1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



303 



'■ Do you run them in at the entrance or at 

 the top of the hive?"' 



"Usually at the top. At the time this work 

 is done the sections are on the hives, and I sim- 

 ply raise one corner of the enameled cloth that 

 covers the sections, and let the queen run down 

 among the bees in the sections. This is done 

 so carefully that the bees are not disturbed in 

 the least, and the queen is tisually accepted. I 

 inti-oduced over 500 last season, and did not lose 

 over a dozen."' 



■' Would it not be better to give them a fertile 

 queen instead of a virgin"'"" 



"No. Henry. 1 think not. because such a queen 

 would at once commence laying, and soon till 

 the combs with eggs, and there would be a large 

 amount of honey consumed in rearing the 

 brood, the bees from which would be useless to 

 me as honey-gatheiers. as the honey season 

 would be over before such brood would hatch: 

 while, on the other hand, by leaving them 

 queenless 1.5 days, and ten to tifteen days more 

 before the yoiing queen commences to lay, 

 makes at least 25 days, right in the best of the 

 honey season, that they are without biood to 

 feed: hence the honey they would have con- 

 sumed is stored in the hive, and the colony is 

 just as well otf (for bees) in the fall as though 

 a laying queen had been given them, because 

 they have a part of July and the months of 

 August and September in which to rear a stock 

 of bees to carry the colony through the winter." 



'•Have you "ever triedother methods to pre- 

 vent swarming?" 



"Yes. two or three of them, one of which I 

 think is practical, and I shall practice it some- 

 what this season, and I believe it is original 

 with me: and if you are in no hurry I will ex- 

 plain it to you. as I should like to have you try 

 it this season."" 



"I don"t think I had better stop nosv. as my 

 chicks must be calling me by this time. I will 

 call again in a few days, and shall be pleased 

 to listen to the new ways: so, good-day."" 



"Why. what is the ni after with you? What 

 makes you so lame. Henry? '" 



"Ohl* nothing, only a corn on one of my toes. 

 I have sat here so long that it harts at first 

 starting off." 



" Well, it must be a bad one, sure. You just 

 undress your foot while I get something to put 

 on that will surely cure it. There. I will satu- 

 rate this little wad of cotton batting with ex- 

 tracted honey, and bind around the toe — so. 

 There, now. dress your foot again, and I'll guar- 

 antee that to-morrow you will be thankful for 

 the discovery.'" 



"Well. Manum, you beat all the men I ever 

 saw. I never have visited you yet without get- 

 ting some new idea from you." 



"For any new thought I may give you, or 

 any one else, Henry. I take no credit to myself, 

 as "they originate with a higher intellect than 

 my own. 1 am, like all other mortals, simply a 

 medium through which an unseen force gives 

 to the woi'ld these new ideas. Though many of 

 these things I have gleaned from other mortals, 

 through whom the same unseen force has ex- 

 pressed itself for the good of all, yet we should 

 entertain no dispositit)n to keep any good thing 

 from our neighbors." A. E. Manvm. 



Bristol. Vt. 



[Vei-y good, friend M. I suppose we are to 

 understand by your concluding remark, that, if 

 you should make some valuable discoveiy in 

 regard to alleviating human suffering, you 

 would not be one of the sort who would want 

 ?4.00 each from every man to whom you gave 

 the secret. Here is our hand. Shake! But, 

 hold onl While we are shaking hands cordial- 

 ly over this matter of curing a corn with ex- 



tracted honey, I fear we shall not agree quite 

 as well on the probability that you can run six 

 out-apiaries, besides one at home, and do all 

 the work yourfielf. If there should not be very 

 much honey, and therefore not very much work 

 to do, perhaps you might get along very well. 

 But suppose we have a real old-fashioned sea- 

 son, whei'e the honey comes day after day. as if 

 it rained down, then where would one man be 

 with six out-apiaries and one at home? Wljen 

 I was in Wisconsin I saw an apiary of toward 

 100 hives, with the hives so full of honey that 

 the greater part of the bees were crowded out. 

 and lay on the outside and in front. The pro- 

 prietor said he knew the bees were losing their 

 time in the very height of the season: but he 

 had taken out honey all day. and it was then 

 after four o"clock. and he was not going to 

 work any more .for (tinjbody. I suppose that, 

 in the town of Boscobel. pi-ople could be hii'ed 

 to woi'k after supper as well as in other places. 

 I remonstrated with him some, because he 

 was going to let that harvest go to waste be- 

 cause of the lack of a little help. Never mind; 

 we will not argue the case with you. But 

 please tell us, thi'ough your notes, how you get 

 along. Many others are interested in this very 

 same problem of hiring help.] 



CHIPS FROM E. FRANCE. 



THE FLAT BOARD COVER AND ITS SLIDING 

 MOTION. 



In March 15th Gleanings, page 211, E. R. 

 Root says, at the bottom of the tirst column, 

 "You know that, when we put a flat cover on a 

 hive, we kill bees if we set it flat down on the 

 square edges of the hive: but with a sliding 

 motion, in the hands of those who use that cov- 

 er, there is not the least excuse for killing bees." 

 Now, I just want to object to any thing being 

 put on over the bees with a slklinij motion. If 

 there are bees over the frames, or on the square 

 edges of the hive, that sliding motion rolls them 

 up in bunches and kills them. My hives are all 

 square edged on top. and we use a flat wood 

 honey-board. When we put ihe honey-board 

 on we use a little smoke to drive the bees down 

 between the combs, and with a brush we brush 

 the edges of the hive clean, and then put the 

 board on flat, and kill no bees. 



RAPID GROWTH OF BAS8WOOD-SPROUTS. 



About those basswood-sprouts (see page 223), 

 two vears ago I cleared ofT a yard for a new 

 apiary. About the center of the yard there is a 

 basswood stump two feet in diameter. The flrst 

 year spi'outs grew from that stump ten feet 

 high and ly, to 2 inches thi'ough near the 

 ground. We "cut them all off: but last year, 

 sprouts grew again nearly as tall and large. 

 Now. if only two or three of those sprouts had 

 been left to take all the gi'owth from the old 

 roots. I think 10 years would have made a fair- 

 sized saw-log. 



ABSURD theories: a genuine chicken- 

 story. 



Again, page 227. J. D. Whittenburg, did the 

 bees eat that wheat? No. What then? Mice. 

 There are lots of false notions about bees. I 

 have heard several men say, that, if bees we)-e 

 short of honev. if boiled chicken be placed un- 

 der the hive, they would eat it and winter on it. 

 Do I believe it? No. Mice again. My son 

 Newel has just got back from the bee-keepers' 

 convention, and says the chicken story was ad- 

 vanced there as a fact. 



Several years ago a man told me he had a 

 swarm of bees wintering on chicken. I went to 



