174 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Mar. 



menced moving her antenna, and then her front 

 legs; then her abdomen commenced contracting 

 and expanding; and now as I write, about two 

 hours after linding her, she is crawling about quite 

 gracefully. As soon as she commenced moving 

 her legs and antenna I placed a drop of limpid hon- 

 ey to her mouth, which she slowly took up, and 

 which seemed to hasten her revivication. About 

 an hour ago 1 gathered up the apparently dead 

 bees and brought them into a warm room, sprinkled 

 them with sweetened water, and now some of them 

 are also showing signs of life. There was about 

 half a pound of honey remaining in the hive near 

 one side of the cluster. 



Lrttrc— Only four or five of the workers revived. 

 G. H. Repi.ogw;. 



Ceuterville. Iowa, Jan. HO, 1888. 



Friend K., the queen is almost invariiibly 

 the last one to die, in a starved colony, and 

 your bees did starve, as I understand it, 

 even if they did have a comb of honey on the 

 other side of the hive. Bees, to be safe, 

 ought to have honey on all sides and over 

 them, instead of being conhned to a little 

 honey on one side of the cluster. — We 

 liave revived a good many queens in the 

 way you mention, and they usually proved 

 to be all right, notwithstanding their chilled 

 and starved condition. 



]SI©¥Ef5 W^ QUERIEg. 



BUTTER-DISH FEEDERS. 



'HO was the first to call attention to butter- 

 dishes as feeders? R. C. UAr,DWELr.. 

 IJloomfleld, Ky., Feb., 1888. 

 [Friend C, we do not know— at least, we 

 do not remember, who did first (;all atten- 

 tion to them. A year ago, someone, in a private let- 

 ter, incidentally mentioned the fact that he used 

 butter-dishes in feeding the bees. We did not think 

 so much of it at the time, and so did not take prop- 

 er precautions to preserve the man's name. Later 

 on, it occurred to us that the butter-dishes were 

 just the thing; and as their expense is comparative- 

 ly nothing, they could be used quite largely for the 

 purpose of feeding. In the latter part of Glean- 

 ings for last year, you will see that they proved to 

 be a practical success.] 



the wooden butter-dishes a success. 



I have been using the butter-dishes for feedei'S, 

 and find them to be the best feeder that 1 have ever 

 tried. John Shanks. 



Plymouth, Hancock Co., 111. 



the JAPANESE BUCKWHEAT. 



I bought one dollar's worth and got over two 

 bushels. It would have yielded better, but was in- 

 jured by frost. J. Swingle. 



Ariel, Pa., Dec. 26, 1887. 



FROM 1 POUND, TO 1 BUSHEL AND 3 PECKS. 



I sowed one pound of Japanese buckwheat, and 

 thrashed one bushel and three pecks. I think it is 

 the buckwheat for Butler County. H. Miller. 



Fluger, Pa., Jan. 3, 1888. 



QUEENS SHIPPED IN JANUARY. 



Mr. Root:— The queen-bee was received in good 

 order from Nellie Adams, Sorrento, Fla., and suc- 

 cessfully introduced. Jno. Weigand. 



Lynchburg Station, Va., Dec. 17,1887. 



[We are glad to give place to the above, even if it 

 does savor of a free "ad."] 



CARP IN FLORIDA. 



I have, as I suppose, the most southerly carp-pond 

 in the U. S., and carp grow all the year here. 

 Alva, Florida, Feb. 19, 1888. David Hadley. 



WILL IT PAY TO make OVER OLD FOUNDATION? 



I have a quantity of old foundation in the sheet 

 and in the sections, and I should like your views as 

 to whether it is best to use this foundation this 

 coming season, or will the bees work enough bet-, 

 ter to pay for remelting the wax? S. J. Bascom. 



Western Park, Elk Co., Kau., Feb. 13, 1888. 



[So far as the foundation is concerned, friend B., I 

 do not believe it will pay to make it over; but others 

 may think differently. Friend D. A. Jones suggests 

 that dipping it into hot water— of course, not hot 

 enough to melt the wax— will make the foundation 

 just as soft, and in every way just as easy for the 

 bees to work, as making it over new.] 



ONE-PIECE SECTIONS, SIDE PASSAGES, ETC. 



Your questions on sections are a curiosity, sure. 

 I would rather buy one-piece sections than take 

 four-piece as a gift, both for strength and speed. 

 Of what use are side passages in sections where the 

 old Heddon super is used, as, in connection with 

 separators, they are not used by the bees except to 

 l)ut propolis into? Charles Mitcheli,. 



Molesworth, Ont. 



[The open-side sections can not be used with the 

 kind of crate you mention; but there are compar- 

 atively few of these crates in use.] 



HOW I SELL COMB HONEY. 



I buy tin buckets, all sizes; nearly all hold 2'-A 

 gallons. Cut out comb to fill a bucket, and then 

 pour around the comb extracted honey enough to 

 nearly cover it. My customers seem to prefer honey 

 in this way to any other. A ■-'/2-gallon bucket will 

 hold about 2") lbs., and they pay me for the bucket. 

 Comb honey is nearly always sold out in a few 

 weeks, while extracted is much slower. 



w. H. Laws. 



Lavaca, Sebastian Co., Ark., Dec. 2", 1887. 



will the SIMPSON HONEY-PLANT YIELD HONEY 

 THE FIRST YEAR ? 



Will alsike or Simpson honey-plant, if soon this 

 spring, produce any honey this summer? Where 

 can I get the Chapman honey-plant? 



Clinton, Mo., Feb. 6, 1888. A. H. Heinlein. 



[The Simpson honey-plant will yield considerable 

 honey the first year, under favorable circumstan- 

 ces. By starting the plants in the greenhouse you 

 can get a very fair crop of blossoms late in the fall. 

 For the Chapman honey-plant, see editorial on page 

 146; see also our catalogue of honey-plant seeds. 

 Alsike will also blossom to some extent the first 

 year when sown ea rly.] 



SOME QUESTIONS— REVERSING, ETC. 



Will reversing be a success? If the top-bar of a 

 brood-frame is narrow, how is it kept from swing- 

 ing when the hive is moved? What is the most 

 suitable degree of heat for making comb and stor- 

 ing honey? 



Wyoming, Neb., Jan. 8, 1888. I. Miller. 



[The appearances are now, that reversing is not 

 going to be a success— that is, very few are practic- 

 ing it, even where they have hives arranged special- 

 ly for it.— Narrow top-bars are kept from swinging, 

 by the use of the spacing-boards described and il- 

 lustrated in our price list. If I am not mistaken, 

 nine-tenths of all the hives in use, or more than 

 that, have narrow top-bars. The heat in the hive, 

 for making comb, should be, if 1 am correct, some- 

 where near 80 or 90 degrees.] 



TO PREVENT SWARMING. 



Bee-keepers have found it up-hill business in this 

 section the past season. I should be glad to learn 



