730 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



Now, some may be inclined to laugh at the 

 idea of using such antiquated methods, and 

 consider it only a waste of time to write about 

 them or read of them. I do not advocate the 

 driving process as a substitute for ordinary 

 methods except in those cases where, for some 

 special reasons, the combs are hard to handle 

 or the queens hard to find ; but if you will go 

 at it inielligently, and once " get the hang of 

 it," you will find, as I have, that there are 

 many times when time and annoyance can be 

 saved by its use. 



O.tavva, 111., Aug. 16. 



[This article was accompanied by a note 

 from Mr. Green, stating that while, for a few 

 years back, he had been engaged in another 

 line of business that occupied a good deal of 

 his time, taking him away from bee-keeping, 

 he was now going back to his old love. He 

 was present at the Chicago convention, and 

 showed his old-time interest and enthusiasm. 

 He was always a practical writer, and during 

 the time that he was engaged in other business 

 he still clung to the bees, so that in the inter- 

 im he has by no means become rust3^ I am 

 sure our older readers will be glad to see his 

 interesting communications again, for he al- 

 ways was a writer who contributed something 

 of value. 



I a^n glad to be enlightened on this subject 

 of shaking bees out to find queens ; and one 

 reason, perhaps, it was a failure with me was 

 because I attempted to shake both stories or 

 sections of the hive wiihout previous'y smok- 

 ing, as directed by Mr. Green. After I had 

 tried in vain t ) shake out all the bees from 

 two sections of the hive, almost " shaking the 

 daylights" out of me, I concluded that, even 

 if the queen could be found that way, other 

 ways less back-breaking were more comforta- 

 ble, to say the least. But Mr. Green does not 

 say' any thing about putting on bicycle pants- 

 guards, or tucking his pants into his stockings 

 to keep the bees from crawling up his legs. 

 Whenever I do any shaking of combs I alvvays 

 like to provide against any thing of this kind. 



But say, friend Green, it strikes me you 

 have given us a valuable kink in your finding- 

 box. Work? Of course it wovild. 



After one reads Harry Lathrop's article on 

 the u^e of shallow brood-chambers for the se- 

 curing of comb honey, and this article from 

 Mr. Green, he might almost come to the con- 

 clusion that the divisible brood-^chamber hive 

 was the hive. I am not sure but it is for many 

 localities and for many bee-keepers ; but I am 

 very sure that, for some bee keepers, it is most 

 decidedly true that it is not what they want. 

 Both the man and the locality, and to some 

 extent the bees, may not be adapted to it. 



It is indeed true that the drumming of bees 

 out of a box, hive, or skep is almost a lost art 

 with the bee-keepers of America. In Eng- 

 land it is still practiced very extensively, and 

 likewise on the continent, for the simple rea- 

 son that bees are still kept throughout Europe 

 very largelv in the old-fashioned straw skep. 

 Strange as it mav seem, these bee-keepers will 

 dequeen and requeen a hive almost as quickly 

 as we can with movable frames. They can do 



nearly every thing except handle the combs. 

 They can even produce extracted honey, but, 

 of course, have to have supers at least with 

 movable frames. But where the straw-skep 

 method of bee-keeping is in vogue, comb hon- 

 ey is generally produced — if not in sections, 

 in the old-fashioned glass boxes. 



There ! I do not know but our readers will 

 begin to think that friend Green and I are al- 

 most going back to the old straw skep. Not 

 a bit of it ; but there are methods that were 

 practiced in connection with that form of a 

 domicile for bees, and are practiced with them 

 yet, that may even be used to advantage with 

 movable - frame hives ; but, mark you, the 

 frames must not be of the " rattlebox " type. 

 They must be either closed-end or of the Hoff- 

 man style — something that will stand a good 

 big vigorous shaking, or a drumming and 

 pounding, when applied to the outside of the 

 hive. 



I have believed with many others that hives 

 should be handled more and frames less, and 

 in this I am backed by no less authorities than 

 R. L. Taylor and W. Z. Hutchinson. 



But this question will be sure to be fired at 

 me, and I desire to anticipate it in advance : 

 " Do you really mean to say that you indorse 

 Mr Green's method of finding queens to such 

 an extent that you would abandon the old 

 way and would now follow his?" No, no T 

 and I don't take it that he would recommend 

 it, except in difficult cases. If I were using 

 sectional brood-chambers, which I am not, I 

 might use the plan to a considerable extent ; 

 but when using the full depth Langstroth or 

 jumbo frames, I think I should prefer to take 

 my chances of finding a queen by " looking 

 for her, " as Rambler says — looking over the 

 frames one by one. — Ed.] 



NOTES OF TRAVEL IN EUROPE. 



Continued from Last Issue. 



BY J. T. CA1,VERT. 



The impressions that I give of the people 

 and their customs, as contrasted with our own, 

 are of necessity very superficial, and may in 

 many respects be very wide of the mark. I 

 give account of only a few things which im- 

 pressed me on the very hasty tour through 

 England, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, 

 and France. 



The more I see of these old countries, the 

 more I am impressed with the supremacy of 

 America commercially, because of her great 

 advantage over these countries in labor saving 

 machinery. Here the effort seems to be to 

 employ as many people as possible in accom- 

 plishing the work to be done, while in Ameri- 

 ca the effort seems to be to eliminate human 

 labor as far as it is possible by the introduc- 

 tion of machinery. 



As we passed through Belgium and Ger- 

 many on the way from Ostend to Brussels 

 and- Cologne, the first week of August, it was 

 in the midst of harvest. Wheat, rye, oats, 

 and barley were being harvested. The crop 



