476 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



ed, "Hello, Bro. — " But I stopped right 

 there. One of those terrors shut his teeth 

 together with a venomous snarl and howl just 

 in front of my face. The terror had evidently 

 been left on guard duty, and performed it 

 well, and would have performed some more if 

 it had gotten through the window. I had no 

 desire to enter the shop; but seeing that the 

 door was well secured I made the terror earn 

 a whole day's rations. I will admit it was a 

 mean advantage I took on the dog to poke 

 sticks through the cracks of the door; but, of 

 course, he was there for guard duty; and had 

 I not stirred him or her up, there would have 

 been no realizing sense of it. 



In my next I will show how Mr. B. moves 

 his bees, his method of managing an out- 

 apiary, also some more about the terrors. 



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ANSWERS TO 



SEASONABLE 



HJE5TI0NS 



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TOO MUCH POLI^EN IN COMBS; WHAT USE TO 

 MAKE OF IT. 



Question. — vSome of the combs in my hives 

 are so full of pollen that there is no room for 

 either brood or honey. The wild (or frost) 

 grape abounds here, and there is also an 

 abundance of sorrel, from both of which the 

 bees fill their combs with pollen to an extent 

 that seems detrimental to the welfare of the 

 colony. Do you think such gathering of pol- 

 len a disadvantage to the bees ? and if so, will 

 you tell us through Gleanings what can be 

 done to remedy the matter ? 



Anszver. — In some localities bees store so 

 much pollen in their combs that it seems to 

 those not as familiar with the inside workings 

 of the hive as they might be that some device 

 for removing this pollen would be of great 

 benefit to them; in fact, some are so sure that 

 such removal would be of enough benefit to 

 them to warrant their offering as high as $25 

 for some plan to effectually remove pollen 

 from the combs without materially injuring 

 the same, as I once heard at one of the bee- 

 conventions. Then some advise making 

 combs •ontaining much pollen into wax, and 

 then working the wax over into comb founda- 

 tion to put into the hive for the bees to draw 

 out into comb again, but all such advice seems 

 to me to be a damage rather than a help. In 

 this locality we get large quantities of pollen, 

 probably as much as is gathered in any place 

 in the United States, yet I have never melted 

 up a comb on that account, nor would I give 

 a cent for the best machine that could be in- 

 vented for its removal. Some claim that, 

 where too much pollen is stored in combs, the 

 bees remove it and tumble it out at the en- 

 trance; but I am inclined to think that they 

 mistake that which is sometimes dislodged 

 from the pollen-baskets of the bees at certain 

 hives having too small an entrance, for that 

 which is removed from the combs, as in all of 



my experience I have never known any to be 

 thus thrown out unless said pollen had become 

 moldy. 



With me there are two different periods 

 when the bees store for a short time much 

 more pollen than is worked by the nurse bees 

 into chyme for the young brood. One is dur- 

 ing the bloom of hard maple, and the other 

 during white- clover bloom. I have had combs 

 of pollen gathered during the yield from hard 

 or sugar maple, which weighed as high as 

 four pounds. At such times as this I often 

 work as follows: 



Whenever the bees gather so much as to 

 crowd the queen I draw the frames filled with 

 pollen back away from the brood, and place 

 such frames as may contain honey which are 

 in the hive between these frames and the 

 brood, thus causing great activity with the 

 bees in changing things back as they wish 

 them again, the result of which is the convert- 

 ing of both pollen and honey into brood much 

 faster than would have resulted had things 

 been left as they were. If the brood has in- 

 creased enough so that this and the combs of 

 pollen fill the hives, then the combs of pollen 

 are taken away for the time being, and empty 

 combs put in their stead. If there come a 

 few rainy or windy days at this time, I find 

 that what seemed to be a damaging amount 

 of pollen is all exhausted, so that the cells 

 are once more emptj' or filled with eggs, as it 

 takes large quantities of food for the brood at 

 this season of the year. After apple-bloom 

 there is little for the bees to work on, and the 

 surplus pollen is ?oon worked up into brood, 

 and more needed, when I set back that which 

 was removed, and thus brood-rearing is kept 

 up more effectively than by feeding syrup or 

 honey, or any of the many plans for stimulat- 

 ive feeding. I consider plenty of pollen in 

 the combs during the period of scarcity be- 

 tween apple and clover bloom of great advan- 

 tage. 



The pollen gathered during white clover is 

 treated differently by the bees from that gath- 

 ered early. The latter rarely ever has honey 

 placed on top of it, while that from clover is 

 placed in the cells till they are nearly three- 

 quarters full, when the cell is filled with hon- 

 ey, and sealed over so as to preserve it against 

 a time of need during the latter part of winter 

 and early spring. During the summer, as we 

 find combs containing much pollen in this pre- 

 served state they are hung away in our room 

 for storing combs, and sulphured as occasion 

 may require, to kill the larvae of the wax- 

 moth, which are sure to injure such combs 

 much if not thus treated. Combs containing 

 pollen under honey are readily distinguished 

 from those without by holding them up before 

 a strong light and looking through them, es- 

 pecially so if the combs are new, or nearly so 



When spring opens I again take the oppor- 

 tunity of placing near the brood all combs I 

 have on hand containing pollen, and find that 

 this answers a better purpose to stimulate 

 brood-rearing at this time of year than the 

 feeding of rye, oat, or any other meal, as is so 

 often recommended by many of the fraternity. 

 In this way all pollen is used up to a far bet- 



