584 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



but have some comb honey near^- finished. Bees 

 lire working somewhat better now. Basswood is 

 not in bloom. I could get 30 cents for good new 

 comb houey now. No extracted ofTered. I call 

 this a poor year for Jackson Co. It will take all 

 summer to get some of my swarms ready for win- 

 ter. The prospect is good for a good honey year in 

 1889, as the ground is covered with young white 

 clover that will not blossom this year. The best 

 honey-plants I have seen are what I call mother- 

 wort, and catnip. W. D. S(jpeb. 

 Jackson, Mich., July tj, 1888. 



WHITE CLOVER A ITAII.URE. 



The white clover here is almost an entire failure, 

 having frozen out last winter. Only a very few 

 blossoms are to be seen; however, there is an abun- 

 dance of young clover that has come up from the 

 seed this spring, so I hope there will bo plenty next 

 year. I am afraid it will be all the bees can do to 

 get stores to winter on. It is now June 131 h, and 

 not an average of a pound per colony made yet. 



Thornton, Ind., June VS, 1888. J. A. Uttek. 



HONEY CKOP IN CAMFOKNIA SHORT. 



Our honey crop will be short— not more than 

 half the usual amount— owing to the cold cloudy 

 weather of April and May, our best honey months. 

 I saw by Gleanings some time ago that you were 

 intending to visit this section of the State the com- 

 ing summer. Could you not combine business 

 with pleasure, and arrive here at the time the most 

 of the honey is in the producer's hands, and help 

 us to a market, either by purchase or otherwise? 

 Our honey will be sold in San Diego, to dealers who 

 make the profit, if any is made. I asked a dealer 

 in San Diego the other day what honey was worth, 

 both extracted and comb, 3-lb. sections. He replied 

 that the best they could do wa8 4cts. for best ex- 

 tracted, and 8 or 9 for comb. This would seem low 

 when we consider that, owing to the total failure of 

 last year, and partial failure the present year, the 

 markets must be almost bare. There is out at the 

 present time in this settlement, the following 

 amounts, which will not be doubled, hardly, by the 

 total amounts to come off during the rest of the 

 season. I will first say, that there are about 600 

 stands in the settlement. Amount out now, comb, 

 3'/^ tons; amount out now, extracted, 5 tons. As I 

 said before, this amount will, I think, be nearly 

 doubled for the whole season, so that the total will 

 read .5 tons comb and 10 tons extracted. All the 

 honey made so far is extra white. 



De Luz, Cal., June 37, 1888. O. A. Stewart. 



Friend S., I should be very glad to com- 

 bine business and pleasure, if 1 had brains 

 enough to spare for both ; but as it is, when 

 I go to Calitornia I want to go just for the 

 fun of it, and for the sake of gleaning some- 

 tliiiig valuable for the pages of Gleanings. 

 If you have any honey to sell, you had bet- 

 ter write to us direct. 



HONEY WANTED. 



Mr. Calvert, our purchasing clerk, says we 

 want some comb honey now, and we want it 

 bad. We do not want a carload, but we 

 should like 5W or 1000 lbs. We should also 

 like a ton or two of nice extracted clover 

 honey. Tell us how much you have got, 

 and what you will take for it ; and if we do 

 not buy it", we will give it a free notice in 

 our Honey Column. I believe it is a diffi- 



cult matter to ship honey from California, 

 unless it is done in carload lots. 



JimE^ M^ QaEi^iE^s. 



winter and spring report. 



T WINTERED 35 swarms in chaff hives; fifteen 

 /^ were four-frame nuclei. I lost one full swarm 

 ^l by dysentery, and seven nuclei; one by dysen- 



"*■ tery and two by starvation. 



THOSE butter-dishes FOR HILL'S DEVICE. 



I had to feed some last fall, and used the butter- 

 dish feeders. After feeding I turned one bottom 

 side up, across the frames of each hive, under the 

 chafl" cushion, and I like them used in this way. 



Quincj', Mich. C. A. Ricketson. 



open-top sections VERSUS CLOSED TOPS. 



I think I shall like the open section better than 

 the closed tops. A. L. Clair. 



Redden, Del., June 30, 1888. 



A support for sections. 



I find supports for sections in crates ' — I shaped 

 much better than I rests, as there is less chance 

 for the bees to fasten the sections to them, and they 

 are fully as strong, and easier to put in. To do which 

 I make two saw-cuts in the bottom edge of the crate 

 for the uprights, and drive a nail in the flat part to 

 hold it in place. The uprights are /g, and the bot- 

 tom 14 inch. A. C. Miller. 



Drownville, Bristol Co., R. I., June 16, 1888. 



no drones. 



I have three hives, and do not see any drones. 

 What is the cause of it? W. W. Beam. 



Malheur City, Oregon, June 39, 1888. 



[A young queen will rarely ever lay many drone 

 eggs, and consequentlj' you would find very few if 

 any drones in the hives with your untested queens. 

 The absence of drones may likewise be accounted 

 for by the sudden cutting-oflf of the honey-flow, or 

 from the fact that no honey is or has been coming 

 iu.l 



BLACK SHINY BEES. 



Bees are booming. Gleanings gets better all 

 the time. Please give me some information as to 

 the black shiny bees we sometimes see. 



Milton, W. Va., June 31, 1888. M. A. Kelley. 



[The black shiny bees you mention may be noth- 

 ing but very old bees, the fuzz having been worn 

 off their abdomen. There is another kind of black 

 shiny bees, and they are those that have what we 

 call the nameless bee disease. Their abdomens are 

 considerably swollen, and their general appearance 

 is dark and somewhat glossy. See the ABC for 

 further particulars^ 



s<^)Wing buckwheat with clover, etc. 



Will clover do well, sown with buckwheat in 

 April? If a hive is filled with worker foundation, 

 will the bees raise any drones in such a hive? 



Pleasant Site, Ala. T. B. Stkickland. 



[I think very likely the clover would do all right, 

 friend S., but it is not custouiar\ to snw buckwheat 

 in April. It seldom fills out well during hot weath- 

 er. — Bees will usually raise some drones in almost 

 every hive, even if they have to tear down worker- 

 cells in order to make a few drone cells. Worker 

 foundation, however, prevents the excessive raising 

 of drones, and is, to all intents and purposes, a com- 

 plete remedy.] 



TRIMMING FOUND.ATION WITH A SADDLERS KNIFE. 



I ran on to an improvement to cut starter wax. 

 1 don't know whether it has been used before or not. 

 It is a saddler's knife. You can lay down your 



