380 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



and dead brood in all of these years. Some- 

 times a colony gets brood well started in the 

 spring, and then deserts the hive or swarms out, 

 leaving their brood to chill and die. and then 

 the first warm day that comes, the other bees 

 in the yard go in and clean out the; honey, and 

 suck those chilled and dead lai'v;e as dry as 

 chips. 



Another colony dies early in spring from 

 stai'vation. leaving brood to chill and the. The 

 other bees overhaul the combs in seaj'ch of 

 plunder, and no foul brood results. Now. there 

 is a long list of cases in all those years of bee- 

 l\eeping and outdoor wintering where there has 

 been chilled brood, and never a case of foul 

 brood has there been. How is it that I have 

 escaped ? Can any one prove that foul brood 

 ever originated in any such wav? I doubt it. 



Platteville. Wis.. Mar. :.".». E. FitANCE. 



SUCCESS WITH THE DOOI.ITTI.E ARTIFICIAL 

 cells; A GOOD TESTI>I<)NIAI> FOR DOO- 



little's KOOK. 



Mr: Root: — In Gleanings for March 1 I no- 

 tice, on page 162, you wish to know from those 

 who have succeeded with Doolittle's artificial 

 wax cells. I first tried the plan given in Chap. 

 6, that of making them queenless three days, 

 then taking their brood away and giving them 

 twelve artificial wax cells with royal jelly and 

 small larva. In four days, returning to this 

 hive, to my surprise. I found every cell accept- 

 ed and nearly ready to seal. I next tried tlie 

 plan over a queen-excluding honey-board, as 

 soon as honey was coming in from white clover. 

 The colony "being strong, I took two frames 

 from the lower and placed them in the .upper 

 story. I took those with small larva next day, 

 placing a frame with artilicial wax cells in be- 

 tween, and a division-board on each side. In 

 this way I have had 80 per cent of cells accept- 

 ed. If we crowd the colony too much we shall 

 not get as many completed. In this locality, 

 about Aug. 1, bees are inactive, and then we 

 must again feed to get them finished. Doolit- 

 tle's book is worth to me many limi'S its cost. 

 I have not failed with any of the plans tried, 

 given in his book. Peter Brower. 



New Paris, Ind.. Mar. 8. 



HOW TO SAVE BASSWOOI) SEEDS. 



The following comes frcmi one of our large 

 nurserymen, svho deals largely in basswood- 

 trees raised from seedlings. It comes in answer 

 to an inquiry of ours: 



Basswood seed should be picked <iom the tree just 

 as the leaves are falliog-, or i)icked from tlie ground 

 as it falls, and should lie dried just eaoush to take 

 tlie moisture from tlie outside of tlie shell, but not 

 to dry the germ ot (he seed any; then pack them in 

 .sand that is a little moist, iioi wet, and put in tlie 

 cellar. Or it would be better if it were put in plenty 

 of sand, aud wet, aa<i put outside to allow it to 

 fn-eze, and then plant in the spring-. 



Evergreen, Wis., Marcl) 12. Geo, Pinney. 



THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD. 



Friend Root:— J trust yon will excuse me for 

 not answering your question soouer. My mind 

 has been so tilled with a subject of so great im- 

 portance as to nearly drive all else out. There 

 has been a grand revival carried on in and 

 around Fremont, and aliout 350 souls have been 

 redeemed, myself among the number. 



KOHERT E. ASHCRAFT. 



Fremont, Mich., March 18. 



[May the Lord be praised, friend A., especial- 

 ly for the latter sentence. We can put up with 

 almost any sort of omission and neglect when 

 it is explained by such a state of affairs as you 

 mention.] 



NO EXCLUDERS NEEDED FOR COMB HONEY. 



I did not use any zinc honey-boards, nor hon- 

 ey-boards of any description, the past season, 

 and there was not one section in. 500 that contain- 

 ed brood or even pollen, so all contrivances of 

 that kind are worthless for me. 



Deer Park, Mo., Mar. 10. E. C. L. Larch. 



[Your experience is in just the line I have 

 been trying to teach. With the S-frame L. hive, 

 queen-excluding honey-boards are entirely un- 

 necessary in the production of comb honey. If 

 unnecessary, they are a useless expen.se and 

 labor. We make immense quantities of per- 

 forated metal, but I should be sorry to .se(> any 

 one pay out a lot of money when comb honey 

 is the object.] E. R. 



PROSPECTS GOOD FOR CALIFORNIA. 



Bees wintered very well in the mountains. 

 They gathered considerable honey in Decem- 

 ber, and .some in January. Sage is beginning 

 to bloom. I Ihink extracting will commence 

 about the 20th or 25th of April. There has 

 been plenty of rain so far to give fine prospects; 

 and with one or two more spring rains we can 

 expect a good crop. J. G. Gilstrap. 



Last, Fresno Co., Cal., March 29. 



RUBBER gloves WORSE THAN NOTHING 

 FOR BEES. 



I bought a pair some seven years ago of A. I. 

 Root, and I did not have to use them very long 

 to learn to abhor the very name and sight of 

 them. They sweat the hand, are clumsy, and 

 have to be fairly torn off, the hand looking as 

 though it had been parboiled. My bees stung 

 right through them, so there was but little pro- 

 tection from them against injury from bees, 

 and a good deal of discomfort from their use. 

 I now use a buck glove with a long cloth wrist, 

 made to come up over my coat-sleeve, and held 

 by elastic bands. R. E. Timoney. 



Smyrna. Maine, March 25. 



SILVERHULL vs. JAPANESE BUCKWHEAT. 



I see one of the friends advertising silverhull 

 buckwheat as being superior to Japanese. It 

 will not do so well in this part of West Virginia. 

 In 1889 I got half a bushel from you, yielding 39 

 bushels on one acre and 15 rods. Last year I 

 sowed l?i bushels on 3 acres and 74 rods, yield- 

 ing 139 bushels, machine measure. Silverhull 

 never yielded over 15 bushels per acre for me. 

 J. L. McKenzie. 



Howesville, W. Va.. Mar. 20. 



THE LIGHT WINTERING CASE. 



The two swarms done up in paper and oil 

 cloth (see p. 280) are just booming. I believe I 

 have just found out how to winter bees success- 

 fully. I vote for the light wintering case. 



Ra.mbler. 



bees all dead. 

 The bees in this section of country are nearly 

 all dead, and people are waiting to see whether 

 they have any bees left before buying hives. 

 Dudley Walker. 

 North Chatham. N. Y., April 3. 



Bees here have wintered splendidly so far; 

 glad to see that Gleanings is always improv- 

 iug. Andrew Buchan. 



Loanhead, Mid-Lothian, Scotland, Feb. 17. 



I enjoy Rambler's hdters very much, and my 

 wife takes on so about him I am getting un- 

 easy. She is thinking of going to California. 



Little Easy. 



Fayette Corner, Tenn., April (5. 



