1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



89 



AN INTERESTING REPORT FROM BRITISH 

 GUIANA, SOUTH AMERICA. 



You will be glad to hear that I have extract- 

 ed from my little apiary 800 lbs. of honey 

 from 8 hives only, one alone giving me 48 lbs. 

 net. That is for five months' work from the 

 previous lot I extracted. We are the only 

 ones in this colony having an apiary. This is 

 my second year. I shall always make some 

 sort of report for you. W. H. Terril. 



Georgetown, British Guiana. 



SEALED COVERS FOR WINTER. 



Give me sealed wood covers for bees in 

 preference to cloth or cushions; also have the 

 bees face the south in preference to any other 

 direction this side of the equator, because they 

 will often make a fly in the afternoon if they 

 face the sun, while if the sun shines on the 

 back of the hive they will not fly. This is 

 for winter. Herbert L. McLallen. 



Trumansburg, N. Y., Nov. 4. 



STUNG TO DEATH BY BEES. 



[We copy the following from a Cleveland 

 daily, under date of Sept. 27. The same inci- 

 dent was referred to in Pickings, on page 791, 

 last year, but we have here a little more addi- 

 tional information:] 



Allianck. O., Sept. 26. — John Carson, a farmer, aged 

 65, of Newton Falls, was stung to death by bees. Car- 

 son desired to work in his apiary, and, to quiet the 

 bees, burned sulphur. This only enraged the bees, 

 however, and they swarmed over him, stinging him in 

 hundreds of places He made his wav to the house, 

 where he fell to the floor. Several hours later he died. 



[This man lost his life by not knowing enough 

 to let bees alone when they should not be han- 

 dled ; and instead of using smoke to quiet his 

 bees, as bee-keepers do the world over, he did 

 something entirely unheard of. Who ever 

 heard of burning sulphur to quiet bees? We 

 are very sorry indeed to learn that anybody has 

 lost his life in this way; but he certainly was 

 entirely to blame in stirring up the bees at a 

 time when they should have been let alone, 

 and also in attempting to handle them when 

 he did not even know any thing about the man- 

 agement of bees. — Ed ] 



WHAT TO DO WITH THE COMBS OF SEALED 

 STORES OF A COL<JNY THAT HAS DIED. 



One of my colonies was too weak to go into 

 winter quarters bef )re I was aware of it, and 

 the cold snap, 10° below zero, we had about 

 the holidays, killed all of them, and there is 

 quite a lot of sealed honey in the brood- cham- 

 ber — about 10 or 15 lbs. I closed the entrance 

 so no robber bees could get in. What would 

 you do with that hive ? Would you get a col- 

 ony of Italians and put in next spring, or 

 what? E. S. Kriebel. 



Reddick, 111. 



[I would close the entrance up in such a 

 colony, after cleaning out all dead bees. Next 

 spring give the-e combs to some colony need- 

 ing stores ; or if there is no colony that is 

 short, reserve the hive and its combs for the 

 first swarm that can be hived on its combs. 

 Combs off from which the bees have died will 

 be, as a general rule, unless badly smeared 

 with dysentery-marks, just as good for a new 

 colony as any. — Ed ] 



C. W. , A'^. Y. — We made plain sections 

 4>4 X 5 X l^i^ all last season, but we did not 

 catalog them, for the reason that the demand 

 was comparatively limited. You will find them 

 very highly spoken of, however, by two or 

 three of the late correspondents of Gleanings. 

 They have all the advantages you name, and 

 may possibly displace the 3fsX5. 



K. M., Ohio. — I know of no reason why 

 bees can not be kept within the city limits ; 

 but to avoid any trouble the hives should be 

 put in the back yard of the city lot; or if there 

 IS no such yard, on the roof of the building. 

 You should arrange somehow to get the range 

 of flight of the bees so that it will not inter- 

 fere with the ordinary traffic of the streets. 



W. J. M. , I^i. — The bees which deserted their 

 own hive and entered another were not rob- 

 bers, as you suppose, but simply bees that had 

 swarmed out. The bees of the hive entered 

 regarded them as intruders, and fought them 

 just as they would fight robbers. The occur- 

 rence is not unusual; but when it does happen, 

 the bees fight very much as if it were a case 

 of robbing. In this case the fighting was 

 mostly on the side of the colony invaded, for 

 the incomers would treat the others civilly 

 enough if thej' could only gain admittance. 



E.J. B., Can. — We could not very well re- 

 fer you to the particular copy or copies of 

 Gleanings giving the Elwood caged-queen 

 plan to prevent swarming, without spending 

 probably a day to look over our back volumes. 

 This expense you would not care to assume, 

 probably ; but in our A B C of Bee Culture you 

 will find this matter pretty well covered under 

 the head of " Prevention of Swarming, " and 

 particularly under the heading " Prevention of 

 Swarming by Caging or Removal of Queen. " 

 Under this heading } ou will find all the infor- 

 mation you desire. 



A. W..,C., Mo. — There are several ways of 

 rendering old black combs into wax for mar- 

 ket. Perhaps the most convenient is the solar 

 wax-extractor, which can be had of any of 

 the dealers in supplies. Another and very 

 common way is to put the combs in a cheese- 

 cloth bag and then sink the bag into a wash- 

 boiler of hot water. As the wax melts it will 

 percolate through the cheese-cloth sacking, 

 rise to the surface of the water, and can then 

 be dipped off. The bag should be occasional- 

 ty punched with a stick, and squeezed, to press 

 out as much as possible of the wax that re- 

 mains in the old comb. But there is no way 

 of getting all the wax out of old combs except 

 by the use of the wax-press. First render the 

 combs in a solar wax-extractor, or by the oth- 

 er method described, after which, while hot, 

 subject them to pressure in a wax-press. For 

 directions for making a wax-press, see our A 

 B C of Bee Culture. 



