256 



gLeanin^s In bee culture. 



Ai'R. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS. 



HOW XO PREVENT SWARMING. 



D. ROGERS, inMaichl Gleanings, asks how 

 to prevent swarming when working for 

 comb honey. As a small or medium brood- 

 ■^ ' chamber is more essential in securing comb 

 than extracted honey, the tendency to 

 swarm is Increased when, for this object, the 

 queen's limits are diminished. For several seasons 

 past I have been running over 100 colonies, princi- 

 pally for honey in sections, and have had my pa- 

 tience sorely tested by after-swarming, which 

 would result in leaving luindieds of partly filled 

 boxes on the parent hive. After exhausting, with- 

 out benefit, most of the i-emedies suggested, in 

 manuals, I adopted the following plan, which I do 

 not remember having seen in print: 



Let the colony swarm once, of necessity, and 

 mark the date on the hive. In about a week, when 

 the queen-cells and brood are all capped, cut out 

 and destroy every cell in the hive. This colony is 

 now hopelessly queenless, which it will discover in 

 the course of another week. They will not often 

 swarm without a queen, and the colony thus treat- 

 ed will abandon the swarming impulse and finish 

 the sections. When they have settled down to busi- 

 ness, with a handful of ripe cells from good stock 

 pass in front of the hives, and, coming to one 

 marked "queenless," either pick open a hatchiiig 

 cell and let the queen run in at the entrance; or, 

 if the cell is not mature, lay it at the entrance. In 

 the latter plan the bees will immediately cluster 

 and remain on the ceil until it hatches, and is much 

 easier than to lift of surplus boxes to insert it be- 

 tween brood-frames. Now erase from this hive 

 the queenless mark and po to the next. 



The abcjve plan I practiced the past season; and 

 although I never saw bees have the fever worse 

 than in June last, all colonies thus treated were 

 effectually quieted. The above plan retains in the 

 old hive a large body of young workers, and the 

 queen will be just the right age to fill the hive with 

 young bees in the fall for wintering. And last, but 

 not least, this method enables the apiarist to in- 

 troduce his best stock into inferior colonies. 



Waldron. Mich., March 13, 1888. L. Hubbard. 



Your plan will answer, as a general thing, 

 1 believe, friend 11., but we should call it a 

 loss of time to leave the hive so long with- 

 out a laying queen. 



SWARM ABSCONDING WITH UNSEALED BROOD IN 

 THE HIVE. 



I could not get my natural swarms to stick to five 

 combs, though 1 used unsealed brood in all of 

 them. I bad two swarms go to the woods, but gave 

 chase and brought them back. The most comb 

 honey obtained from any one colony was 113 lbs. 

 This colony was blacks. They also cast a large 

 swarm. L. H. Robey. 



Worthington, W. Va., Feb. 7, 18S8. 



Friend R., if you mean that five combs 

 containing unsealed l)rood did not prevent 

 your bees from swarming out, they must 

 have got the swarming mania pretty badly. 

 I am afraid, however, that giving them so 

 many combs of brood made them feel as if 



they were in the old hive still, and therefore 

 they swarmed out to get where there was 

 not so much of an establishment already 

 started. One comb containing unsealed 

 brood has always been sufficient to hold any 

 quantity of bees from a teacupf ul to a peck : 

 and the principal advantage of this comb of 

 unsealed brood is that it holds the colony, 

 even if they have no queen at all ; while 

 without this brood a lot of Ijees without a 

 queen would decamp in no time. 



A NEW HONEY-PLANT. 



In cape colony, Africa, grow about 60 different 

 species of protea. Some of them give honey, the 

 most {protea mclifera), by the natives called zuy- 

 kerbosches, zuykerboom, or tulpboom. It has so 

 great a quantity of nectar that the same is gather- 

 ed and evaporated to a syrup, which is sold and 

 used as medicine by the natives. This syru]) has a 

 flavor similar to bananas. The plant blossoms in 

 the fall, and the flowers are half full of this nectar. 

 1 think it would be very desiral)le to get this plant 

 from Cape Colony, and to try its cultivation in the 

 TJ. S. L. Stachelhausen. 



Selma, Texas, Mar. 8, 1888. 



AVhy, friend S., can't you get us some 

 seeds of this wonderful plant? I do not be- 

 lieve we should ever be al)le to pronounce 

 those fearful jaw-breaking names; but if 

 we could get tlie posies and dip out the hon- 

 ey we would try to be content. 



ON carp-ponds; some questions. 



Mr. Peirce, in his A B C of Carp Culture, says we 

 can not make a success of the business unless we 

 have three ponds. 1. Tto you not think one could 

 raise enough fish in one pond for family use? 3. 

 Would it do to make a pond at the outlet of a 40-rod 

 tile drain, with a spring three or four rods above 

 the outlet? 'I Do you consider your pond a paying 

 investment? +. Would it i)ay a farmer, who has 

 his hands already full, to have a pond for his own 

 use, with a view to having some to sell? Carp-rais- 

 ing is entirely new in this part of the country— no 

 ponds that I know of. .'). Would a pond a third of 

 a mile from the house be more liable to be molested 

 than bees? Mrs. L. C. Axtell. 



Roseville. III. 



There is no trouble about raising flsh in 

 one pond, Mrs. A., unless you wish to go 

 into breeding them largely : then it is an 

 advantage to have the small tish separated 

 from the large ones. A neighbor of ours, 

 who lives several miles out in the country, 

 says he would not be without his carp-pond, 

 just because of the ease with which he can 

 get a fish at any time Avhen they happen to 

 be short of meat in the house. For instance, 

 company comes, and the butcher-shop is too 

 far away to think of sending for meat. The 

 fish-pond is handy, and our friend catches 

 them witli a hook and line, in a very few 

 minutes, by baiting the hook with a cracker. 

 I should think your suggestion an excellent 

 one, especially if your spring is strong 

 enough to keep the pond from drying up in 

 the summer time. Our pond is a paying in- 

 vestment on account of the ice it furnishes, 

 but it has not yet been s(/ for the fish alone. 

 The muskrats still trouble us, although we 

 have killed great numbers of them. I should 



