608 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



R. — He is in a fair way to be, no doubt. 



N. — He is quick, agreeable, and, what is 

 more, he understands the whole business from 

 A to Z, scientifically as well as practically. If 

 he is appointed I shall be saiisfied — abun- 

 dantly so. 



R. — So shall I. But, say ; a moment ago 

 you spoke about the Dadant (or perhaps, 

 rather, the Draper) barns. How did these 

 strike you — or, rather, do you favor, up in 

 your buckwheat country, such large hives? 



N. — Morton's experience, and Coggshall's, 

 shows that a buckwheater will get more honey 

 per colony in an eight-frame hive, when run 

 for comb honey, than he can in a larger hive ; 

 and there is very little difference in manipu- 

 lation, with us, between comb honey and ex- 

 tracted. The same manipulation produces 

 like results. 



R. — Did you ever try large hives ? 



N. — Morton started in with a ten -frame 

 Simplicity. He next tried Dr. Tinker's two- 

 for-a-cent hive, and settled at last on a nine- 

 frame hive with eight frames in it, and a 

 dummy. It is the most practical hive for our 

 localit)'. 



R. — Well, I sincerely hope you are right. 

 I should be very sorry to have it finally de- 

 velop that large hives, or barns, are the hive 

 for the production of either comb or extracted 

 honey. The Langstroth frame has come to be 

 nearly the standard the world over ; and to 

 change to a ten-frame Langstroth, two inches 

 deeper, would involve an enormous expense, 

 and endless confusion to the bee keeper and 

 supply-dealer alike. But then, you are buck- 

 wheaters, and that spoils the whole argument. 

 No doubt the question is entirely and thor- 

 oughly settled so far as your buckwheat 

 country is concerned. By the by, a moment 

 ago you sp^ke about the Carniolan bees. If I 

 remember correctly, Coggshall was partial to 

 them when I was there. 



N.— The Carniolan bee is my favorite by a 

 large majority. 



R —Why ? 



N. — First, because they swarm. I want no 

 bees that do not swarm. 



R. — Why, Niver ! You are running squarely 

 against orthodoxy. 



N. — Well, I am a spiritualist, you know, so 

 I have that privilege. But, let me see. Our 

 greatest yields have always been from bees 

 that swarmed early, if they would only swarm 

 early enough, and before the flow was over ; 

 that is, before the first of September. The 

 colony that swarmed first had the most honev 

 — that is, the colony and its progeny. 



R. — Explain yourself a little more fully. 



N. — How would you in your locality get the 

 most white honey possible? Wouldn't you 

 use Hutchinson's plan of hiving on starters, 

 and depend on that swarm to make the boxes 

 of honey ? Can't you get more section honey 

 that way than in any other ? Is not that con- 

 ceded ? But at the end of the white-honey 

 harvest, what have you got ? You have a col- 

 ony that is good for nothing for buckwheat, 

 even if you had it, while our big money comes 

 from buckwheat. We will say your queen 

 lays eggs very rapidly in the fore part of the 



season, builds up very rapidly, and then, 

 when the honey-flow coes come, the queen 

 allows the bees to crowd her out of the brood- 

 nest, filling it full of honey instead of brood. 

 At the commencement of the buckwheat flow, 

 if you were to have it ten days later, you 

 would have a poor played-out worked-out col- 

 ony with no bees coming in to take their 

 places. With us buckwheaters we want the 

 queen that will keep as much honey out of 

 the brood-nest as possible, and to keep it as 

 full of brood as possible, so that, at the be- 

 ginning of the buckwheat flow — say about the 

 27th of July, or from the 25th to the 30th, we 

 shall have a big colony coming on at that 

 time, ready for buckwheat, which lasts four 

 weeks with us, and thus we have all the queens 

 we are after, and the Carniolans fill the bill. 

 And I see that I have good backing here in 

 your own apiary. That is what your apiarist, 

 Mr. Ward ell, wants — a queen that will swarm 

 early, and lay through the honey-flow. That 

 is orthodox, is it not ? 



R. — Yes, yes, ) - es ; I give up you are or- 

 thodox for your country ; but I scarcely 

 understand why our man, Mr. Wardell, should 

 seek swarms unless it is because his training 

 and bee-keeping experience f< r the last fifteen 

 or twenty years has been confined to a locality 

 some sixty miles south of us. 



N. — Perhaps I ought to say that he wants a 

 big lot of bees at the close of your white- 

 honey flow here ; but the point he principally 

 laid stress on was that he wanted them to 

 swarm early, for the swarm that comes out 

 early is the one that gets the honey. But it 

 simmers itself down to this at last : The bee- 

 keeper who studies his own locality, and the 

 various honey flows he has, and gets them 

 down fine, is the man who succeeds, no mat- 

 ter where he is. 



R.— Sure. 



N. — You ought to see Coggshall shinning 

 up trees before there is a leaf on any of them, 

 to say nothing about blossoms. 



R. — Why, how could he tell whether a tree 

 is going to blossom out before there is a leaf 

 in sight? 



N . — Oh ! perhaps there may be one leaf on 

 top of the tree. 



R. — Are vou fellows in the habit of shinning 

 up trees early in the season ? 



N. — Well, we keep our eye open all the 

 while on what is going on. 



R. — Pesriblv that explains why one of you 

 is able to produce 39 tuns of honey with 116 

 days of labor. 



N. — There is a good point here. It well 

 behooves us to ascertain in advance whether 

 there will be a yield from basswood ; and if 

 so, to put our colonies in such shape that they 

 will be prepared for it. 



R. — Is that the way Coggshall keeps track 

 of his locality through the years? 



N. — Certainly. 



R. C. M., Tex. — Drones from the same 

 queen vary somewhat in the markings, but the 

 drones you refer to are doubtless strange 

 drones from other hives, for drones are toler- 

 ated in almost any colony during their season. 



