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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. L 



p.riod cals devoted to iheir care and breeding, 

 and, as in bee-keeping, a good text-book is one 

 of the first essentials — in fact, the first. 



Ernest W. Halstead. 

 Fort Stanton, N. M., July 12. 



SMOKER FUEL, AND IGNITING THE SAME. 



In your issue of July 1st you recommend 

 planer chips as fuel for smokers, but seem to 

 find them rather difficult to get well started. 

 For over ten years 1 have ustd such fuel in 

 preference toall others, and for much of that 

 time u.'ed kerosene to start them with ; but I 

 find a small handful of charcoal to be better. 

 I ignite the charcoal with a bit of burning pa- 

 per or a few shavings, and, after a few puffs 

 of the bellows, the smoker is filled with plan- 

 er-chips, and ready for use. It is not necessa- 

 ry to have commercial charcoal for this pur- 

 pose, as the siftings from the ashes of any 

 wood fire will do nicely. A. C. MiLLER. 



Providence, R. I., July 13. 



[When I was working actively in the apiary 

 day after day it was my practice to have a 

 spring-top oiler, such as is used for lubricating 

 machinery, filled with kerosene. The smoker 

 was partially filled, and then a few squirts of 

 the fluid were thrown on. A lighted match 

 was dropped on it, the smoker closed, and the 

 bellows woiked for about a minute When 

 live embers began to appear, more fuel was 

 added until the fire-cup was full. This always 

 worked very nicely, but somehow our people 

 have not got into the fashion of using it of 

 late. Live coals are the most convenient of 

 any thing to light smokers, providing the 

 kitchen stove is handy ; otherwise I prefer the 

 terosene and the regulation match. — Ed.] 



J. H., Ga. — We are not able to tell you 

 what was the cause or the source of the bitter 

 honey without receiving a small sample, and 

 might not even then. But there is a good 

 deal of bitter honey that comes from different 

 sources. As between the two locations, we 

 would choose the one near the swampy ground 

 rather than on the hill, because the fruit-trees 

 would not have very much effect on the yield. 



/. M. kS., 3/aitie.—ln reference to your 

 question in regard to the queen in the swarm, 

 that does not lay, I would suggest that possi- 

 bly she has been injured in some way. If so, 

 it may be best to introduce another queen. 

 But it is well to consider that, after a honey- 

 flow, queens are apt to stop laying entirely. 

 Before replacing the queen I would advise you 

 to feed the colony about half a pint of sugar 

 syrup daily for about a week. If she is good 

 for any thing she will begin laying in short 

 order. 



JV. P., III. — The probabilities are that the 

 season has been so poor in your vicinity that 

 the bees have had no incentive for swarming. 



They are strong tnough ; and if honey had 

 been coming in they \\ould have swarmed. 

 If other colonies are gatherii g honey, and 

 this one is not, then possibly the bets are 

 queenless, or perhaps the hive is in loo hot a 

 place, with too much sunshine. With regard 

 to getting a colony out of a chimney, there is 

 no way of doing it but to crawl up the chim- 

 ney, if it is large enough, and take it out. 

 The bees should be smoked first, of course, 

 and the one who undertakes to get them out 

 should be well protected with a veil, gloves, 

 and have his trousers legs tucked well down in 

 his stockings, and his sleeves tied also. 



J. A'., Miss. — When bees take a notion to 

 swarm out every day as often as you put them 

 back, there is no use in trying to make them 

 stay in that hive or in that location. You can 

 lead a horse to water, but you can not make 

 him drink. When bees, swarm out a second 

 time from the place where they have been 

 hived, I would by all means advise hiving 

 them somewhere else. The more you hive 

 the bees back, the more furious they are to 

 get out the next day. I remember I hived one 

 back one day four or five times, and actually 

 nailed wire cloth over the entrance ; but those 

 rascals pushed and pushed, and tried to 

 remove it. I kept them confined two days ; 

 then when I removed the cloth, out they pour- 

 ed. I finally hived them in an entirely new 

 location, giving them unsealed brood, and 

 they thereafter stayed at home. 



7?. L. //., //id. — I am always pleased to 

 answer questions for our patrons, and endeavor 

 to give a private reply when requested ; but 

 sometimes, owing to the crowd of correspond- 

 ence, letters with questions are occasionally 

 overlooked, or delayed beyond the time when 

 the answer would be of any value. Bee-par- 

 alysis in the North will usually disappear of 

 itself ; but sometimes it is severe, and in such 

 cases colonies having it should be isolated in 

 a location at least a mile and a half from the 

 other bees. If other colonies have it, they 

 should be placed along with it, and there 

 establish a quarantine apiary. If your bees 

 had spring dwindling, and recovered, of course 

 there would be nothing to fear now. In a 

 colony that has no eggs, there is probably a 

 virgin queen that has not begun to lay yet ; 

 but to make sure that she has not been lost 

 on her fertilization trip, I would suggest that 

 you give it another frame of unsealed brood 

 so that, if she is lost, the bees may start 

 new queen-cells, when you may be sure that 

 they are queenless. If you have any dead 

 brood in your apiary, the matter of which 

 ropes slightly, it may or may not be foul 

 brood. But the various forms of the other 

 diseased brood will rope very slightly — one- 

 eighth of an inch, perhaps. When we have a 

 clear case of foul brood, the dead matter- 

 should string out from a toothpick at least an 

 inch. In all probability you had a case of 

 pickled brood, which will rope very slightly, 

 and in most localities this will disappear of 

 itself ; but if not, it should be treated by shak- 

 ing the bees on to new frames of foundation, 

 and the old frames should be destroyed — that 

 is, burned or buried. 



