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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 15. 



any two places where the bees and hives and 

 other implements vary, each apiarist will have 

 to consider his surroundings, and perhaps find 

 the relative advantages of the two methods by 

 experience. 



Crows Landing, Cal., Nov. .30, 1898. 



[When Mr. Aikin's article was read at the 

 Buffalo convention I remember it raised a 

 regular hubbub of protests. Such a doc.rine 

 as discarding the extractor, and cutting out 

 the combs and putting them in wax-extractors, 

 was too much for the bee-keepers present to 

 indorse. Notwithstanding I would not go so 

 far as to say there may not be something in 

 it, for, as friend G. shows, a good deal de- 

 pends upon conditions and circumstances. If 

 honey should continue to go down, and wax 

 go up, it might be well to pa} 7 more attention 

 to the latter. In Cuba, I believe, wax is one 

 of the important products from the hive. — Ed.] 



SOME NOTES ON MARCH FIRST GLEANINGS. 



A Valuable Article from an Old Correspondent. 

 BY J. A. GREEN. 



THE AVERSION OF BEES TO BLACK CLOTHING. 



It is somewhat surprising to me to note the 

 number of bee-keeepers who do not believe 

 that bees have any dislike to black cloth- 

 ing. My own experience has thoroughly con- 

 vinced me that they have. I have many 

 times noticed the fierce attack upon a black 

 felt hat. In one of the most marked instances 

 I ever noticed, the hat was a new one. It was 

 not dirty, nor were there any fuzzy protuber- 

 ances. Some would say that, in this case, the 

 smell of the dye was obnoxious to the bees. 

 Be that as it may, I have known hats, so old 

 that any smell of the dye must have disappear- 

 ed, to be attacked when hats equally old and 

 dirty, but lighter in color, were let alone. 

 Bees are certainly much more disposed to 

 attack an object that is woolly or fuzzy than 

 one that is smooth ; but if the material is 

 black, that propensity is increased. Black 

 clothing that is neither new nor dirty nor 

 fuzzy is still objectionable to bees, as 1 have 

 found to my sorrow. 



Much of the time during summer I wear 

 bicycle clothing — knickerbockers and long 

 stockings. One would naturally suppose this 

 to be an ideal dress for the bee-keeper, because 

 there would never be any danger of bees 

 crawling up inside of one's trousers. But I 

 soon found that, if I wore dark-colored stock- 

 ings, even if they were of perfectly smooth 

 material, and it seemed to make no difference 

 whether they were of wool or cotton ; and, 

 even though they were fresh from the laun- 

 dry, the bees made my legs a special object of 

 attack. Now when I go into the apiary in 

 this rig I take good care to put on overalls. 



TRAVEL-STAIN. 



The subject is an interesting one to me, and 

 I regret that the discussion comes at a time of 

 the year when it would be impossible for me 

 to make any experiments or even to secure a 



sample of travel-stained honey unless I may 

 be able to find one in the groceries. That 

 travel-stain may be sometimes, at least, caused 

 by the incorporation of darker substances into 

 the wax of the cappings, I can testify from 

 my own experience. I once placed over a 

 super in which the bees were at work in the 

 sections a set of old combs that were in such 

 bad condition that the bees gnawed them con- 

 siderably in repairing and rebuilding them. 

 The fragments of old dark wax sifted down 

 into the super below, where many of them 

 were picked up and incorporated into the cap- 

 ping of the sectioi s that were being finished. 



At another time I observed bees mixing with 

 the cappings of the sections fragments of 

 dark-colored wax brought up from the brood- 

 chamber below. But in these cases, as in 

 some others I have noticed, the character and 

 extent of the additions were quite visible and 

 unmistakable, and the result had very little 

 resemblance to ordinary travel stain. 



The additions of propolis which are often 

 made in the fall, or during idle periods in the 

 summer, are likewise quite different from 

 what is ordinarily known as travel stain. 



Mr. Crane is unwilling to admit that bees 

 are so untidy in their habits as to soil honey 

 by walking over it. Unpleasant as the idea 

 may be, it would be quite as bad to be obliged 

 to believe that the dark color of the cappings 

 was caused by the incorporation into them of 

 the sweepings and scrapings of the hive. It 

 would be strange indeed if the continual pass- 

 ing and repassing of thousands of bees, dusted 

 with pollen and working with honey, bees- 

 wax, and propolis, should not leave their 

 marks. Turn a lot of bees loose in a room 

 where they will gather on a window in the 

 endeavor to get out, and how long will it be 

 before the glass will have lost its crystal clear- 

 ness? For a more marked illustration, notice 

 the entrance of a hive that has been robbed, 

 or any place where bees stealing honey have 

 crowded through a comparatively small open- 

 ing, and see how soon the edges become coat- 

 ed with a sticky dirt. This is an extreme 

 case of travel stain, but I believe it is in very 

 much the same way that nearly all travel- 

 stain is produced. Doubtless in most cases 

 the coloring-material is pollen, and I should 

 suppose that, in nearly all cases, it would be 

 so incorporated with the rough surface of the 

 capping that it would be impossible to wash 

 it off. 



OLD FOUNDATION. 



I have often wondered how it could be that 

 some of our writers have so persistently claimed 

 that old foundation is just as readily accepted 

 by the bees as fresh. I satisfied myself by 

 thorough tests several years ago, and I have 

 had the decision confirmed nearly every year 

 since then, that bees show a decided prefer- 

 ence for fresh foundation over what has been 

 hung up in the air so long that it has become 

 dry and hard. Try the experiment yourself. 

 Devote at least half a dozen supers to it, plac- 

 ing them on as many different colonies. Fill 

 each super half full of sections filled with 

 foundation fresh from the box in which it 

 came, or, better still, fresh from the mill. In 



