1888 



GLt:AKlNGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



677 



In sending- plants for name, not only the flowers 

 but the stems and leaves should be sent. In such 

 large families as the Compositce, we must see the 

 leaves and Isnow their arrangement on the stalk. 



A. J. Cook. 



Agricultural College, Mich., Aug. 10, 1888. 



Friend Cook, these wild suntlowers, in 

 swampy places in our own locality, some- 

 times furnish a considerable amount of hon- 

 ey. Tame sunflowers, however, aft'ord lit- 

 tle if any. You may remember that we 

 have tried half an acre on our honey-farm, 

 and hardly a bee was found on them. 

 There have been other seasons since then 

 when the bees were quite thick on the sun- 

 flower heads. Our stenographer says that 

 his sunflowers are now visited by bees, and 

 that they certainly suck up the juice that 

 exudes so plentifully. I presume this is to 

 be accounted for by the scarcity of nectar 

 in the other flowers at larye. In other 

 words, the bees prefer to work on siuiflow - 

 eis lather than do nothing at all. Y(.u 

 speak of beggar- ticks, a species of bidcus. 

 I presume this is the same as what we c;ill 

 Spanish needles, and these, in swampy 

 places, look not unlike miniature sunflowers. 

 In some localities they furnish large quanti- 

 tities of very thick amber honey, something 

 like that from the sunflower family. 



PREPARING FOR "WINTER. 



FRIEND DOOLITTLE GIVKS US A TIMELY HINT. 



fEARS ago, when I first began to keep bees, I 

 thought there was little which needed doing 

 with the bees during the months of Septem- 

 ber and October, thinking that the month of 

 November was early enough to prepare bees 

 for winter, and many a time have I equalized the 

 stores in the hive "by frost," as I used to term it, 

 thinking that I could get along with the matter 

 easier and quicker while the bees were thickly 

 packed away in their winter quarters, than I could 

 possibly do when warm weather compelled me to 

 use smoke to drive the bees out of the way, and 

 keep their temper down so I could handle them. 

 Well, if this were all there was to it I should still 

 prefer to equalize the stores after cold nights had 

 compelled the bees to contract oflf the heavy combs 

 of honey; but after losing heavily several times 

 when preparations were thus delayed, for the rea- 

 son thai the disturbing of bees late in the fall 

 seems to be very injurious, I concluded to take the 

 advice of an old bee-keeper, who told me that the 

 month of September was the proper time to fix the 

 bees for winter. After working on this plan for a 

 number of years, I find that he was quite right 

 about it; and in order that the readers of Gr.EAN- 

 iNijs maybe reminded that winter is soon to be 

 upon us, and that they should not delay getting the 

 bees ready for it longer than till the last of this 

 month, I will tell them a little of liow I work along 

 this line. 



The point which seems to have the greatest bear- 

 ing on successful wintering is the getting of the 

 winter stores near and around the cluster of bees 

 in time for them to settle down into that quiescent 

 state so conducive to good wintering, prior to No- 

 vember first. To arrange these stores and proper- 

 ly seal them requires warm weather; hence, it is 



clear, I think, to all, why we should not put oflf 

 caring for them till cold weather arrives. To be 

 sure that all have the desired amount of honey, 

 there is only one certain way to do, and that is to 

 open the hives and take each frame and weigh it, 

 after having shaken the bees oft' from it. Next 

 weigh a frame of empty comb, or several of them, 

 so as to get the avei-age weight, which, when de- 

 ducted from the weight of those in the hive, will 

 give the weight of the honey. If it is found that 

 there is 25 pounds of honey, I call that colony all 

 right for winter. If less, it must be fed to make up 

 the deficiency; if more, it can spare some to help 

 another colony which is short. In this way I go 

 over the whole yard, equalizing and feeding if it is 

 required, till all have the required 2.5 pounds. 



Where feeding is required I manage differenily 

 from what I used to, in that I now feed from three 

 to five pounds a day, while formerly I used to feed 

 all the colony re(iuired, at one feeding. To be sure, 

 there is less work where the whole is fed at once; 

 but to oflfset this we have the stores scattered all 

 through the hive, which, in my opinion, is a very 

 undesirable shape to have them in. By feeding 

 more slowly we get the stores close up to the clus- 

 ter all around, and thoroughly sealed also, which 

 has great advantage. For feeding slowly as above, 

 I know of no feeder as good as the division-board 

 feeder, which 1 have described in back numbers of 

 Gleanings, nor any feed as good as that made by 

 taking 30 pounds of granulated sugar and pouring 

 it into 15 pounds of boiling water, after which 5 

 pounds of honey is to be stirred in, as 1 have be- 

 fore given on these pages. Where it is necessary 

 to feed (as it seems from present reports it will be 

 in many parts of the country the present season), 

 I always select the number of combs that I think 

 the colony will require, taking those which have 

 the most honey in them, and, by means of this 

 same division-board feeder, shut the bees on that 

 many combs, which (combs) of course get all the 

 feed, thus securing it in just the shape needed. 

 But, I hear some one say, it is a fearful job to 

 shake the bees oflf from every comb and Aveigh it. 

 Well, so it would be if done with each colony; but 

 you will have to do this with only one or two, till 

 you get the right conception of just how much 

 honey there is in each frame by simply looking at 

 it, when you can count off the number of pounds 

 almost to a certainty. However, you will have to 

 weigh a few if you have never pi-acticed this plan, 

 to give you the necessary training required. I can 

 count oft' combs of honey so as to rarely vary one 

 pound on the whole hive, and yet do it as rapidly 

 as I can handle the combs; and when the apiary is 

 thus gone over there is a certainty about it which 

 gives the apiarist a great advantage over any oth- 

 er mode of procedure. In guessing at the amount 

 of stores, or even weighing the hives, one is quite 

 apt to be mistaken, as I used to find out to my sor- 

 row, by having some of my colonies starve; and 

 that I was not ditterent from others, the reports of 

 colonies starving which are given nearly every 

 spring, go to show. As I go over the hives in this 

 way I carefully note the quantity of bees, age of 

 queen, amount of pollen in the combs, etc., which 

 is jotted down on a piece of honey-section, this 

 piece being left on top of the hive, so that the 

 next spring I can tell just what was in each hive 

 the fall before, so that, in case of loss, I can form 

 some idea of what occasioned it. This little piece 



