1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



88i 



gt)Od for strawberries, or any other kind of 

 small fruit, for it very soon decays so as to 

 make a substance very much like chip dirt. 

 Rotten wood or rotten logs make an excel- 

 lent manure or muh h for the berry family. 

 Pine sawdust is not as good, because it is a 

 hard matter to make it rot at all, and very 

 much pine sawdust will injure your plants— 

 at least, quite a good many people say they 

 have had iheir gardens seriously harmed by 

 using much pine sawdust. 



ADVERTISEMENTS THAT DO NOT PAY'. 



The following appeared in Our issue for 

 Sept. 15 : 



Bees at $1 50 Fifty full swarms with queens, 

 $1 50. If Simplicitv hive and comb is wanted, add 

 10 cts. per c< mb and 50 cts. per hive. 



F. H. McFarlanu, St. Albans, Vt. 



Below is what our advertiser says in re- 

 gard to it : 



I have never seen the advertisement, nor did I get 

 a single reply to the same. I guess that bees are 

 below par this year. F. H. McFarland. 



St. Albans, Vt., Oct. 30, 1888. 



Well, I do declare ! Had friend M. asked 

 my advice in regard to inserting such an ad- 

 vertisement, I should have told him that, in 

 my opinion, he would certainly sell all his 

 bees. Only #1.50 per colony, and 10 cents 

 apiece for the combs, and 50 cents for the 

 hive I As eight combs would be a great 

 plenty to ship the bees with, hive, bees, and 

 comb would cost only $2.80, and yet not a 

 purchaser nor a single application ! I guess 

 you are right, friend M. Bees are certainly 

 below par ; and, in fact, bees in the fall of 

 the year are almost always slow sale, and 

 just now the demand is very small, because 

 of the past poor season. The moral seems 

 to be, that bees in the fall of the year, with- 

 out stores to winter, are hardly worth ad- 

 vertising. In the above case it would seem 

 that the above hives would certainly be 

 worth 50 cents each, and the combs ought 

 certainly to be worth 10 cents each to melt 

 up for wax ; therefore $1.50 is all you have 

 to pay for bees, brood, and more or less 

 honej' stored in the combs. If this notice 

 does "good in no other way, it will probably 

 deter anybody from sending us an adver- 

 tisement of bees this fall. When they are 

 wintered over, and there is a prospect for 

 honey in the spring, the same bees ought to 

 sell readily at $5.00 per colony, including the 

 hives and combs^ ' 



CHLOKOFORMINO ; ANOTHER WAY TO GET BEES IN- 

 TO A POUND CAGE. 



I had my lirst experience with using chloroform 

 with bees last week; and as the experiment was so 

 satisfactory I give it. A friend told me that a par- 

 ty living about five miles out of town had a colony 

 which he intended to destroy, as they had not suf- 

 ficient stores, and that 1 could have the bees if I 

 would go with hii7j after them. As they were of a 

 good Italian strain I tokl him that 1 was always 

 happy to receive such calls. We arrived at the 

 place about sunrise, with a bee-cage, thinking that, 

 as it was very cold, we could easily shake or brush 

 the bees into the cage; but they were so lively that 

 we '..ould do nothing of the sort without losing a 

 great number. As we had some chloroform with 

 us I tried it by pouring about two drams into the 



hive, closing it, and waiting results. In two or 

 three minutes, upon opiening the hive we found 

 nearly all the bees on the bottom -board, " bottoms 

 up," and we simply turned them into the cage. As 

 they appealed to be completely dead, I supposed 

 that they would be of little use; but in about ten or 

 fifteen minutes they were all nearly as lively as 

 ever. I put them into a new hive with frames of 

 comb, but no honey; and they carried down three 

 pounds of sugar syrup the same afternoon. There 

 were very few dead bees upon the bottom-board 

 the next morning. S. A. Russell. 



Newmarket, Ont., Oct. 15, 1888. 



No doubt your plan will work, friend R. , but 

 we should And it a great deal more trouble 

 than to put them in with the tunnel, as de- 

 scribed in the A B C book. Didn't you find 

 a good many of them away down in the cells, 

 after you gave them the chloroform? 



BEES INJURING FRUIT. 



Notwithstanding my trouble last year with the 

 bees damaging the small fruit (especially the red 

 raspberries), I have not been troubled the past sea- 

 son. I have not seen a single bee on a berry this 

 year, with the exception of some red raspberries, 

 which, after being crated and placed in the shed, 

 had to be protected. You think it very unusual for 

 bees to attack berries. Ever since I have raised 

 the Turner Reds I have been bothered more or less 

 every season until the present. I can account for 

 it this season only by supposing that the bees were 

 attracted away from the berries by the honey-dew 

 on what we call the black-jack oak. They were 

 humming around them from morning till night 

 (but the honey they made was dark, and not first 

 class). Another reason, we had more rain this year 

 than for the past two or three. I notice the bees 

 are more troublesome in dry and hot weather. 

 This year the bees troubled the early peaches con- 

 siderably, but I believe it was just as stated in last 

 Gleanings, Sept. 15, that only those that were be- 

 ginning to rot were attacked, though sometimes 

 the speck was hardly noticealile. I examined close- 

 ly. The bees did not pay much attention to the 

 peaches till after we had a big rain, which caused 

 them to rot. I think it a little strange myself, that 

 I should be the only one to make a report of bees 

 damaging berries. Is there no one else who has 

 had a similar experience? .1. A. Carter. 



Varck, Kan., Sept. 30, 1888. 



a sudden yield. 

 It is now nearly nine weeks since we had the last 

 rain, to do any good, and pasture-fields are drying 

 up. The prospects for a fall crop of honey a short 

 time ago were very bad. About six or eight days 

 ago the bees commenced gathering honey, and 

 now all strong colonies have combs in the brood- 

 chamber all filled, and are working in sections. 

 Even three and four frame nuclei have their combs 

 filled solid with honey. All my bees Hy south, 

 southeast, and southwest. There is a marsh south 

 of us that is from one-half to two miles wide, and 

 perhaps 100 or ~00 miles long, that used to be a grass 

 marsh that would make from two to four tons of 

 hay to the acre. Several years ago the State cut a 

 large ditch through it. Now the grass is gone, and 

 there are thousands of acres, as thick as it can 

 stand, of the bloom I send you, mostly the smaller, 

 and that is what the bees are working on. It is two 

 miles to the nearest point from my apiary to the 



