8 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUI.TUllE. 



Jan. 1. 



ful bee-kpepers have generally discarded Ital- 

 ian (or Ligurian) bees in favor of the old black 

 or brown variety." How's that ? 



A British writer recommends having extract- 

 ing-co7nbs 3 inches from center to center, to 

 prevent the queen going up into them. I think 

 there Is something in it. With 3-inch sections 

 I never had much trouble with the queen going 

 up. even when I used neither separator nor 

 honey-board. 



Joshua Bull, in the American Bee Journal. 

 thinks, "when we have frequent storms, with 

 heavy discharges of electricity in the form of 

 lightning and thunder, the honey-flow is apt to 

 be light; but when there is less thunder and 

 lightning, there is more honey in the flowers." 

 Well, what can you do about it? 



Isn't contkaction beginning to expand a 

 little? Dr. Tiiiker says, in the Canadian Bee 

 Journal, that contraction "is now admitted by 

 all the ablest producers of comb honey in this 

 country to be necessary to the best results. '" 

 But he has decided, that "it does not pay to 

 carry the contraction too far." He thinlvS " the 

 equivalent of (J L. brood-combs is the best." 



And now it's Hasty I am mad at. I like 

 Hasty, he's always so fresh and briglit. But in 

 the Review he hints that the venerable false- 

 hood, that it takes twenty pounds of honey to 

 make one pound of comb, is kept alive by the 

 bee-journals in the interest of the foundation 

 business. Hasty, did you ever know any of 

 them to suppress any evidence that 3 lbs. of 

 honey make a pound of wax? That hint wasn't 

 nice. It was hasty — almost with the top knock- 

 ed ofl" the h. 



Foui. BROOD in Canada is not likely to be 

 kept hidden. Any ])erson, whether bee-keeper 

 or not. who knows of a case and does not repoi't 

 it to the proper authority, "shall, on summary 

 conviction before a justice of the peace, be lia- 

 ble to a flne of $5 and costs." That's right. It's 

 different here. At a bee-convention a public 

 official announced the existence of a large num- 

 ber of cases of foul brood; and when I pressed 

 for the names, he said lie would not teU, because 

 the parties did not want it knoicn! 



Artificial incrp:ase is practiced by E. 

 France to prevent swarming. He runs out- 

 apiaries for extracted honey, with no one to 

 watch foi- swarms. He visits them every week 

 to ten days. When they get, so strong that 

 there is danger of swarming in a good honey- 

 flow, he takes from each sucii colony about two 

 combs of honey and brood— mostly brood— tak- 

 ing bees with it but no queen, and puts in place 

 empty corahs or foundation staiters. Thus 

 from 3 to () colonies he gets enough to All an 

 empty hive, which in a few days makes a strong 

 working colony. Next visit he cuts out queen- 

 cells. 



AMOUNT OF STORES FOR WINTER, ETC. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE GIVKS US SOME FACTS GLEANED 

 FROM YEARS OF EXT'ERIENCE. 



The following from a correspondent is just at 

 hand: "How much food does each colony of 

 bees require, in order to winter successfully ? I 

 find Mr. Hasty telling in the Review of starting 

 doubled-up colonies with as little as five or six 

 pounds, while some of the ' doctors' say that fif- 

 ty pounds in a hive is better than any thing less. 

 Which am I to believe? and what am I to un- 

 derstand by this great dift'ei'ence of opinion ?" 



Well. thes(» things are often very confusing to 

 a beginner, and I do not wonder at it: but, as a 

 rule, the writer of an article in any of our peri- 



odicals can not well go into all of the minutiae 

 connected with his or hei' subject, because it 

 would make too long an article for one niunber 

 or issue of such periodical: and continued 

 " stories " do not seem to be just the thing for a 

 bee-paper. That none need be thus confused, 

 my advice to all beginners would be, that they 

 ptirchase one or more of our valuable books oii 

 bee culture, and in these they will find the 

 most if not all they want to know about spoken 

 of at length, and the reasons for the writers" 

 opinion given, so that they can form an opinion 

 at once whether the writers' views are correct or 

 not. Witli this prelude I will proceed to answer 

 as best I can. 



While I do not think that 50 lbs. of honey 

 should be required to winter a colony of bees, 

 under any condition, yet the amount required 

 depends very largely on the location, whether 

 the bees are wintered in the cellar or on the 

 summer stand, and upon what is meant by 

 "winter." It will be plain to all. that more 

 stores would be required to winter a colony wh ere 

 winter lield its sway from the middle of October 

 to the middle of April, as it does in some of our 

 most extreme northei'u localities where bees are 

 kept, than would be recjuired in some of the 

 more southern localities where winter does not 

 last over two months. 



If I undei'stood Mi'. Hasty aright in the Re- 

 view, his idea of so little honey was to give only 

 enough honey during the winter montlis proper 

 to supply the '" fuel " reciuired to keep the colo- 

 nies warm, and not to supply them food for 

 brood-rearing in the sjjring. He argued that 

 this scanty supply of food tends to make the 

 bees retrench, and so they would use this supply 

 07) ly for fuel, and thus early brood-rearing, 

 which is considered by many to be of no advan- 

 tage, would be done away with, thus wintering 

 our bees at little cost, and at the same time 

 place them in a condition which is most condu- 

 cive to their prosperity. But Bro. H. did not 

 calculate that the supply he gave them in the 

 fall was to last them till honey was gotten from 

 the fields in the spring, for he plainly told us 

 that he had a supply reserved, to fall back on 

 when the supply given in the fall gave out. 



The only thing I see against this " short-store " 

 plan, as given by Bro. H.. is, that in our locality 

 the bees might run out of supplies at a time 

 when it would be impossible, on account of pro- 

 tracted cold, to supply their wants, thus increas- 

 ing the ])robability of loss to those who are a 

 little inclined to be careless with their pets. 

 Yeai-s, ago, when I first began to keep bees, I 

 thought that each colony wintered on theirsum- 

 mer stand should have at least .30 lbs. of honey 

 to cany them from the first of October to the 

 first of May; but after repeated trials I am fully 

 satisfied that 20 lbs. is just as good as 30, and I 

 find that not one colony in 35 will consume 15 

 lbs. during this time. The only reason for giv- 

 ing the 30 lbs. instead of 15, lies in the fact that 

 the bees will retrench when their stores are get- 

 ting low. just as Bro. Hasty tells us; and if this 

 reti'enching comes when the bees ought to be 

 reaiing hiood. then we are losing largely by 

 not having honey enough in the hive to keep 

 brood-rearing prospering as it should. 



I claim that all colonies wintered on the sum- 

 mer stand shotild have at least ten pounds of 

 honey in their hives the middle of April, in this 

 locality, to give them the confidence they need to 

 start out aright with for the season; for with 

 this amount of stores they will not feel the need 

 of retrenching, but will push brood-rearing on 

 rapidly. If they can be wintered on 5 lbs. up to 

 this time, so much the better: but, if at this 

 time they do not have plenty of honey it should 

 be sup])lied to them in some shape. For cellar 

 wintering I allow 5 lbs. less honey than for out- 



