222 



GlyEANlNGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. ]5. 



enough, and there was not one section burr- 

 combed fast to the fence. That size of sec- 

 tions and fences has come to stay. 



Geo. p. Anderson. 

 Ruggles, Pa., Jan. 31. 



WHEN TO FEED BEES IN THE SPRING. 



About what time in the spring of the year 

 would you advise feeding bees to give them a 

 good start for spring or early brood-raising? 

 And about what amount should be fed ? Is it 

 safe to open up hives in winter ? 



Bloomfield, Ind. W. S. Bogy. 



[I would not advise feeding to stimulate un- 

 til settled warm weather has come, and that, 

 of course, will vary in different localities. I 

 would feed half a pint to a quart daily. The 

 Doolittle feeder, or any feeder that can be set 

 down inside of the hive, can be used. I would 

 under no circumstances feed liquid food on 

 cold days, and would especially caution against 

 feeding at any time too early in the spring. 

 For example, there may be a week of warm 

 weather followed by very cold weather. Feed- 

 ing during the first period would start brood- 

 rearing, and do a great deal more harm than 

 good, because the bees would during the cold 

 .spell attempt to hover over the brood, with 

 the result that they as well as brood would 

 die, and a large portion, if not the whole col- 

 ony, perish. — Ed.] 



SHADE, AND ITS RELATION TO CI^USTERING 

 OUT. 



Two years ago I ran a yard for Mr. Ewing, 

 of 100 siands, all in the shade of three-year-old 

 cherry trees and old apple-trees. My own 

 yard of 9 stands was without a tree, but I took 

 old scrap lumber and made shade-boards 4 ft. 

 long, 3 ft. wide, with a wind 18 in. wide ex- 

 tending down the west side of the hive which 

 faced south, laid two on the hive-cover shade- 

 board, then with about the same space between 

 the side of the hive and wing. Result, when 

 bees in orchard would cluster all over the 

 hive, mine with shade-board never clustered. 



Des Moiue , Iowa. A. Mason. 



THE TAI<L SECTION A BKTTER SELLER. 



I have used the 4.%X'^% section, but did 

 not like it. I rigged up a foot-power saw and 

 cut out some boxes to suit myself, A%X^, and 

 13r( thick. I used them without separators al- 

 ways, and sold them by weight. They were 

 much better filled than the smaller sections, 

 and many were perfect, and would compare 

 well with any I have seen illustrated in Glean- 

 ings. No one would buy the square box when 

 seeing them side by side. The 4X5 may be 

 all right ; but when you get them narrower 

 you are going wrong again. C. E. WaTTS. 



Rumney, N. H., Jan. 19. 



HONEY FROM THE TEA-PLANT. 



The tea-plant is now in bloom, and furnishes 

 quite good pasture for the bees. Tea honey is 

 highly esteemed by the Chinese. The plant 

 is a species of camelia, and has a large white 

 blossom with a center of very many yellow sta- 

 mens. J. E. Walker. 



Shao-wu, Foochow, China, Nov. 22, 1899. 



H.J. B., Pa — The sample drone you sent 

 is evidently the son of a fertile worker or lay- 

 ing worker ; or he may have been from an egg 

 laid by a drone-laying queen in a worker-cell. 

 Such drones are not necessarily incapable of 

 performing the function for which they were 

 intended ; but as a rule we prefer drones from 

 a mother capable of laying eggs that will pro- 

 duce workers. 



A. B. D., Mich. — I can not see any reason 

 why your bees should be robbed without trying 

 to defend themselves. I should be inclined to 

 think the trouble was with your bees. If they 

 are pure blacks they might not offer resist- 

 ance ; but if they are hybrids, or, better still, 

 Italians, they ought to put up a good defense. 

 In any case I would contract the entrance 

 down to a space that one bee can pass through 

 at a time. If the bees still fail to show fight, 

 shake in a few young bees of another hive of 

 Italians. 



C. H. /,., Fla. — We have yours inquiring if 

 we could not make a smoker of sheet brass. 

 I presume the reason you suggest such a metal 

 is because your climate is so very moist with 

 salt air, as it is called, that it rusts articles 

 made of iron or steel. We once made for O. 

 O. Poppleton, of your State, a smoker of cop- 

 per ; but one objection to this metal is that it 

 IS pretty soft, and is liable to dent up rather 

 badly. Yes, we could make you a smoker of 

 brass, but it would cost from 25 to 35 cents 

 more. 



G. A. D., N. Y. — I would not be too sure 

 that the colony is queenless. During the win- 

 ter, queens stop laying and then shrink up so 

 much in size that they look almost like the 

 worker bees themselves ; and a beginner look- 

 ing through the hive, and seeing no evidence 

 of eggs or larvae, and nothing that looks like 

 a queen, is apt to conclude that the bees are 

 queenless. Of course, if you know that the 

 queen is dead, then the sooner you can intro- 

 duce another queen to the bees the better it 

 will be for them ; but it would be a little diffi- 

 cult at this time of year to get a queen through 

 the mail alive, owing to the sudden changes 

 in the weather. We could not send you a 

 queen from here, as we take no queens from 

 our apiary during the winter. One would 

 have to be sent from the South, and you would 

 have to run your chances of getting her 

 through alive. 



W. A. C, a. — I would not advise you to 

 buy a nucleus with a queen, and place the 

 same among other bees, even if the other 

 queen has been removed. In the first place, 

 you had better not do any thing with the bees 

 until next spring, or until you have settled 

 warm weather. Tinkering with them now 

 would be sure to do more harm than good. 

 When settled warm weather comes on next 

 spring, send to some breeder for Carniolan 



