398 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



fence; also those who condemn T tins. Mr. 

 Editor, should you start such a department, 

 please put Dr. C. C. at the head. 



Ventilation should be given at the entrance 

 in raising comb honey, as it will go further in 

 preventing swarming and clustering out, also 

 causing the heat to rise to the sections where 

 needed to ripen honey. 



Stop my Gleanings ! page 311 sounds 

 similar to a command in the U. S. army. The 

 writer may find a good bee-journal, but has 

 lost a good one. I never understood the ed- 

 itor would give lessons in running a brewery, 

 but in bee-keeping. The ring of the corres- 

 pondent's letter caused me to think a glass of 

 metheglin was taken before writing. 



Now one crack at A. I. R. Please read page 

 25; and if he intends to advocate the use of 

 tobacco dust, as on page 324, tell what will be 

 done with the rest, and prepare a peep-hole to 

 squirm out. C. R. MoRTS. 



Mohawk, N. Y. 



INCREASING THE SIZE OF BEES BY INCREAS- 

 ING THE SIZE OF CELLS IN FOUNDATION. 



Could we not increase the size of bees by 

 enlarging the foundation gradualh? ? I notice 

 in very old swarms, when the brood-comb be- 

 comes thick and cells small, we have smaller 

 bees. A neighbor has several old swarms of 

 black bees. The bees look very small beside 

 the Italians I have. You have had more ex- 

 perience with bees than most of the bee-men. 

 Do you know of its ever being tried, and what 

 do you think about it ? if it is worth the 

 trouble to try it, could you furnish the foun- 

 dation? M. Kinney. 



Putnam, Conn. 



[While it is true that smaller bees are reared 

 in smaller cells, the plan does not work the 

 other way. Worker-cells should run a trifle 

 over five to the inch. If they were put half 

 way between worker and drone, I doubt very 

 much whether the bees would breed in them 

 at all. Indeed, one of our customers orders 

 comb-foundation machines that will make 

 foundation having cells a medium between 

 drone and worker. He says the bees will be 

 less apt to use it for breeding-purposes, either 

 drones or workers, because it is neither one 

 thing nor the other. His idea is to use it ex- 

 clusively for foundation in sections.-— Ed. 



THK FENCE AND PLAIN SECTION 38 YEARS 

 old; FOUND TO BE SATISFACTORY. 



I see in your catalog you state that the sep- 

 arator, which you style the " fence," is not a 

 new idea, but has been used some seven or 

 eight years. During the year 1860 I bought of 

 Richard Colvin, of Baltimore, two Langstroth 

 hives in which this style of separator was used 

 in the supers. The sections were made of ^s- 

 inch stuff, and were l}4x4%:iiSj4 inches. The 

 supers held 10 of these sections — 2 in a row 

 and 8 rows — if I remember correctly. The sec- 

 tions were placed in a frame, similar to your 

 shallow extracting-frame, which was suspend- 

 ed in the super, with the fence separator be- 

 tween each. 



I used the Colvin plan for surplus comb hon- 

 ey up to the time when the present sections 

 came into use, and found it satisfactory. 



Ci;mberland, Md. J. B. Widener. 



CHERRIES CANNED IN HONEY. 



Five pints stoned cherries and one pint ex- 

 tracted honey. This makes one and a half 

 quarts. 



GOOSEBERRIES CANNED IN HONEY. 



Four pints gooseberries and two pints cold 

 water. Cook slowly until partly done, then 

 add one and a half pints extracted honey, and 

 cook till done. 



HONEY NUT CANDY. 



Use the recipe given in honey-leaflet for 

 honey caramels, cooking till it hardens in cold 

 water, then pour over nut-meats. When cold, 

 break in pieces. Mrs. R. C. Aikin. 



Loveland, Col. 



/. W. B., Texas. — I can not understand why 

 you should have trouble with yellow-jackets. 

 I never heard of a case before where they were 

 so destructive as to make away with whole 

 colonies. As I am not up on the yellow-jack- 

 et question, I will refer you to Prof. A. J. 

 Cook, Pomona College, Cal. 



J. M. //., Ga. — You will do much to pre- 

 vent honey from granulating by bringing it to 

 a temperature of about 180 degrees Fahren- 

 heit, and sealing it while hot in glass jars or 

 fruit-cans. Honey should not be heated above 

 180, usually, as it will destroy its delicate fla- 

 vor. Your method of hiving swarms with 

 clipped queens is much like that employed by 

 a good many other bee-keepers. 



L. L., I. T. — There is no danger of the 

 queen's getting out of the front of the hive 

 having one of the self-hivers mentioned in our 

 A B C of Bee Culture, providing you follow 

 the directions, or use the self-hivers exactly 

 as they are constructed. But we do not ad- 

 vise any one to put very much faith or money 

 in these devices. Better get the colony so 

 strong that there will be no desire on their 

 part to swarm. To do that it may be necessa- 

 ry to give two L. brood-chambers. 



M. S. C, Ind. — In a case where we use 

 two brood-chambers, as mentioned recentl}' in 

 GLE.A.NINGS, in order to get large colonies and 

 do away with swarming, we have only one 

 queen, but she is a good one. We use no per- 

 forated zinc between the chambers, as that 

 would defeat the very object we aim to secure; 

 namely, the avoidance of swarms. If the 

 brood is confined entirely in one hive, in my 

 experience the bees are more inclined to 

 swarm ; but if there is brood in both chambers 

 they will settle down to busine.ss and pile in 

 the honey, both in the brood-chamber and in 

 the supers. 



