1S91 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



503 



in, perhaps this is as good advice as can be giv- 

 en, although many hives may have sections put 

 in them when the bees are so few in numbers 

 that they may not enter the sections during tlie 

 whole season. Most apiarists, however, handle 

 their frames, and know the condition of each 

 hive, and can ascertain when the hive is full of 

 brood, and bees are sufficiently plentiful to pro- 

 tect the brood after the sections are on, even if 

 a cold snap should come, putting them on those 

 that are thus ready, and leaving the weaker 

 ones till they are ready also. To show what I 

 mean. P. H. El wood once wrote me that his 

 bees were not in the shape that he wished them, 

 about June 10: "'for." said he, "about a third 

 of them will be ready to take advantage of the 

 clovei-: a third more, with the first tliird, will 

 be ready for the basswood, while the remaining 

 third will not be strong enougii to work to ad- 

 vantage on any thing but buckwlieat." Don't 

 you see what a waste it would have been to put 

 the sections on all of those bees according to 

 the advice given me when I started in bee- 

 keeping? 



But we will suppose that our bees are strong 

 enough to enter the sections, and clover is in 

 bloom— shall we put them on ? No, not till 

 honey is coming in. One year, in which my 

 average yield from the whole apiary was over 

 100 lbs. of comb honey from each old colony in 

 the spring, the sections were not put on till 

 July 15th, for, previous to this time, the bees 

 were living only from "hand to mouth:"' being 

 so sliort of honey that a week of rainy weather 

 would have starved the whole thing had I not 

 come to the rescue by feeding. When we have 

 all in readiness to go on the hives, as I gave at 

 the outset. liK3 hives can be supplied with the 

 surplus arrangement so quickly that no time 

 need be lost after the flowers begin to yield 

 honey. My plan is to go along tlie fronts of 

 some of the strongest colonies, each day, and, 

 by the actions of the bees, tell whether they are 

 gathering honey or not: but where one is not 

 sure that he can tell in this way, it is a good 

 plan to wait about putting on the sections till 

 you find little bits of comb started about the 

 hive, and honey being put into them, or tlie 

 cells being lengthened out along the top-bars 

 of the frames, and honey being stored there. 

 When you see this, and your colonies are strong 

 enough to enter the sections, don't delay put- 

 ting the sections on such hives a single day: 

 for if you do you will be losing honey more than 

 what is coming in at this time, for the bees may 

 go to crowding the queen, and thus be slow in 

 working in the sections all the rest of the sea- 

 son. Another item is. don"t put on too mtich 

 surplus room at once, but put on a capacity of 

 from 15 to 35 lbs., according to the strength of 

 the colony, and as your surplus arrangement 

 will allow. One of the favorable things about 

 the Manura clamps lies in the fact that he can 

 put on one, two, or more of them, as he desires, 

 at a time; and I believe this has much to do 

 with his success. With the wide frames as I 

 use them, I can do the same thing; and when 

 the bees are well at work in these, more are 

 added, and so on till the full capacity of the 

 hive is reached. 



From many experiments I have come to the 

 conclusion that 00 lbs. capacity is about right 

 for a good strong colony, when worked for sec- 

 tion honey, and 120 lbs. when worked for ex- 

 tracted honey, exclusive of the brood-frames. 

 In putting on sections it is wtdl to have a part 

 of those first put on filled with comb left over 

 from the previous season, so as to start the bees 

 at once to storing above. Don't wait till your 

 bees swai'm before putting on the sections; as 

 some do. fearing that the sections will retard 

 their swarming, for bees often refuse to swarm. 



and hang idle on the hive all summer. Swarm- 

 ing is I'etarded but very little, if any, where the 

 sections are put on as above. Always keep an 

 eye to business, never forgetting that a thing 

 done in the right time bi'ings success, while a 

 delay of only a few days may titrn that success 

 into a failure, G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., June, 1891. 



THE EXPERIMENT OF MOVING A CARLOAD 

 OF BEES FROM NEW YORK TO COL- 

 ORADO. 



HOW THE BEE.S WEKE SHIPPED SUCCESSFULLY 

 2500 MILES IX THE DEAD OF WIXTEK. 



Friend Root: — When I first reached this place 

 with my bees I wrote you a card saying I had 

 met with unexpected success in getting them 

 here. I have now to report unexpected failure 

 to keep the bees in good condition after getting 

 them here. I have lost over half of them from 

 spring dwindling, and those left are weak; but 

 I have bought as many as I have lost, and pro- 

 pose to know what the honey resources are 

 here, and hope to be able to winter them here 

 all right. I believe they will breed very much 

 longer here in the fall, and thus go into winter 

 quarters with many more young bees in each 

 hive. 



It has been an unusually late and backward 

 spring here, I am told, although bees that were 

 wintered here seem to be almost ready to 

 swarm. Alfalfa is knee high, and will begin to 

 blow out in a few days. Wild flowers are quite 

 plentiful already. 



I will now give you an account of how I pre- 

 pared my bees for shipping, and brought them 

 through so well, nearly 2.500 miles, with the 

 loss of only seven stocks, and very few dead 

 bees in each hive. There were only six or eight 

 combs loosened from their frames in the whole 

 lot. and yet there was not a wired comb among 

 them. A very large share of the combs were 

 those that had been transferred from box hives, 

 and were, of course, fastened all around — an im- 

 portant factor in keeping them whole. 



Last fall, some weeks before the hives were 

 prepared for the cave in which I wintered them, 

 I took burlap, old carpet, etc., and folded it sa 

 as to fill the space between the frames and cov- 

 ers, so that the covers, when pressed down, 

 would hold the frames secure. Then I took a 

 strap of sheet iron, and bent over the cover and 

 screwed one end to each side of the hive, set- 

 ting the screws so that they drew the cover 

 down tight. I then took old burlap and cut it 

 up in strips about four inches wide, and damp- 

 ened them with water so that they would 

 pack tight; then I turned the hive bottom side 

 up, and. with a broad - pointed putty-knife, 

 packed the burlap, that had been dampened, 

 between the ends of the frames and the hive in 

 such a way that the frames were held very 

 flrmly. This at the same time made a cushion 

 that broke the jar of the train endwise, as when 

 coupling cars and stopping and starting the 

 train, which at times was very severe, so that 

 it seemed as if every frame must be broken, so 

 great was the shock and jar as the cars came 

 together. 



The bees thus prepared were ready for the 

 cave in whicli they were wintered. I then took 

 a half-story full of empty comb, and prepared 

 (to put under each hive) in this way. 1 covered 

 one-third of the bottom with wii'e cloth, and 

 the remaining two-thirds I covered over with 

 half-inch lumber, nailed on so as to leave a 

 chance for the air to circulate under each hive 

 clear across it, the wire cloth being above the 

 strips of lumber, so that, when the hives were 



