458 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



those closed part way down; but instead of fix- 

 ed I should like spaced better for all which are 

 spaced by nails, staples, or what not. Fixed 

 has already gone into use to include all but 

 7oo.se frames. 



Ox PAr4E 3G8 E. R. R. explains why. with loose 

 fi'ames, bees don't make little hummocks of 

 propolis on the rabbets. My bees have never 

 had the explanation, and persist in making 

 such hummocks, no matter how much the spac- 

 ing is changed. Don't you see. Ernest, that, 

 every lime the spacing is changed and the top- 

 bar rests on a hummock, the glue gets warmed 

 up and is squeezed out into the new space? 



gENEl^^n O0R^E3P0NDE.NCE. 



CONTROLLING DKONES, ETC. 



DOOI-ITTLE GIVES US SOME GOOD ADVICE. 



A correspondent writes: " I have five colonies 

 of bees — three blacks and two Italians. Would 

 it be well to give the Italians a card of drone 

 comb and "put drone-traps on the blacks when 

 the young Italian queens are mating? or is 

 there a better way ?"' 



If the correspondent is desirous of having his 

 •queens purely mated, of course he must kill or 

 control all drones from the undesirable colonies. 

 The drones can be controlled with the traps; 

 but in this case you must buy the traps, keep 

 them on the colonies, and furnish the honey 

 necessary to rear and feed the drones, all of 

 which is an expense which would better be 

 avoided. If you think that you uiust raise the 

 drones, and do not wish to buy traps, you can 

 put a piecci of perforated metal at the entrance 

 •of the " black hives," keeping it there till four 

 o'clock, then remove and let the drones out; 

 and while out. replace and keep the most of 

 them out for evening destruction. This would 

 be about the only way with box hives, unless 

 the trap was used. But for frame hives, much 

 the best way would be to remove all the drone 

 comb, or nearly so. from the black colonies, and 

 replace it with worker coml), and thus you will 

 save all the trouble and cost of producing the 

 drones, and you will rear .50 workers to every 

 square inch, in place of -32 drones, these workers 

 storing honey for you in place of eating it. In 

 any event, you could not be sure of having your 

 •queens purely mated unless there were no black 

 or hybrid bees in the woods oi' any apiary for a 

 distance of four oi- live miles from you in every 

 direction, which is a state of affairs which does 

 not usually exist in most parts of our country. 

 But for honey-production I doubt whether it 

 would pay you to be too careful to have all of 

 your queens purely mated, foi- a first cross (or 

 what is more truly hybrids than the general 

 mixture which are called hybrids) gives nearly 

 if not quite as good results in honey as do piire 

 bees of any race. If yon were to send south for 

 Italian queens for the three black colonies, and 

 Italianize the blacks before any drones were 

 reared in these hives, you woiild then have 

 things about as you want them, and that, 

 too, about as cheaply as by any plan I know of. 

 In the above our cori'espond'ent should find 

 something to help him out of his dilemma, it 

 seems to me. 



IS THE BEE-MOTH LARVA KILLED BY FROST? 



Another correspondent writes: " I have read 

 that frost would kill the larvic and eggs of the 

 bee-moth. If so. what temperature will it take 



to do it? I have some combs which have been 

 exposed all winter to the cold; but I find worms 

 hatching out in them, or, at least, the worms 

 are at work on them." 



It is generally supposed that a temperature 

 of 10° above zero will destroy all eggs and larviB 

 of the bee-moth; but, candidly, I do not know 

 whether it will or not. At times I have thought 

 that zero and below was sure death to every 

 thing in the bee-moth line; then, again, I have 

 been»equally positive that worms which had 

 wintered over somehow in a very low tempera- 

 ture, either in the egg or larval form, were at 

 work in my combs during the first warm days 

 in spring and early summer. Who can tell us 

 something positive about this matter? We 

 know that eggs and larvffi are canned over in a 

 colony of bees or in their combs; and I have 

 thought that these, after hatching into the ma- 

 ture moth, may have found their way to my 

 combs in some way, though I hardly knew how, 

 and that thus I might have been mistaken, and 

 the old book theory, of cold making combs 

 moth-proof, be true after all. Can Prof. Cook 

 give us any light on this? 



WHO FURNISHES THE FEED? 



" Who furnishes the feed when the apiary is 

 worked on shares, for stimulating purposes, or 

 to keep the bees from starvation ? In other 

 words, what is the custom regarding such feed- 

 ing !" is another question sent in. Well, I do 

 not know that there is any custom. The only 

 way that I know of to govern such matters is to 

 enter into an agreement, explicit enough to 

 cover all cases of emergency, and have it put 

 down in black and white, and then live up to it 

 according to the Christian rule laid down in 

 the good book, " Who sweareth to his own hurt, 

 and changeth not;" for if you go into '" bees on 

 shares," some one is apt, "as a rule, to have his 

 feelings, if not his pocket-book, hurt. If you 

 have taken the bees this spring, and the owner 

 of them said nothing about' whether they had 

 honey enough to carry them through to new 

 honey, and they were short of feed. I should 

 think that he should furnish the feed, were 

 they likely to starve. As for feeding to stimu- 

 late, I do not think that it can be made to pay 

 for the feed and time. If you have had the 

 bees for a term of years, and you did not leave 

 honey enough in. the hives last fall for the bees 

 to come through in good order to swarming- 

 time, then I should say that you were the one 

 who should furnish the feed. If you were both 

 to share, and share alike in the piofits from the 

 bees (the way in which bees are usually let out 

 on shares), then I should say that both of you 

 should bear equally the expense of feeding. But 

 in addition to what I said above about bees on 

 shares, I would now say. don't. Far better 

 purchase two or three colonies: work your way 

 up with them as your knowledge increases, 

 thus being your own man all the while, than to 

 try to gain a knowledge regarding the business 

 by building yourself up on some other person's 

 property along this line. Almost any other 

 partnership business works better than it does 

 with bees. G. M. Loolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., May IG. 



[My impression is, that 10 degrees above zero 

 will destroy every vestige of the l^ee-moth; and 

 I believe they generally live over, unless so 

 near the cluster of bees that tliey are kept 

 above this temperature. With us we rarely 

 have trouble until quite late in the season, yet 

 we leave combs (wposed more or less every year. 

 —I am very glad, friend D., to have you second 

 our oft-repeated advice about bees on shares. 

 The matter is, as you say. too complicated.] 



A. I. R. 



