1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



821 



RETURNING SWARMS A LA DADANT A SUCCESS. 



During the month of August I returned 17 

 swarms as directed by the Dadants. in reply to 

 J. W. Murray, page .541, and only one of the 17 

 came out a second time, and that was over two 

 weeks after they were returned. I cut the cells 

 out of only one colony before returning the 

 swarm, and that was a colony that I was 

 changing from a single-wall to a chaff hive. 

 The most of them were i-eturned in 48 hours: 

 but on account of rainy weather a few swarms 

 were not returned until 9(5 hours. I consider 

 this the best method yet devised to prevent 

 increase, and shall practice it extensively on 

 early swarms next season. S. W. Taylor. 



Harveyville. Pa., Sept. 8. 



CLOSED-END FRAMES IN A TIGHT-FITTING CASE. 



I am afraid of the close space at the end of 

 some closed -end frames, for I am sure to find 

 the moth there in my locality, and yet I don't 

 want a bee space at the end of such frames. I 

 shall try both. 



I should like to ask Dr, Miller whether he 

 ever tested queens from cells reared with caged 

 ■queens, as mentioned on page 480 of Glean- 

 ings, 1890. Bro. Alley says, on page 130 of the 

 American ApimUiirM for May. 1889, that in 

 some cases the queen was caged, but the queens 

 reared in that way have proven worthless in 

 my apiary. My experience confirms his. 



Galesburg, Mo. W. L. Smith. 



HOAV TO CARRY BEES INTO THE CEIiLAR WITH- 

 OUT BOTTOM -BOARDS. 



I should like to have some one tell how to 

 manage to keep bees quiet while putting them 

 into a bee-cellar, without bottom -boards, or 

 raised from the bottom-board, as some recom- 

 mend; also method of setting out. 



Greenville, Mich., Aug. 2.5. L. C. Lincoln. 



[As we have before explained, the bees should 

 be set in the cellar when the air lias a tendency 

 toward frost: that is, just enough so that the 

 colony is contracting toward their winter sphere. 

 With ordinary caution, scarcely a bee will fly. 

 As we explain in our price list and ABC book, 

 we prefer to carry colonies into the cellar »ut/; 

 bottom-boards ; and when inside, lift the hive 

 ■off and set it in its position.] 



KEENEY METHOD OF WIRING FRAMES. 



I would say tliat I have about 40 brood-fi'ames 

 ■of each of Keeney's method, and the horizontal 

 method drawn taut, and have not a single per- 

 fect comb of the former, nor a single imperfect 

 one of the latter, all on medium foundation. If 

 drawn tight, the wii-c will sag enough to cor- 

 respond witli sag in foundation. 



Bees have done fairly well this year, but the 

 quality of honey is not up to the standard. It 

 is dark, with some little honey-dew, 



Jas. a. Dimick. 



Anderson, Ind., Aug. 26, 1891, 



BEES AS FERTILIZERS. 



Prof. CooTf.-— Please explain through Glean- 

 ings how bees fertilize flowers. The honey 

 crop has been very good here. Bees are gath- 

 ■ering honey fiom a bitter weed. I will send 

 jou a sample. Joe Smylie. 



Wilson, Miss., Aug. 20. 



Each flower of most plants bears stamens and 

 pistils, or male and female organs. The sta- 

 mens bear the pollen, or fertilizing element, 

 which must reach the pistil and pass to the ova, 

 or seeds, else they will fail to produce. In many 

 cases the stamens are on one tree, and the pis- 

 tils on anotlier, as in the willows. In this case, 

 wind or insect must bear the pollen dust from 



the stamen to the distant pistil. Often the 

 seeds will not develop unless the pollen from 

 another flower, even though the flower has both 

 stamens and pistils, is brought to fructify them. 

 Thus we see that bees and other insects in per- 

 forming this valuable service are of immense 

 importance to vegetation. In many cases they 

 must bring pollen from distant plants, as the 

 male and female organs are widely separated; 

 in other cases they must cross-fertilize, as close 

 fertilization is impotent. Every bee-keeper 

 knows how bees get covered with pollen, and 

 how they bear it from flower to flower. Notice 

 the bees at this .season, August, as they visit 

 the snapdragons. The pollen is wliite. and oft- 

 en the bees have a white line tlie whole length 

 of the back wh<^re they rub against the stamens, 

 and bear oft' the pollen. As they pass to anoth- 

 er flower this poliini is rubbed t)if on the pistil, 

 and passes on to the seeds. J. S. will be inter- 

 ested in the other article sent to Gleanings, 

 on " Bees as fertilizers." See page 732. 

 Ag'l College, Mich. A. J. Cook. 



SALT A GOOD REMEDY FOR BEE-PARALYSIS. 



I notice what is said in regard to bee-paraly- 

 sis and the remedy. I had one stand this sum- 

 mer that had it. I took one handful of salt and 

 put it under the stand, on the platform, and in 

 the entrance, and crowded it up against the 

 front of the hive, and now the same bees are 

 well, I don't see that any are being killed. 

 Some of those bees would look black and shiny, 

 and the other bees in the same hive would kill 

 them. I salted every hive in the same way. 



Moulton. Iowa, Sept. 28. S. S. Buckmaster. 



THE DOVETAILED HIVE WITH HOFFMAN TOP- 

 BARS. 



I have had about a dozen of your Dovetailed 

 hives in use this season; and to say I liked 

 them from the start is putting it mildly. I find 

 that they do much best with foundation wired 

 in. It seems so nice, after using the old Sim- 

 plicity frames so long, and l^eing bothered with 

 burr and brace combs, to watch the bees fill the 

 frames (Hoff'man), with the assurance that 

 there would be no such nuisance to bother. 

 But the regular white-clover flow set in, and 

 the hives were just running over with bees, 

 and honey coming in lively; and, didn't these 

 little knots of combs begin to grow right before 

 my eyes, and right up through those exact 

 spaces between the frames where we were as- 

 sured by the junior editor of Gleanings that 

 the soil would not produce a growth of these 

 noxious weeds! But they gi-ew up through 

 these spaces, and entirely across the top of the 

 frames. In several hives the space l)etween 

 the frames was half filled with these impedi- 

 ments to morality. 



Well, seriously, I think if you will add I4 inch 

 to the depth of the Hoffman frame you will 

 liave it about right for this climate. 



The wedging-up process, as applied to the 

 Dovetailed hive, is not satisfactory. It does 

 not draw the frames close enough together to 

 keep out propolis. But I still like the Dove- 

 tailed hive, with all its faults, 



Henderson, Mo.. Sept, 23. S. S. Lawing. 



[The hives which you had were among the 

 earlier lot of the season, and did not have the 

 scant J4-inch bee-space, as we had not at that 

 time learned that the bee-space was one of the 

 prime essentials in the riddance of burr-combs. 

 Instead of making a standard frame deeper, we 

 make our liives shallower, which accomplishes 

 the same results. Out of our 80 colonies in the 

 Shane yard, only one had burr-combs above the 

 top-bar, and that over only one oi- two frames.] 



