644 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



er's name attached to it, while the r^al inventor 

 is not recognized. Still, it would be bungling 

 to have names always attached. Langstroth 

 is the inventor of movable hives, and Reese of 

 bee-escapes; but it's shorter to say Porter and 

 Larrabee and Dibbern and the others, than to 

 say Porter- Reese, etc. 



That self-hiver. You remember previous 

 history. July 28, swarm caught in self-hiver; 

 queen got out of trap, back in hiver; July 30, 

 all moved back into hive; Aug. .5. old queen 

 killed, leaving eggs, brood, queen-cells, and one 

 queen hatched. Well, the cells were, one after 

 another, torn down, all gone by Aug. 8. Aug. 

 16 I found the young queen in the hiver, not in 

 the trap, so I put her back in hive and took 

 away trap. This morning, Aug. 20, she is lay- 

 ing. Perfection self-hiver a success. 



COBS AND KEENELS. 



ANOTHER INSTALLMENT BY F. GREINER. 



What Mr. Doolittle says on p. .547, on the sub- 

 ject of '■ why some gather more honey than oth- 

 ers." confirms the position I took in my " Cobs 

 and Kernels " in a former issue of Gleanings. 

 Perhaps a little more on that subject might be 

 said. We have so often been taught to keep 

 our colonies always strong, particularly to get 

 them so in Uie spi'ing, and. if necessary, stimu- 

 late thein by feeding or otherwise, that begin- 

 ners are apt to follow such teachings only to 

 find, many times, that their neighbors' bees, be- 

 ing managed on the let-alone plan, would do as 

 well as theirs, if not better. Success depends 

 upon whether the main honey-flow comes early 

 or late. If late. I have noticed that even such 

 colonies as come out quite weak in the spring 

 would build up fast enough to be ready for the 

 basswood flow, and become most profitable colo- 

 nies. Some years ago ■' e had much trouble 

 with weak colonies in the spring — robbing being 

 the worst. We used to content ourselves by 

 saying, "They will make thje honey if we can 

 only get them through;" and the fact was, they 

 did make the honey. It seemed a little strange 

 that this should be so; but the solution of the 

 problem was, no useless amount of bees was 

 produced: the vitality of the queens was saved 

 and prolonged, and they themselves did the best 

 business at the right time, when the produced 

 bees became producers and not consumers. In 

 connection with the above I want to say that 

 we must not leave the young bees, not yet six- 

 teen days old. out of our calculation, for they 

 are the comb-builders, nurses, etc. — very essen- 

 tial to have. 



More loss(>s of queens have occurred among 

 my biH^s during the past winter and spring 

 months than ever before. Perhaps the reason 

 is this: 1. I have paid little attention to renew- 

 ing queens. Through carelessness, or because I 

 followed the advice of prominent bee-keepers, I 

 left my bees to take care of this matter. 2. It 

 so happened tliat. for three successive years, we 

 have had but little swarming, consequently not 

 many queens were reared, leaving quite a good 

 many colonies with old queens. I have now 

 come to the conclusion that it will be a safer 

 way to substitute young queens for all three- 

 year-old ones whenever piacticable; and it ap- 

 pears to me that the period of swarming is a fa- 

 vorable time for this work. Ph-nty of queens 

 can be on hand then; and when a swarm is be- 

 ing hived, a young vigorous queen from a nu- 

 cleus can at once be substituted without the 

 bees knowing the diffe.'ence. Should a swarm 

 come out with a virgin queen, another virgin 

 queen of superior blood may be substituted in 

 the same way. 



Many bee-keepers provide the lids of their 

 chaff and Langstroth hives with inch holes in 

 the gable ends, for ventilation as well as for the 

 exit of the bees that may accidentally get im- 

 prisoned under them. It has been very annoy- 

 ing to me to have wasps enter and build nests in 

 these rooms above the brood-chambers: also 

 yellow-jackets, spiders, etc. To avoid all this 

 trouble, others as well as myself have placed 

 little cones over these holes with good success; 

 but these, projecting as they did. soon became 

 jammed, and got out of order. I now use a flat 

 pear-shaped escape, which any one can make 

 from a piece of wire cloth. They answer the 

 purpose first rate, and do not get out of order. 



A few colonies fitted up with glassed sections 

 often afford much pleasure to show to visitors, 

 and for making observations from hour to hour, 

 from day to day. Four closed -top sections, 

 clamped together by the simple device of a 

 slightly curved piece of Kinch hoop iron, four 

 inches longer than the width of the four sec- 

 tions, bent at right angles at each end 2 in., 

 answer the purpose well. There is sufficient 

 spring in the iron to hold glass and sections in 

 place. Eight of these now four- pound boxes 

 raayjae placed on to p of a L angstroth hive. 

 'The combs in the iDrood -chambers are usually 

 spaced IJ^g or l^.j inches from center to center. 

 In my extracting supers I use seven combs to 

 the foot. I am not sure, however, but that six 

 would be better; for, the greater the thickness 

 the less sealing has to be done, and the less un- 

 capping by the apiarist when extracting. But 

 can the bees as easily repair, clean out. refill, 

 and ripen the honey in deep cells? is a question 

 I know nothing about, and I should be glad to 

 get some light on it. 



In the last two years I have used a brood- 

 frame with a top-bar ^xl^g inches, using eight 

 frames to the foot. These frames are free from 

 burr and brace comics. It is a pleasure to take 

 the full supers from hives with such frames. 



In removing filled supers, the bee-escapes 

 again prove to be a great help. Nearly all the 

 different escapes work well at this time of the 

 year. I find the new Dibbern mica-spring es- 

 cape to be another valuable acquisition. 



Several queens have found their way through 

 the excluders into the extracting supers, and set 

 up housekeeping therein in good earnest. I did 

 not like that. Root's excluding metal seems to 

 be no good for qui-en-feriilizing chambers over 

 other colonies. Only two queens became fertile 

 in a hirge number. I will try the Chicago zinc 

 another year, and report. 



The telephone connecting my shop with the 

 house is a good swarm-indicator. When a swarm 

 issues from a hive nrai' the wire, many bees 

 stiike it (ihey do not s^em to be aware of iti. In 

 the house and slioi) it sounds like a shooting- 

 alfairiu the distance, and we know immediate- 

 ly what's up. I am satisfied that, if I had two 

 or three wires stretched over the yard (of 125 

 colonies) at proper distances, every swarm is- 

 suing would Di- reported as it makes its appear- 

 ance. 



The expei'iment of Schonfeld. in (rermany, 

 seems to prove that the ripening of honey, or 

 the change from nectar to honey, is a process of 

 evaporation only. Dzierzon, however, thinks 

 that this condensing process is performed by 

 the direct action of the bees. He says: "It 

 seems we can reasonably suppose, that the 

 honey-stomach of the bee is like a filter, allow- 

 ing the water to pass through its walls. I be- 

 lieve nectar would much sooner turn sour than 

 thicken to the consistency of honey inside of 

 the hive." Schonfeld, in his experiment, form- 

 ed a colony of young bees only, which he knew 

 would not and did not go out in search of fooil. 

 To this colony he introduced a comb filled with 



