IS'.i'J 



GLEANINGS IN HEE CULTURE. 



1(17 



is I'crtiiiiily siirprisiiin. and, in our prosont, in- 

 coniplflt' ixnowicilgi' on the siibji'i-t, wlioliy 

 unuooonnlahlo. After ail. tho ancients were 

 not entirely alone in llieir ignorance. The 

 fad itself was first annonnced in 1771 by a 

 Saxon clersiyniun: Imi the explanation we are 

 vet to announce. With charactnisiic thrift we 

 have, however, promptly adapted the discovery 

 to our commercial instincts, and (Hieen-raising 

 is neither an iinproiitable noT a su peril nons in- 

 dustry. 



I'nlike the worker, going and coming con- 

 stantly, the queen, all things being right with- 

 in, seldom if ever leaves the hive except on her 

 "bridal tour."" or when preparing to lead a 

 swarm to pastures new. The tirst-mentioned 

 outing she takes, if the weather is favorable. 

 the tiiird day after hatching. If unsuccessful 

 she repeats the trip until fertilized. This must 

 be wiiliin "Jl days or she will be barren. The 

 danger to the entire colony, attendant upon 

 the llight and exposure of the queen, is lessened 

 by th(^ considerable number of drones, or males; 

 a number, in fact, that many are inclined to 

 wonder at. considering that there is but one 

 female, and she recpiires to bo fertilized but 

 once in a lifetime. This always takes place out 

 of doors and while on th(> wing. 



Sterility does not prevent the laying of eggs. 

 Indeed, when the (pieen has been lost, a worker 

 has been known to produce eggs. But these, as 

 well as those of the unfertilized queen, invari- 

 ably produce drones. Thus the one great 

 known law governing reproduction in all its 

 branches is established. Fertilized eggs will 

 produce workers or queens as they are reared in 

 a worker or queen cell, while unfertilized eggs 

 invariably produce drones. 



Wilder Gkahamk. 



ANOTHER BEE-ESCAPE. 



.SOI.AK WAX-EXTRACTOK IN CALIFORNIA 

 USES AND AHUSE.S. 



Friend Root:— I send you with this letter a 

 model of my bee-escape. It was invented two 

 seasons ago. After a number of successful 

 trials I was on the point of telling about it 

 through Gleanings, when I found a case in 

 which it did not work, evfui after the escape 

 had been on several days, so gave it up; but as 

 I see Dr. Miller reports (page 79.^) a like expe- 

 rience; and I presume, with some of the im- 

 proved bee-escapes, I am emboldened to send 

 on mine. I have tried it along with some made 

 on the plan of the Reese cont; escape, and I 

 have seen the Dibbern star escape used. This 

 does better work than either of those. In fact, 

 in most cases, after a few hours, the super is 

 practically free from bees. Whenever I have 

 used it I have placed a super, filled with empty 

 combs, beneath the one which I wished to re- 

 move, having the (iscape, of course, between 

 the two supers. It may not do so well if this 

 extra super is not used. 



If you will examine the model you will see 

 that the large holes through the tin, by which 

 the bees are to make their exit, have been 

 punched from the upper side. This makes a 

 rough riin around the hole on the under side, 

 and over which the bees will have to climb in 

 order to pass from the brood -chamber to the 

 super. This they do not like to do, but will try 

 to pass through the small holes, whose; under 

 surface is smooth, and which are intentionally 

 made a little too small for that purpose. The 

 I cleats around the escape on the upper side are 

 to make the bee s]tace beneath the super 

 frames, and on which the super is to rest. 



Several strips of tin, instead of one. as in the 



modid. may be used. This permits of a great 

 many passageways and the rapid emptying of 

 the super. You will also see that the bees in 

 the super have a passage to the outside, which, 

 1 believe, is a favorite way with our British 

 cousins. I lind a great many leave the super 

 by this route. Noticing the unusual light, they 

 go to investigate, fly outside, and invariably re- 

 turn to the hive by the entrance in the brood- 

 chamber. 



GETTINO THE WAX l-IJOM THE SLU.MGUM. 



I have been kept indoors to-day by our first 

 rain this season — a glorious oik; — live inches 

 having fallen in twenty-four hours, or about 

 half as much as has fallen in the preceding 

 nineteen months. Besides the building of the 

 bee-escape which I send you, I have built a 

 great many castles in the; air, relative to the 

 big honey crop I am going to make next year, 

 enthused thereto by this glorious downpoiu". I 

 have also put in some time between whiles, 

 melting wax. The wax rendered was mostly 

 lu'w comb and scraps of foundation, with per- 

 haps a dozen old combs. In rendering it I tried 

 .\ii!S. axtell's plan. 



This was spoken of in a recent article by her 

 in Gleanin(^s. It consists in boiling and 

 straining twice the cocoons and other refuse 

 left after melting old comb. The result rather 

 surprisi d me, as. from the second boiling and 

 straining of pi-rhaps a gallon measure full of 

 slumgum. I pressed out a full pound of wax. 



When I can get at old combs on a frosty 

 morning, and crush them to powder, then soak 

 24 hours before rendering. I always feel satis- 

 fied that I have got all the wax from those 

 combs. I believe this method frees the wax 

 from the cocoons as entirely as does rendering 

 them with acid. In fact. I was rather disap- 

 pointed on rendering some combs with sulphur- 

 ic acid. From what I had read I inferred that 

 the cocoons were entirely disintegrated — eaten 

 up — by the acid; but after rendering some old 

 combs by that method I could not see but that 

 the cocoons looked the same, and were as capa- 

 ble of absorbing wax as when rendered without 

 acid. 



Sun extractors can be profitably used, only 

 with new comb. When old brood-combs are 

 rendered that way. the cocoons absorb a large 

 part of the wax. Some of our bee-men have a 

 practice of going through their hives every few 

 years, and cutting out all black coinbs, re|)lac- 

 Ing them with foundation; and although the 

 sun extractor is considered among the necessa- 

 ry appurtenances at an apiary here, so unprof- 

 itable has the melting of these old combs in 

 them been found that I have known persons to 

 use such combs as an auxiliary to the woodpile. 

 Our neighbor, after culling out old combs from 

 an apiary of 300 colonies, had a pile of them 

 which loomed up like a small mountain, lie 

 cogitated for two years what to do with these 

 combs. He was positive that it did not pay to 

 melt them in the sun extractor. One day he 

 touched tire to the pile, and a good many dol- 

 lars' worth of wax went up in flames. Of 

 course, it would have been better to melt them 

 in his sun cxti'actor than to do this, although 

 burning them was on a par with the idea which 

 instigated the cutting of the combs from the 

 hives in the first place. 



If the apiarists who play such tricks ivould 

 read the bee-papers and t(!Xt- books they would 

 know that old combs have as much wax in 

 them as new ones, it only being more difficult 

 to get out, and on this subject they would get 

 many pointers, as instanced by myself from the 

 perusal of Mrs. Axtell's article. I will add, 

 that the style of solar wax-extractors in gener- 

 al use here are capable of being much improv- 



