690 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



From the first to the middle of April, in this lo- 

 cality. G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



As soon as the pollen comes, and the weather 

 permits flight. A. J. Cook. 



As soon as the snow begins to melt off, for bees 

 wintered outdoors. E. Prance. 



That depends upon how early the spring is — one 

 month before fruit-bloom. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Perhaps three weeks before coming out of winter 

 quarters, and possibly not any before coming out. 

 It may differ with locality. C. C. Miller. 



Not until the rough weather is expected to be 

 over. Beginning or middle of March is early 

 enough in the southern part of Ohio. 



Chas. F. Muth. 



I prefer that they do not commence to rear 

 brood largely until they can continue it without too 

 much hindrance. Too early breeding is, I think, 

 undesirable. L. C. Root. 



Just late enough so it -an be continued uninter- 

 rupted. There is not much to be gained in having 

 breeding begin before the first of March, and pos- 

 sibly later some seasons. H. R. Boardman. 



Say April 15; later on, such backward springs as 

 188S. Bad food and worry seems to set bees at win- 

 ter breeding. Occasionally a colony appears to 

 raise lots of winter brood, and gain by it. 



E. E. Hasty. 



Much depends. Sometimes we are the gainers by 

 their commencing a month or more before they are 

 set out of a repository, and sometimes it is better 

 that the queens do not lay an egg until they are 

 put out. James Heddon. 



Not until the weather is such that the bees can 

 obtain a fair supply of natural forage, which, in 

 Iowa, was anj-where from April 10th to the 30th. I 

 found it more profitable to thoroughly protect bees 

 from the changes of the weather than to force too 

 early breeding. O. O. Poppleton. 



Questions 78 and 74, it seems to me, do 

 not admit of very much discussion. The 

 most of us have had bees die, with plenty of 

 pollen in the hives, after the honey was ex- 

 hausted. This fact is pretty soon to be 

 learned by almost every beginner. Ques- 

 tion 75 is also generally answered sooner or 

 later, by accident, where cellar wintering is 

 practiced ; that is, if two colonies are plac- 

 ed very near each other, in the spring, one 

 hive will be found empty, and the one ad- 

 jacent will have all the bees. My experi- 

 ence is, that the cellar is an excellent place 

 for uniting ; for after the bees have acquir- 

 ed the same scent by being so long in the 

 same room, they frequently all behave tliem- 

 selves almost like one colony, so far as in- 

 termingling is concerned. Friends Hasty 

 and Ileddon suggest that sometimes there 

 may becjuite an advantage in winter breed- 

 ing ; at other times theie seems to be a de- 

 cided disadvantage. I have known weak 

 colonies to begin breeding, and build up 

 strong during winter lime, and come out 

 healthy in the spring ; but my impression is, 

 that this can happen only when there is 

 healthy pollen and plenty of stores. I have 

 a good many times tried putting weak colo- 



nies into winter quarters, with the expecta- 

 tion of having tliem build up strong ; but 

 all such plans have been almost entire fail- 

 ures. When 1 planned to have them build 

 up during winter, they did not ; and the oc- 

 casional cases where they built up were 

 when I didn't plan for it nor expect it. 



]V0TEf5 M^ QUE^IE^. 



HOW LONG WILL A COLONY LIVE IN TRANSIT ? 



ITH sufficient stores, and well packed, how 

 many days will a strong colony of bees live 

 during transit ? K. Cuppage. 



Eady, Out., Can., July 30, 1888. 

 [Under favorable circumstances, and not 

 too rough handling, a strong colony of bees will live 

 in transit ten days to two weeks; in hot dry weather, 

 sometimes less than a week; with rough handling, 

 perhaps not more than tliree or four days.l 



HOW to get brood out of extracting-combs. 



I want to know how to get the brood out of the 

 extracting-combs in fall. I put my bees in cellar. 



Conroy, la., Aug. 20, 1888. J. A. Ward. 



[The only way to get brood out of extracting- 

 combs without loss is to allow it to hatch out. 

 Before cold weather, put those combs from which 

 you want the brood taken out, to the outside of the 

 hive. Separate it from the rest of the brood-nest by 

 a division-board. If jou have a queen-excluding 

 honey-board, put all those combs from which you 

 wish your brood removed, into an upper story. 

 Place this on top of a good colony with a queen- 

 excluding honei -board between. As the queen can 

 not get above to deposit more eggs, in three weeks' 

 time all the brood in the upper story will have 

 hatched out.] 



southern versus northern honey. 



Don't bear down too hard on Southern honey. 

 Make an exception of our palmetto honey. We 

 hope to build up a reputation for Florida honey, 

 such as its oranges have earned. The greater part 

 of our honey is from palmetto. I have never been 

 able to get any surplus from orange. Thej' work 

 hard on it, but use it in rearing brood. 



Sarasota, Fla., July 27, 1888. S. C. CORWIN. 



[When speaking of Southern honey as being in- 

 ferior to that produced in the North, in the summa- 

 ry to Honey Statistics, we meant such honey in gen- 

 eral. Perhaps we should have made an exception 

 in favor of the palmetto, for, judging from samples 

 tasted, it is nearly if not quite equal to the clover of 

 the North. Thanks for calling our attention to the 

 matter.] 



IS IT practicable to extract honey from a 

 PEW combs without an extractor? 



Please inform me how a party with two or three 

 hives can extract the honey from the frames with- 

 out injury to the combs, except by the expensive 

 extractor. I have the ABC, Cook, Langstroth, Al- 

 ley, Allen, etc., but I do not find any plan there ex- 

 cept destroying the combs. Lemuel Stout. 



Philadelphia, Pa., July 11, 1888. 



[There is no practical method of removing the hon- 

 ey from the combs without crushing them, except 

 by the extractor. From a^ew combs, if the honey 

 were thin it might be jarred out, but you would suc- 

 ceed in getting only a very little out then. It 

 might be possible to extemporize an extractor for a 

 few combs. The possibility of your doing so would 

 depend wholly upon your mechanical ability, and 

 even then we doubt very much if it would pay to do 

 it. If any extracting is to be done, it is far cheaper 

 to purchase a machine for the purpose.] 



