IS'Jl 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



')5;? 



worth moip than what sugar syrup the neigh- 

 bors" bcos would take. 



Strong colonics will tako much the most, just 

 as strong colonies will gathfr more honey: but 

 the weak ones do take their proportion, work- 

 ing just as hard according to numbers as the 

 strong ones, and it seems to stimulate them to 

 brood-rearing just as much oi' more than if fed 

 in the hive. Warm days we do not warm it — 

 simply stir water into tlie sugar and pour off 

 the water. If none is melted, the bees will pick 

 up the grains of sugar and carry it out of the 

 feeder and waste it. Just as they carry it out of 

 the hive, or the hard candied honey in their 

 cells, they will carry out'grain by grain. 



I think it would not be well to thus feed in 

 the fall unless all coloniesjwere scarce of feed 

 and weak in numbers, which, with us. is now 

 the case. Some colonies will liave twice and 

 sometimes five times the most honey, so that it 

 becomes necessary to feed individual colonies. 



When a colony of bees gets the swarming- 

 fever bad. swarming two or three times, if emp- 

 ty combs are given them, and the sections for 

 comb honey taken away, they will settle down 

 at once to active work and stop swarming, and 

 generally raise a young queen to supersede the 

 old one. " I think they are not satished with the 

 old queen, the reason they swarm more than 

 once: that is, the first swarm when it swarms 

 more than once. We often hear the remark, 

 that Mr. B>ance, the Dadants, and some others, 

 have but very few swarm: but is it not because 

 they extract their combs and do not run their 

 bees for comb honey, rather than any other 

 management different from other people? The 

 colonies we run for extracting seldom swai'm. 

 especially if we do not let them get too full of 

 honey as it daubs their wings and makes them 

 unable to fly if too thick. 



I should have mentioned, that, in the feeders, 

 must be placed wot)den floats that will remain 

 just so far apart, or many bees will get drown- 

 ed. We use thin slats nailed together, stand- 

 ing up on their edges, about ^< inch apart, 

 enough to cover the top of the troughs. The 

 troughs should not be too long to handle easily, 

 so as to turn over occasionally and brush out; 

 and if they get to leaking, resin, melted with a 

 bit of lard to soften it, melted very hot. and 

 l)0ured in on one side, and the trough lifted 

 and let run around the seams at the bottom and 

 up the sides will make it secure. That is one 

 leason we prefer to have the feeders in a house 

 to prevent their drying up. At the home apiary 

 we arci feeding in the same way, only we use ah 

 upper room with a south window thrown open. 

 They fly I'ound and round in the room but very 

 little, but till themselves. Mrs. L. C. Axtell. 



Roseville, 111., April 1(5. 



[I have often thought of gouixls for feeders 

 and other utensils. Perhaps nothing else of 

 the same capacity can be produced so cheaply: 

 but they are of such rude and irregular shape 

 that we can not nest them away as we do tin 

 pans, wooden butter-dishes, etc. They have 

 already been advei-tised for sugar-troughs, for 

 making sugar. Another objection »is. that, if 

 any thing sours in them, it is so much more dif- 

 licult to keep them clean and sweet than tin 

 utensils. Your idea of having a feeding-room 

 where all the bees in the apiary can be fed, 

 even during cool weather. I believe is an ex- 

 cellent suggestion. I once used a small green- 

 house or cold-frame for the purpose, and I never 

 saw brood -rearing go on more to my satisfaction 

 than with this arrangement. Bees seem to do 

 better when they lake wing to get their feed. 

 The objection to my plan was, that sunshine 

 was a necessary adjunct, and tliis we often fail- 

 ed to get in springtime. Your plan of a stove 



in the back end of a room, it seems to me. would 

 be just the thing. Fixing your feed in one 

 room, and filling just one feeder, is certainly an 

 immense gain ovei- going from one hive to an- 

 other, ('specially when we have to go over .50 or 

 KX) hives. I believe the saving in labor would 

 pay. even if our neighbors* bees, or bees from 

 the forests, do get a little of the syrup. I know- 

 bees will go so quickly from the hive to a warm 

 room, tliat they ai'e kept at work during quite 

 cool weather; and. so far as I can see, few if 

 any bees are lost.J 



BUILDING UP WEAK COLONIES. 



FASTENING FOUNDATION. 



I have just been reading Mrs. AxtelTs article, 

 page 4(57. I can sympathize with her feelings 

 about the weak colonies, as I have been ovei' 

 the same ground. Yes, I have heated the stones 

 for them. But, Mrs. Axtell. it doesn't pay. It 

 took me several years to find it out. but I believe 

 I learned the lesson thoroughly. Dr. Miller good 

 naturedly let me have my own way about them. 

 I suspect he thought I would not be convinced 

 in any other way. To be sure, you can build 

 them up into strong colonies, but it is always at 

 the expense of your strongest colonies, and the 

 brood or bees given to the weak ones can be 

 used to better advantage if given to colonies 

 that are tolerably strong, but will bear a little 

 more strengthening before the harvest. 



If all your colonies, except these few weak- 

 lings, were so strong that your queens were be- 

 ing crowded for room to lay, and you felt oblig- 

 ed to take away brood to give the queen room, 

 and had nowliere else to put it. then it might 

 do to give to the weak ones brood with adher- 

 ing bees. But we don't very often find oiu- bees 

 in that condition. If you want to increase your 

 number, you can form a nucleus later in the 

 season, and build up into a strong colony at 

 much less expense: or, if you don't object to 

 swarming, let them swarm. 



You say, "I would not weaken strong colo- 

 nies to build up weak ones.'' But, don't you 

 weaken them just that much wh(^n you take 

 brood and bees from them? also that you pay 

 back again? Now, I should like to ask where 

 you gel your brood and bees to pay l^ack. If 

 you take from the \\eak to pay back. I should 

 think that would retai'd their building up very 

 fast; but I believ<' that is the most pi'orttable 

 way of building up, to take from the weak and 

 give to the strong. 



Again, you say. " I don't know that such 

 tinkering with be(>s would pay for high-priced 

 labor, but for us women-folks who need outdoor 

 exercise, and something to keep us out of mis- 

 chief, I know of no better employment." Now, 

 Mrs. Axtell, I do not believe in that kind of 

 doctrine. If it doesn't pay a man it doesn't pay 

 a woman: and I know of no reason a woman 

 can not do any thing with bees that a man can. 

 except it be for his superioi- strength and abili- 

 ty to do heavier lifting. 



About that foundation-fastening. Yes, you 

 understand me coricctly. friend E. R. I mean 

 the heat to do all the work, using no founda- 

 tion-fastener whatev(>r. I think you must have 

 had your foundation too soft in the first place, 

 or else you must have heated it so slowly that 

 it got soft enough to bag liefore the wire melted 

 its way in. After reading your remarks. I 

 thought I would see how much bagging there 

 was in the work 1 had done. It so happened 

 that there were seven hives full of frames of 

 foundation in the slioj), that the bees had never 

 touched. So I went and looked at them, and 



