1S97 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURF:. 



635 



coml) coiitainiiii,^ a liUlo new honey. Of 

 course, all ot" this is given on the supposition 

 that our (luestiouer's l)ecs were stron<^^ euouj^h 

 as to numbers to work in sections, and still 

 refuseil to do so, when the honey harvest was 

 on. Where any hive is not filled with bees it 

 is useless to attempt to make them work in 

 sections. ]\Iany are deceived in this way, and 

 I mistrust that this has somethins^ to do with 

 our friend's bees not working. Italian bees 

 do not breed quite as rapidly early in the sea- 

 son as do black bees ; but if attended to as 

 they should be they will have more brood in 

 just the right time to give us laborers in our 

 field just when we wish them than will the 

 others. That Italian bees are inferior to black 

 bees for comb honey, if properly managed, I 

 never could .see, even in a good season; which 

 fact is now generally conceded by nearly all 

 of our best bee-keepers ; while in a poor sea- 

 son they certainly show great superiority over 

 the latter to the amount of quite a surplus, 

 while the black bees scarcely make a living. 



HILTON IN FAVOR OF THE SQUARE BOTTOM- 

 B.\RS. 



I have just read O. O. Poppleton's article on 

 page ■")17, and it has given me courage to say 

 I was much pleased with the ^4 bottom-bars 

 and so sorry \\h.i\\ you stopped making them ; 

 and many of my customers have asked for 

 those "square bottom-bars." I have been 

 tempted several times to ask you if you could 

 not make mine that way, but would think I 

 ought to confoiTii to the will of the majority. 

 But I feel with you that the majority does not 

 know what is wanted. I never had so many 

 frames fastened to the bottom-bars as while 

 using the ^ bottom-bar. I hope you will 

 make more of them, and always send me that 

 kind. Gk6. E. Hilton. 



Fremont, Mich., July I'.t. 



[I have noticed that all the square bars in 

 our apiary have the combs built clear down to 

 them, and most of them are solid slabs with- 

 out a place for the queen to hide. The only 

 objection to them is that the bees will not only 

 build down to them, but sometimes clear past 

 them, on to the next .set of frames below. 

 This was urged at the time we made the 

 change, and was considered so serious that the 

 substitution for a wider bar seemed almo.st im- 

 perative. — Ed.] 



in my chicken-yard, under a large ajjple-tree 

 which furnishes shade for both chickens and 

 l)ees all day except in the early part of the 

 morning. The yard is .'50 by 4() feet, inclo.sed 

 with wire netting 7 feet high, in which I keep 

 eight Black Minorca hens. Th;se keqi the 

 grass and weeds down so that you could hard- 

 ly find a blade of grass in tJie whole yard. 

 The chickens andbejs run a separate business, 

 and never interfere with each other except 

 when I shave ofT the heads of drones, and the 

 bees carry them out. Then the chickens will 

 clean them up. 



I had ten stands of bees ; increased to 21, 

 and got nearly 900 lbs. of comb honey, which 

 I think is pretty good, considering I live in a 

 city, and do not follow it for a business. One 

 advantage, I think, in having a high fence 

 around your apiary is that it compels the bees 

 to fly high enough to get over, and keeps 

 them out of the way of any one who may be 

 in another part of the yard. 



L. I. vShrader. 



New Albanv, Ind., Aug. o. 



A oueen-register design. 



Inclosed find a queen-register card that I 



use for keeping record of hives, in which I am 



raising queens. I have .')0 hives of blacks in 



my apiary, and wanted to raise Italians for 



each hive. I tack this card to a jlx4xj< piece 

 of pine, then drive one tack throu<:'h the 

 hands or registers. I then drive in four tacks 

 with the heads % inch out; then I turn the 

 board card down. All I have to do to know 

 the condition of a hive is to turn over and 

 look. This was my first attempt at queen- 

 reanng. and I must say I enjoy it. I am trying 

 to tollow instructions as given in the A B C of 

 Bee Culture. ' R. S. WiLSON. 



The Gums, Muss. 



ANOTHER WAY TO KEEP GR.\.SS DOWN IN 

 THE APIARY. 



After reading what you had to say in the 

 last number of Gleanings about sheep keep- 

 ing down the grass in the apiar\-, I thought 

 perhaps my way of doing it would be interest- 

 ing to you and your readers. I keep my bees 



PIONEY-FLOW PHENOMENAL. 



The honey-flow is over in this locality, and 

 all I can .say is it was phenomenal. I have 

 never seen the clover bloom as earlv and last 

 as long as it did this year. We had a fair 

 truit-bloom, a very light locust, and a very 

 light basswood, as a great many of the few 



