1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



353 



the important requisites are these : Stimula- 

 tive feeding (i. e., half a pint of sugar syrup 

 daily), and placing the cells to be built, in the 

 center of the brood-nest surrounded by per- 

 forated zinc ; for the queen of the colony must 

 not have access to the cells or she would soon 

 destroy them. Your question, I take it, im- 

 plies that you desire to know how to rear 

 Doolittle cells in the brood-nest of a normal 

 colony having a queen. Of course, it is no 

 trick at all to raise a kind of cells in queenless 

 colonies without even feeding. Such cells do 

 not produce as good queens by a long way as 

 those reared under the swarming impulse or 

 stimulative feeding. To fence the comb hav- 

 ing Doolittle cell-cups off into a compartment 

 by itself, we have two tight-fitting division- 

 boards of perforated zinc that reach to the 

 bottom-board clear out to the ends of the hive, 

 and reaching up to and in contact with the 

 cover above. A frame of unsealed larvae, or 

 two of them, preferably, are placed, one on 

 each side of the frame, with cell-cups ; then 

 the perforated zinc division-boards are set 

 down in the spaces that will inclose these three 

 frames off by themselves. The queen is given 

 the range of one or the other sides of the 

 brood-nest. After the first batch of ripe cells 

 is taken out, she is transferred over to the 

 other side, and then the operation is repeated 

 as before. But I desire again to lay very great 

 stress on the stimulative feeding , and on the 

 frames of unsealed larvae being placed as in- 

 dicated, and, when possible, securing as strong 

 colonies as can be had at this season of the 

 year. — Ed ] 



TRANSFERRING AND PUTTING BROOD ABOVE 

 PERFORATED ZINC. 



I have purchased 20 colonies of bees in 

 Langstroth hives, and in about two weeks 

 intend to transfer them to Dovetailed hives. 

 I want to use full sheets of foundation ( wired ) . 

 How will it do to place the frames containing 

 brood and eggs in the upper story, with a 

 queen-excluder between, until the eggs shall 

 have hatched? W. S. Hoss. 



Indianapolis, Ind. 



[If colonies are already in movable-frame 

 hives from which they are to be transferred, 

 it is usually the practice to put all combs con- 

 taining brood in an upper story above a sheet 

 of perforated zinc. When the brood hatches 

 out, then the combs are cut out of the frames. 

 If the bees are in box hives in the first place, 

 they should be drummed out, and old combs 

 containing brood should be left in the old hive 

 beside the new one, till all brood hatches ; 

 then all old combs may be cut out and melted 

 up. But box hives, when set down beside 

 the other hives, should have their entrances 

 at right angles ; or it would do no harm if the 

 entrances were reversed, one pointing in one 

 direction and the other the direct opposite. — 

 Ed.] 



new honey from the ti-ti. 

 I visited an apiary this morning, and the 

 owner had just finished hiving a swarm of 

 bees. He said, "I threw water upon them, 



and they soon settled." They clustered upon 

 a mulberry-tree, which was full of green 

 fruit. The bees are diminutive blacks, kept 

 in movable-frame hives. This apiarist reports 

 the season late, as bees usually swarm in 

 March. There had been much honey dew, 

 but now bees were gathering very nice white 

 honey from the ti-ti. He had twelve colonies 

 — sold some honey in the town, and used a 

 good deal himself when he had no sugar — 

 sweetened his tea with it. 



There was no orange or lemon bloom this 

 spring, as frost destroyed the foliage, and in 

 many instances the wood. There is one tree 

 in our garden that is now clothed with leaves 

 to the very tips, while all the rest were killed 

 to a few inches from the ground. An orange- 

 tree will bear more neglect than any other 

 tree, but can not endure severe freezing. The 

 thermometer was down to 17 degrees above 

 zero the past winter. A year ago the past 

 winter I celebrated arbor day by planting an 

 orange-tree. It was killed down, and never 

 sprouted from the root the past summer. I 

 utilized the spot, as it had been well fertil- 

 ized, by transplanting a small peach-tree. 

 To day on visiting the spot to look after the 

 peach-tree I was surprised to find a small 

 orange- tree, six inches high, which had grown 

 from the root, after lying dormant more than 

 a year. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



St. Andrews Bay, Florida. 



OUEKNS ; THEIR MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEAR- 

 ANCE EXPI^AINED. 



On page 686, 1899, is an article from J. E. 

 Ganger, stating that he lost about one- fifth of 

 his queens, and you called upon your readers 

 for help. Well, it seems that he and I are 

 about all that have had such experience. I 

 think, however, I know what became of mine. 

 Early in the spring, when I first began to ex- 

 amine the condition of my bees, I found a 

 queen on the under side of the cover, and it 

 was by accident that I saw her. A little fur- 

 ther on a queen was on top of the frames ; 

 and, when I smoked her a little to drive her 

 down, she ran over outside. On another oc- 

 casion I had some work to do with a very 

 cross colony, and it took considerable smoke 

 to subdue them. About an hour afterward I 

 found the queen about a rod from the hive. 

 Another time I was looking for the queen ; 

 and, after looking through the whole hive ex- 

 cept the last two frames, I found her balled 

 b)' the other bees. If I had not been hunting 

 the queen herself, I would perhaps have had a 

 queenless colony without knowing what be- 

 came of the queen. On taking off supers I 

 frequently found queens which might have 

 been lost had I not been looking closely for 

 them. I lost several queens, any way ; but 

 by learning early to be on mj- guard I saved 

 many that otherwise would have been lost. I 

 am pretty sure all the missing queens were 

 lost in one of the above-named waj^s. It was 

 by learning early in the spring to watch that 

 my per cent of loss was not as great as was 

 Mr. Ganger's. 



Delray, Tex. J. T. Ethertdge. 



