1S07 



GI.KANINGS IN KKK CULTURE. 



811 





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THOUSANDS OF TONS OF HONEY GOING TO 

 WASTE IN SOin'H DAKOTA. 



/)i-ar Friend Root: — The greatest surprise of 

 my life in the bee-line occurred the past sea- 

 son. I used to keep bees in Wisconsin, and 

 in old Jersey, and know what they can and 

 ought to do. When I came here and saw the 

 flora and felt the high winds and the drouth, 

 I concluded bees could not be kept except by- 

 feeding. One does not know unless he has 

 tried. We may tliitik we know all about a 

 thing, and that is usually the time we are mis- 

 taken. It seems bees winter well here, both 

 on summer stands and in cellars. The winter 

 is usual!}- broken up into extremes of warm 

 and cold, with little snow, so that they can fly 

 often. Given a good chaff hive like yours, 

 and 2o or oO lbs. goldenrod honey (the finest 

 in the world, thick when gathered, and ready 

 to seal at once), of which there is a great 

 amount everywhere, and they will come 

 through gloriously. The earth is usually dry, 

 and a cyclone-cellar will winter the bees su- 

 perbh-. Well, a pair of two -frame nuclei, 

 made July 1st, and furnished foundation as 

 needed, gave a surplus in half-extracting- 

 frames of 75 and 65 lbs., and have the S frames 

 in brood-chamber full of honey, and are still 

 working on mustard, and raising brood. I 

 have a lot of mustard honey, and know of 

 none better or finer flavored. It seems too 

 bad to .see thousands of tons of honey going 

 to waste on these prairies when each farmer, 

 b}- small investment, might have an abundance 

 of nature's finest sweets. 



Stephen J. Harmeung. 



Marion, So. Dakota, Oct. 1. 



queens piping — HOW DO THEY DO IT ? 

 WHITE VS. YELLOW SWEET CLOVER. 



In regard to queens' wings being instru- 

 ments of piping, I would say emphatically 

 that Dr. Miller is correct, for I had a queen 

 several years ago that had not a vestige of a 

 wing, and have seen her plainly when piping, 

 and her piping was just as strong and vigor- 

 ous as one with two perfect wings. There is a 

 tremulous motion of the wings when piping, 

 and \'ou will see this same tremulous motion 

 of the stub of the wings, or shouhlers, the 

 same as you see the tremulous motion of the 

 flanks of a horse when neighing (if not of his 

 tail), or the tremulous motion of the feath- 

 ers of a hen when singing her morning song. 

 From personal observation and "my "judg- 

 ment, the trenmlous motion of a queen's 

 wings when piping is nothing more nor less 

 than muscular vibration. 



Replying to editorial, page 742, Oct. 15, I 

 would say : Years ago, when I lived on a farm, 

 there was a bunch of " white " sweet clover 

 that grew under our east window. It grew 



about tliree feet high, and branched out much 

 like buckwheat, and it was white with blos- 

 .soms the greater part of the summer, and was 

 literally covered with bees from daylight till 

 dark. Since leaving the farm I have not seen 

 a stalk of the white, but have seen a number 

 of bunches of the yellow here, about tzuo feet 

 hii!;h, in the village, and I have noticed them 

 at all times of the day, and have never been 

 able to see a bee on it, although there are plen- 

 ty of them from five rods to lialf a mile dis- 

 tant. Whether it is variety or locality, I 

 could not say, outside of my own experience, 

 which is positively the former. 



Hillsboro, Wis., Oct. 25. Elias Fox.. 



[I am pretty near ready to give up. When 

 two such men as you and Dr. Miller say I am 

 wrong, I am half persuaded. A little incident 

 happened the other day that quite converted 

 me. Back of my desk I sometimes use sticky 

 fly-paper to keep flies ofi' my head, and I am 

 not bald-headed either. One day I heard a 

 loud sort of whining noise, and, looking down, 

 I saw a fly on its back, wings stuck fast to the 

 paper. Whining? Why, he fairly howled 

 with his tiny voice, and it was perfectly evi- 

 dent that he made this noi.se, not with his 

 wings, which were held immovable, but by 

 means of a rapidly vibrating diaphram, per- 

 haps. After that I caught a bee, and was 

 cruel enough to treat her in the same way; 

 and, lo and behold, this bee piped when I 

 poked her, helpless and supine on her back ; 

 but don't tell the doctor that I am converted 

 to his way of thinking. It would afford him 

 too much real pleasure. — Ed.] 



getting bees TO TAKE HONEY FROM SU- 

 PERS WITHOUT OTHER BEES GETTING IT. 

 As Dr. C. C. Miller wanted to know how to 

 get bees to take honey from a super without 

 other bees getting at it, I will say that, with 

 us lowans, by taking an uncapping-knife to 

 uncap all that is capped, and cutting the top 

 of the cells that are not capped, and putting 

 an empty super below, the super that has the 

 honey in it will work with us, but it may not 

 with Illinois bees. W. CarTwrighT. 



Steamboat Rock, la., Oct. 20, 1897. 



[Your plan sometimes works in Ohio, and 

 sometimes it doesn't ; and I suspect this is the 

 case in Illinois. — Ed.] 



GETTING honey OUT OF SUPERS WITHOUT 

 ALLOWING THE BEES TO TOUCH IT. 



Mr. Root: — I notice in the Oct. 15th Glean- 

 ings that Dr. Miller, in Stray Straws, wants a 

 plan to get the honey out of a super without 

 allowing other bees to touch it. That's ea.sy 

 enough. I'll tell you how I do it. When, in 

 taking off supers at the close of the season, I 

 find a colony that is short of stores, I leave 

 the bee-escape on; then when I get ready to 

 have unfinished sections cleaned up, I go to 

 these colonies and remove the escapes from 

 the boards, plugging up the holes with a block 

 having a small hole in it. Then I tier up with 

 unfinished sections or any combs I want clean- 

 ed. They are always cleaned out promptly if 



