1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1013 



with food left in the hive. Colonies win- 

 tered on honey were all right; but these two, 

 exhausted for lack of proper nourishment 

 during the intense cold, were not fit for la- 

 bor; and when they flew out from the hive 

 they were unable" to return. I strongly 

 suspect Herr Reidenbach is correct, and I 

 don't believe I can afford to replace good 

 honey in the fall with sugar, even if I can 

 get for the honey three times the price of 

 the sugar. To be sure, bees have been suc- 

 cessfully wintered on sugar year after year, 

 but is it certain that they are just as vigor- 

 ous as if wintered on honey ? [This is a 

 very seasonable question to bring up, and I 

 should be glad to hear from others of our 

 correspondents. We feed sugar syrup only 

 when we do not have sufficient natural 

 stores in the hive. Now, it may be that we 

 had better help out some of our bee-keepers 

 who produce good crops of off-flavored hon- 

 ey by buying those crops and feeding to our 

 bees. Of course, we need to know that no 

 foul brood exists in the yards in which such 

 honey was produced. If we have no means 

 of knowing, then what? Heat the honey 

 thoroughly, then give it to the bees when it 

 is warm, when they will take it down quick- 

 ly; but unfortunately sugar-syrup of the best 

 granulated sugar is as cheap per pound as 

 the cheapest honey we can buy, and no 

 knowing whether that honey would bring on 

 dysentery in the spring. —Ed.] 



BEEKEEPiNb AMONG THE Rockies 



E. F. Atwater recommends a strip of tin 

 |X3 folded over the top-bar, and nailed to 

 the ends of following boards to keep them 

 from pulling to pieces. That would keep 

 the top-bar from pulling off, but that is not 

 the only place where they come to pieces. 



H. S. Groves tells me that he has had 

 good success introducing queens by a com- 

 bination of the " drowning " method and the 

 old one of rolling the queen in honey. He 

 dips the queen into honey well thinned with 

 water until the "uppishness" is all taken 

 out of her. 



/^ 



If you are in a district where foul brood is 

 prevalent, be very sure that no diseased colo- 

 ny goes into winter quarters. If you have 

 a full set of sealed combs, you can shake 

 the bees on these after it is so late that 

 brood-rearing has stopped entirely. If you 

 have not these, better destroy bees and 

 combs than to run the risk of trying to win- 

 ter them. 



The Paonia fruit-growers appear to have 

 about given up the idea that the bees are re- 

 sponsible for the spread of pear-blight. It 

 will be remembered that it was reported 

 that the fruit-growers had bought up all the 

 bees and sold them at auction on condition 

 that they be removed from the locality. 

 This was not done, however. Some experi- 

 ments were made, such as confining bees to 

 certain trees, and excluding them from oth- 

 ers, but nothing seems to have been conclu- 

 sive. Nothing was proved against the bees, 

 and the whole matter appears to have been 

 dropped. 



A bee-keeping friend tells me that he sells 

 a great deal of dark honey to a confectioner 

 who uses it in the manufacture of high-grade 

 candies. This is comb honey, mind you, not 

 extracted honey. When I first heard this I 

 thought the buyer had the idea that he had 

 to buy it in the comb to be sure of a pure 

 article, but it seems he has an altogether 

 different reason. The whole thing, comb 

 and all, is put into the candy. He claims it 

 makes it " stand up " better. That is, I pre- 

 sume, it endures better the changes of tem- 

 perature and moisture. I had heard already 

 of using paraffine for this purpose, but he 

 claims that the honey-comb is superior. It 

 is possible that here is a market that might 

 profitably be cultivated and enlarged. 



Dr. Miller wants his hive-covers filled with 

 wind, and tells us they stay flat without com- 

 pulsion. Doubtless they do in Marengo, Dr. 

 M., but I have come across a few double 

 covers here that were pitifully ramshackle 

 affairs after several season's use, that I 

 would hate to depend on to keep the top of 

 a hive tight. A fairly satisfactory cover, 

 though usually not a beauty, is a good board 

 well cleated at the ends, with an "upper 

 deck " of thin boards, usually shingles, to 

 keep off the sun. I rather think I prefer 

 my shade-boards separate from the cover. 



[Other correspondents have reported the 

 same thing in regard to these double covers. 

 A cover that would answer nicely in Maren- 

 go might give a good deal of trouble in Colo- 

 rado.— Ed.] 



A correspondent wTiting about the small 

 nuclei for queen-rearing says that they work- 

 ed nicely early in the season, but later were 

 complete failures. Just my experience. 

 Like Dr. Miller, I crowed too soon. After 

 getting to the point where I was getting very 

 satisfactory results from them, all at once 

 failures became more numerous than success- 

 es. I think the cool nights we have here in 

 the fall do not agree with them. I believe I 

 shall use two combs instead of one hereafter. 



[Our little nuclei worked clear up through 

 the month of September; but you remember 

 we were practicing at the time outdoor feed- 

 ing, which kept all the colonies and nuclei in 

 the apiary in a high state of prosperity, just 

 about as we would get from a natural honey- 

 flow. If you had fed in this way you would 



