100 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



of an answer. The season might make all 

 the diiference, from nothing at all to 100 

 lbs. per nuclens. Then, again, the man who 

 manages them may make almost as much 

 difference. The locality will affect the re- 

 sult again ; and, still further, a greater in- 

 crease may give even more pounds of hon- 

 ey. Two pounds of bees and a queen is an 

 average colony of bees the first of May ; that 

 is, if you include some frames of brood also. 



THE CHICAGO CONVENTION, BY ONE WHO WAS 

 THERE. 



The following spicy little poem from the 

 pen of Eugene Secor, "Forest City, Iowa, we 

 take from the A. B. /., page 755. 



At Chicago they met, a right jolly set, 



On a soft balmy day in November; 

 Such a " buzz " and " roar " I heard once before— 



At an old cider-mill in September. 

 From the West and the East, to this saccharine feast, 



Came the " workers " cheerfully " singing;" 

 And though each had a wish to " sip " from the dish, 



But few were inclined to be ' stinging." 

 They talked about bees— their legs and their knees— 



or the God-given nectar in flowers; 

 Of its value as food; of bareheaded brood, 



And the late sad failure in showers. 

 Our " countrified ways," the reporter says. 



Betrayed the bent of our calling; 

 At this we're not mad, but exceedingly glad 



That our looks far exceeded his scrawling. 

 Such a cniist.int " hum," without " smoke " or drum! 



'Twas sail! carli hail a " bee in his bonnet;" 

 But wlicther that's s«. one thing I do know, 



The " hive " had a Mii,i,f,r upon it. 

 The Mason bee took the Miller to Cook, 



Who ad.iudged, from its .size and demeanor. 

 There was no need to tread on, nor even put a Hedp-hn, 



As it lived on sassatr,as Root— a gleaner. 

 For three days and nights, surprises, delights. 



Made us happy as bees in sweet clover; 

 Tis a bright Green spot, not soon forgot— 



In memory's Hutch, a rich trover. 

 'Twould f,ail me to tell how the " honey dew " fell 



From many sweet lips, though human; 

 But I, for one, when convention was done, 



Went home from Chicago a New-man. 



FINDING QUEENS. 



I tell you, I am an expert! I can get out the hon- 

 ey, and I can eat my share of it— may be more; but 

 I can't find my queens. I have looked and looked 

 for them, and only once have I had a glimpse of 

 one. I don't ask your opinion about that state- 

 ment, because I can imagine it would not be very 

 complimentary. However, it may be modified 

 somewhat when 1 add that I am very near-sighted. 

 I have lately worn glasses when about the bees; 

 but even with them, as my husband would say, " I 

 fail to find " the queen. The gentleman above 

 mentioned won't say "can't;" but when he says 

 he "fails to find" any thing, our daughter under- 

 stands that It is time for her to try. 



Mrs. M. E. Brown. 



Athens, Clarke Co., Ga., Dec. 21, 1887. 



My good friend. I think our little book, 

 " Merrybanks and his Neighbor," would 

 prove interesting to you just now. Friend 

 M. had just such troubles in finding the 

 queens when he fir.st started. You just 

 want to put a gummed label on her back. 

 That is the way friend M. decided to do. 



A HARD WINTER FOR BEES. 



We have had a very hard winter for bees. They 

 had a good Hy on the 4th of Jan. ; on the .5th it be- 

 gan to rain, and has continued to rain up to to-day, 

 Jan. 6, at 6 o'clock. It is a very cold rain. I can 

 not say what may be the result of so much wet 

 weather. My experience is, that it is the worst of 

 all for bees on summer standp; but I hope to come 

 through in tolerably good shape. During the last 

 year here, up to about the first of July we had very 



wet weather; but I have seen as wet weather be- 

 fore, and a good honey season from July 1st till 

 about the middle of September. I will give .you my 

 views about it, but I do not know that it is worth 

 the paper it is written upon. About seven years 

 ago in June, and in the midst of a fine honey-flow 

 of white clover, we had what is called a cyclone. 

 It did a great deal of damage. The next day the 

 bees stayed at home, and for six weeks I did not 

 see a bee at work on any kind of flower. Now, I 

 have what I believe you call matrimony-vine grow- 

 ing at my door; and when the bees are at work on 

 any flowers they are at work on these, and very 

 often when they work on nothing else. Well, we 

 have had a good many storms this year like the one 

 above. They call them electric storms around 

 here; and I believe, though I can't tell how, that 

 electricity has had a great deal to do with it, about 

 here at least. Thos. Chapman, 



Rocheporte, Mo., Jan. 6, 1888. 



WIRE-SCREENING A PORTICO TO KEEP OUT MICE, 

 ETC. 



I am a beginner in bee-keeping, and write .vou for 

 a little advice. My hives are the portico hives, and 

 in putting them in the cellar this fall 1 nailed a wire 

 screen over the front of the portico to keep mice 

 out, and to prevent the bees from coming out. Is 

 this a good plan"? My bees are much more uneasy 

 than tliey were last fall, when they had nothing 

 over the front of the hives. Edgar A. Dodge. 



Glencoe, Dodge Co., Nebraska. 



Friend D., the only trouble with putting 

 screens over the front of the hive for cellar 

 wintering is the one you mention — that it 

 annoys the bees, and causes them to worry 

 themselves. I practiced it one or tw^o win- 

 ters, without any particularly bad results ; 

 and one thing "about it pleased me very 

 mtich indeed— there were no dead bees scat- 

 tered about on the floor, to be stepped on 

 when you went in in the dark. You should 

 keep the mice out by having the entrance 

 only I inch wide^ 



WHAT I DO WITH UNFILLED SECTIONS. 



It seems to trouble a great many bee-keepers to 

 have so many unfinished sections at the close of 

 the honey season. Now, these unfinished sections 

 I look upon as so many blessings, and I should like 

 to have ten thousand of them on hand the coming 

 spring. I do not want them to go back on the hive 

 for comb honey, but 1 will tell the readers of Glean- 

 ings how I dispose of them. In the fall, after the 

 honey season is over, I place them in wide frames 

 and extract the honey, and put them out of the way 

 of the mice. I always use full sheets of worker fdn. 

 in the section boxes. In the spring, when the 

 weather gets warm, or just before swarming time, 

 I take a case-knife and run it around the inside of 

 the section, cutting the comb nice and square. Now, 

 these combs I fit nicely in my brood-frames, and 

 fasten them with transferring-strips or a piece of 

 hard-twisted twine. 1 always raise my own queens; 

 and when one begins to lay I give her a couple oi' 

 frames of brood that is just gnawing through, and 

 fill the hive full of these filled frames; or if I do not 

 want to use them this way I hang them in supers 

 for extracted honey. In a short time I have worker- 

 combs which are as nice and straight as anyone 

 could wish to see. These combs do not cost me as 

 much as full sheets of worker fdn., and are just as 



