746 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



IT'S a good plan, when you take a super 

 of sections off a hive, to pencil on one of 

 them the number of the colony. Then when 

 you find a super of greasy-looking sections 

 you know where to replace a queen next 

 spring. [Good scheme ! And while you are 

 about it, it is a good point in favor of number- 

 ing hives. — Ed.] 



The Wuerzbnrger Praktischen Wegweiser 

 says the publisher of Gleanings has offered 

 $25 apiece for Apis dorsata queens, and that a 

 Hollander named Verholen tried with dogged 

 persistence for years to domesticate dorsata in 

 Java, but all in vain. Out of 87 colonies that 

 he secured, not a single one but took French 

 leave, deserting brood and honey. [I wish, 

 doctor, you could get hold of the full report 

 of these experiments. It will make very in- 

 teresting reading, both to the dorsataites and 

 to the antis. — Ed.] 



|f Speaking of foreign bee journals, ' ' Stenog' ' 

 says, p. 712, "Every month has its detailed 

 account of what to do and how to do it. In 

 this regard they set a good pace for American 

 journals." It would be an easy thing for 

 Gleanings to occupy a page or two each 

 month with such matter, and it could be kept 

 standing in type with but little change from 

 year to year; but I'm afraid readers, even be- 

 ginners (if they have a good text-book) would 

 object to space being taken up that way. That 

 space is better taken up with answers to live 

 questions from beginners and others, in which 

 American journals set the pace. 



Decidedly interesting are those figures 

 that H. Lathrop gives on p. 719, and I think 

 Harry means to give the unvarnished facts. 

 Figuring on 15 years gives something like 

 this : 



3 years of failure 00 



5 heavy crops of 100 each 500 



7 medium crops of 50 " 350 



Total per colony for 15 years 850 



Average annual yield comb honey per 

 colony 56 % 



The average beginner in the average locali- 

 ty, who figures upon that as a basis in decid- 

 ing as to making bee-keeping his principal 

 means of support, will be sadly misled. There 

 are a few localities where in a full year 100 lbs. 

 of comb honey per colony might be reached, 

 but they are few. Some would do it with a 

 few colonies, but not with 75 or 100. In most 

 places there would be more than 3 years of 

 failure in 15. Harry Lathrop may not know 

 it, but I doubt that the average bee-keeper 

 would do what he has done in that same lo- 

 cality. All the same, his contribution of facts 

 is valuable. » 



I put 46 supers of unfinished sections in the 

 shop cellar, piling them crosswise, and then 

 opened the door about Oct. 1. The weather 

 was fine, and it took the bees about two days 

 to clean them. Combs gnawed a little, but 

 not seriously. [This or a similar method is 

 the only practical way of emptying out unfin- 

 ished sections. They may be piled in stack- 

 ed-up hives with a small entrance, or in a dark 



cellar, where it takes the bets a little time to 

 find their way to the honey. If I am not mis- 

 taken, nearly all the largest comb-honey pro- 

 ducers use either one or the other method; but 

 you will remember that it was opposed pretty 

 vigorously by some of the leading lights at 

 Philadelphia, on the ground that it has a ten- 

 dency to incite robbers, and that bees once 

 robbers were always robbers. We have tried 

 the plan here at the Home of the Honey-bees 

 a good many times, and I do not see that bees 

 are any the worse off when it is over with than 

 when they begin. See article by Harry Howe 

 in this issue. — Ed.] 



" You can Take partly filled sections and 

 place them in the upper story of a colony; 

 and the bees below, if you give them time 

 enough, will empty them out and store in the 

 brood-combs" (Gleanings, 724). For this 

 "locality" that phrase, "if you give them 

 time enough," should be strongly italicized, 

 making the time generally not less than six 

 months. I've had heaps and heaps of expe- 

 rience on that point, with large numbers of 

 supers, extending over years, with all sorts of 

 insinuating devices, and I must humbly con- 

 fess that I think I never got a single super 

 cleaned out when allowing only one colony 

 access to it. If any one has succeeded, I'll 

 be effusively thankful for the trick. [We 

 have had bees empty out partly filled sections 

 in the upper story; but it sometimes took two 

 months, and that is the reason why I put in 

 the qualifying clause, "if you give them time 

 enough." Taking it all in all, the bee-keeper 

 had better not fool away his time and that of 

 the colony in any such way as this; better — 

 far better — pile the sections up in the cellar 

 and let all the bees rob them out slowly as you 

 describe elsewhere in Straws. — Ed.] 



J. H. H., Neb. — If the oil-stove was turned 

 down too low it might possibly have been an 

 indirect cause of the death of the bees. We 

 would not advise putting a stove of that kind 

 into a cellar and keeping it there more than 

 two or three days at the most. You did right 

 in dividing the bees as you describe. If one 

 of the queens is a good one, save her and de- 

 stroy the other. If neither one is to your lik- 

 ing, destroy both and introduce another ; but 

 in the fall you must not expect very much 

 egg-laying, for that generally stops along in 

 August or September. The mere fact that 

 eggs are not found in a hive at this time of the 

 year is no indication that the queen is not do- 

 ing as she ought. Yes, by all means use cush- 

 ions with the double- walled chaff hives. Dou- 

 ble hives would be of little use without cush- 

 ions on top, for they are more important than 

 the double walls of the hive. In putting bees 

 up for winter I would not take away combs of 

 honey, even though they are not covered with 

 bees or contain no brood. If you have any 

 fear about a queen not living through the win- 

 ter because of old age, or because she is fee- 

 ble, better replace her with a young laying 

 queen. Yes, cushions should be at least six 

 inches thick. 



