red- 

 clover fields all summer, and never saw a bee, ex- 

 cept bumble-bees, on a bloom. I said it was a hum- 

 bug to talk of their woi-king on it, and that I would 

 give $30.00 for a colony that would do so. Our bees 

 all died that winter; next spring we sent to Illinois 

 to' another party for bees. About the 10th of June 

 I noticed them working very busily, and all seemed 

 to be going in one direction. I started out to see 

 what they had struck. I did not go far until I treed 

 them in a field of red clover. I could hardly believe 

 it, even after seeing it with my own eyes, for 1 was 

 so sure it was a humbug to believe they could do so. 

 Last season they almost deserted the white clover 

 after the red bloomed. Thej' do not wait, as some 

 suppose, for the second crop, but begin early on 

 fii'St crop, and work until frost; neither is this a 

 small clover, but as large as we raise in this part of 

 the country, our neighbors getting seed from dif- 

 ferent places, and perhaps different kinds, yet the 

 bees tackle it all the same, ram their "snouts" 

 down into it with a vim, and load up like as if they 

 were working on linden. Some of those bees are 

 nice Italians, rather of the darker shade; some hy- 

 brids. I do not see any difference on the bloom, as 

 all seemed to work alike. 



We lost over half of ours this winter. Some of 

 our neighbors lost as manj', while some did not lose 

 many. It is a rainy, bad spring, and no swarms yet. 



Fillmore, Ind., June 11, 1884. W. L. Job. 



Thank you, friend J., for the above i-eport. 

 As our bees are raised from stock imported 

 almost constantly from Italy, and we nev- 

 er take any pains to breed for light-colored 

 bees, it may be that this fact accounts for 

 the different results. 



