594 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15. 



two empty frames in my upper story for ex- 

 tracting over good colonies, 1 get aboutas mnch 

 lioney as though they were not building 

 comb, and they seem much better contented 

 — not so liable to s\\ arm. and I have the combs 

 to help till the upper stoiy of new swarms. 



I ri'ad friend ■Slanum's article in April 15th 

 Gleanings with much interest; but I am 

 afraid he will get "stuck," or pei'haps some one 

 with less experience will try to follow the same 

 plan with his out-apiaries, and will'get so much 

 on his hands tliat he will pretty emphatically 

 wish for some help. A little of my experience 

 may illustrate one diftlculty that may come up. 

 This spi'iiig I have my home yard and a yard 

 four miles away. I planned to visit the out- 

 yard once a week, and divide every colony that 

 showed any. sign of swarming. My home yard 

 built up very strong, and swarming commenc- 

 ed. All went according to plan for a while. 

 Then the weather got so that, for some days, 

 the bees could work only an hour or so; this 

 continued* several days, bees swarming all the 

 time, as there was plenty of honey when the 

 bees could work. Of course, with my two yards 

 and some one to stay at hom(\ I did not lose 

 many. One cool day after working at the out- 

 yard. I got home after dark and found my wife 

 had three swarms clustered together on both 

 sides, end, and bottom of a two - story hive, 

 while the day had been so cool that bees had 

 worked only during the middle of the day. 

 Then we had a cool spell of four days, with 

 frost three nights. The first and fourth days 

 the bees Hew some; the second and third days, 

 the yard looked like winter — hardly a bee stir- 

 ring, as there was a cold north wind; and on 

 the fifth and sixth days swarms issued. Now, if 

 I had had more than three yards, even if I de- 

 pended on dividing, I must have lost more or 

 less swarms, as the weather would not permit 

 of working with them, though the swarming- 

 fever kept up. 



IS THERE DANGER OF FERTILE WORKERS? 



In making colonies hopelessly queenless to 

 prevent swarming, I should be afraid of fertile 

 workers taking possession; and a colony with- 

 out Queens, or means of rearing one, is of very 

 little account for work with me; and this I am 

 afraid would be a greater loss than to raise 

 bees by having a queen with them, though it 

 may work all right in certain localities. 



Port Orange, Fla.. May 11. John B. Case. 



to shake the bees out of one of his shallow 

 brood -chambers? P^or instance, if he simply 

 wants to find the queen, he seldom shakes them 

 at all— just lifts the cover, and gently puft's a 

 little smoke down the frames, then lifts off the 

 bi'ood-chamber, and, in tiie majority of cases, 

 the queen is on the bottom-board; if not. gently 

 shake them over the bottom, and the queen 

 will di'op off. as she is heavy, and can't cling as 

 well as the workers. But when shaking out of 

 the extracting supers you want to shake them 

 •• alltired hard.'' 



When I came here to work for Mr. Phidel 

 Baldwin, in 18S7, they all used a mouth smoker 

 — merely a tin tube, with corn silk for fuel: but 

 he bought a Bingham "for me;" but when I 

 bought bees in the fall, and started for myself. I 

 offered to take the Bingham off his hands; but, 

 no; he had " got used to it." .Since then I have 

 got so used to the mouth smoker that I use it 

 considerably. Strange, Isn't it? Perhaps Mr. 

 Heddon will remember who it was who wrote 

 in an article a few years ago. that " the man 

 who never changes is a humbug." I used to 

 laugh continually at Mr. P. Baldwin about his 

 side-opening hives, and now I think he has 

 nailed every one fast. " Don't want a hive to 

 tumble to pieces when he picks it up."' But I 

 am thinking of making my hives side-opening. 



S. A. UTftEY. 



Mt. Washington, ]SIo., June 20. 



[There; I am glad you have told us about that 

 shake-out function. I shall try it again, for you 

 have given me a new idea on the method of 

 shaking. Yes. for extracting supers I should 

 think you would have to shake "alltired hard." 

 Say, don't you use side-opening hives or you 

 will regret it, as they nearly all have done. 

 Use a hive a trifle wider, and then pull out the 

 follower to get the •' function '"of a side-opener.] 



E. R. 



PROSPECTS POOR IN MISSOURI. 



HEDDON'8 SHAKE-OUT FUNCTION, AND HOW 

 HE DOES IT, AS TOLD BY ONE OF HIS 



STUDENTS. 



We have no honey yet — too wet and cool. 

 Bee-men around here are wearing long faces, 

 but hope basswood will yield. All we shall 

 need. I think, is good weather. The trees seem 

 to be loaded down with buds. Mr. L. W. Bald- 

 win says there's only one chance in ten of get- 

 ting any honey from basswood. His brother 

 Phidel says this is the 10th chance. I really 

 hope it is. But this is the fifth year I have 

 been here, and I have yet to see much basswood 

 honey — that is. any thing like the way it yields 

 in New York; so you see our main dependence 

 is white clover; and when that fails we are 

 "up a tree." 



GETTING USED TO A THING. 



Friend Ernest, you ari' just talking when you 

 quote about "getting used to a thing." Will 

 you please allow one of Mr. Heddon's students 

 to just inform you how Mr. H. would proceed 



llADlES' G0N¥ERSAZ10NE. 



RECORD-BOOKS. 



HOW DR. MILLER KEEPS THEM. 



You ask, Mr. Root, for some information in 

 regard to the way we keep our record-book. 

 Now, I have been wanting to write on that sub- 

 ject. I can hardly see how any one who has 

 many bees can get along without a record-book, 

 and I haven't the least doubt that others who 

 keep their records by means of slates, bricks, 

 etc.. can't see how we get along with a record- 

 book. I think the first remark Mr. Root made 

 was something like this: "Suppose you lose 

 your book." We replied, "\"es, but we don't 

 lose it. We never lost' one yet." In the first 

 place, the book is rather large to lose easily; 

 and, secondly, it is so constantly in use that it 

 has not much time to get lost, as we take the 

 same book to each apiary. We could not get 

 on very well without it. 



Some one may say, "Suppose you forget it 

 when going to an out-apiary. What would you 

 do then? " Well, we might have to go back 

 after it. But to avoid the possibility of such a 

 thing, we have in the back of our book a mem- 

 orandum of such articles as we might wish to 

 take with us, such as hats, chisels, smokers, 

 shavings, etc., and have made it a rule that 

 that memorandum must be read after we are 

 in the wagon, ready to start, to make sure that 

 nothing is left. Of course, we must have the 

 book to read it, so the book can never be forgot- 

 ten. I don't think we should ever get very far 



