604 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



Mr. K. Aoyanagi, of Japan, unites bees as 

 follows : 



" In uniting two colonies I place the uniting-box on 

 the stand I want them to occupy, insert the screen 

 division-board, and place the colonies on opposite 

 sides of the screen, allowing them to remain thus for 

 three or four days, when the division board is with- 

 drawn and the work is done. This I find the best 

 method I know of ; and if care is taken when putting 

 the bees into the box, not to let a single bee from the 

 opposite side to mix with the others, it may be done 

 without the least quarreling or loss. For uniting 

 swarms, they may be hived through the holes on 

 opposite sides of the box: or an ordinary hive-body, 

 with the screen board, will answer instead of the regu- 

 lar box; but in this case I confine the bees to the hive 

 for two or three days, not permitting them to fly." 



»»/ 



F. Greiner, in an interesting article on the 

 disastrous wintering troubles last winter, ad- 

 mits he lost one fourth of his bees. Tbose 

 wintered outdoors suffered from diarrhea, and 

 fell an easy prey. Chaff packing had hut little 

 to do with the result, as there was but little 

 difference between those packed and unpack- 

 ed. Locality had much to do with the ti ouble. 

 In places only two miles apart, in some cases 

 the bees were all wiped out, and in others 

 they came through without loss. Apiaries on 

 the summits of hills suffered more than those 

 in the valleys, thus teaching us a lesson in 

 humility. Mr. G. thinks he might have re- 

 duced the loss to five per cent by removing 

 all the natural stores and substituting sugar 

 syrup, but that would have involved so much 

 work as to be practically out of the question. 

 Much still remains to be learned on this sub- 

 ject. 



il/ 



Mr. Hill finds in Cuba a few of those who 

 don't need a bee-paper in order to learn how 

 to keep bees. He describes one of these 

 "bee-butchers," as he calls them, as follows : 



His hives stand flat upon 

 the ground, and the sand 

 has drifted far above the 

 rotten bottom-boards. Rolls 

 of moth-webs protrude from 

 the entrances of hives that 

 once contained a drone-lay- 

 ing queen or a laying work- 

 er, on a set of beautiful 

 combs. He has charge of 

 nearly 100 colonies, but 

 does not know how many 

 he has had, nor which col- 

 onies have swarmed. He 

 has hived two that he 

 "knows of" (and those on 

 empty frames with 11 in a 

 10-frame bodv, and four out 

 of the 11 without bottom- 

 bars), but the rest of the 

 swarms "all lit in them 

 tallest trees," and he 

 "couldn't git 'em." The 

 honey season has arrived, 

 and upon all colonies "that 

 ain't strong enough " to 



take an upper story for extracting he gives a half-story, 

 with sections. Extracting begins, and with two help- 

 ers he proceeds to the yard, opens a hive, removes two 

 combs, carries them in hand to the tent, mashes and 

 uncaps the greater part of their surface, slings out the 

 honey, and starts to the apiary for two mote frames 

 of honey. He boastingly asserts that he, with hut two 

 boys only to assist, has extracted 27 gallons of honey 

 in one day. But. " darn your bee-papers; I don't have- 

 to bother reading bee-books to know how to run 

 bees." He says he contemplates making an exclusive 

 business of honey production in the future, and is rig- 

 ging up to manuficture foundation which will con- 

 tain a cheaper material than beeswax; says he knows 

 it will work, and that " the darned dealers have been 

 charging" him " over 50 cents a pound for foundation 



work of half paramne," and that he knows " how to 

 mix it as well as they do." 



REARING QUEENS IN FULL COLONIES. 



Starting Cell-cups by Natural Methods. 



BY HENRY ALLEY, 



For a good many years I have had no trou- 

 ble in getting all the cell-cups made that I 

 needed, and in a way most natural for bees to 

 construct them. This is the way I do it : 



We will suppose that there are eggs or lar- 

 vae properly matured, from which bees will 

 start queen-cells. The right age of eggs for 

 this purpose is about 84 hours, reckoning from 

 the time the eggs were deposited. Now, there 

 is but one way to compel bees to start cell- 

 cups, and that is by making them queenless. 

 My way of preparing bees for this work is this: 



I have a box, a duplicate of the regular 

 brood-nest a full colony occupies, to the bot- 

 ton of which is nailed wire cloth. Over this 

 wire, at the ends, are nailed £6 -inch cleats to 

 keep the bottom of the box above any thing it 

 is resting on, so that the air can be admitted 

 freely at all times. A frame cover is made, 

 and that also is covered with wire cloth. 

 When ready for the bees I take the cover of 

 the box and go to any strong colony in the 

 yard, remove the sections or whatever covers 

 the frames, and place the wire cover on the 



Fig.I. Comb 



CONTAlNltNGr E.GG-S. 



m 



hive. Then the bees are smoked at the en- 

 trance to drive in as many as po.-sible, and 

 also cause them to fill their sacs with honey. 

 I also drum lightly on the hive. Now, to put 

 the bees in such a condition that they can be 

 brushed from the combs into a box, and not 

 all take wing, I use a small amount of tobacco 

 smoke. I will say plainly that this boxing- 

 up of bee s as above can not be done without 

 the use of tobacco smoke If rotten -wood 

 smoke is u«ed, nearly all of the bees will take 

 wing and be in the air quickly ; but the to- 



