1164 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



[I think there will be no difficulty about 

 shipping bees and having them hauled upon 

 sleds or sleighs to the railroad station. In 

 very cold weather they will not require very 

 much ventilation, of course. The hives 

 should be so prepared that the frames will 

 be secure, and so that there shall be both 

 top and bottom ventilation when the bees 

 get into a warm climate. It is better to 

 have wire cloth covering the whole bottom 

 and the whole top. There should be a rim 

 about two inches deep nailed on top of the 

 hive, and then on top of this the wire cloth. 

 Arrangements should be made to give the 

 bees water when they arrive at a point in 

 the journey where it is very warm. The 

 wire cloth on top can be sprinkled very liber- 

 ally to advantage. Combs should not be too 

 heavy with honey, and, of course, all ought 

 to be wired. However, if you see to load- 

 ing and unloading they might go through 

 without wiring. In loading bees on a freight 

 train be sure that the frames are parallel 

 with the rails, not crosswise; in loading on a 

 wagon it is better to have frames parallel to 

 the axletrees. In a sleigh or sled it will not 

 make very much difference how they are 

 loaded. It would be advisable to strew 

 about five or six inches of straw in the 

 wagon and on the car bottom. This is to 

 cushion the load of bees and allow a little 

 for vibration. You want to make arrange- 

 ments so that the bees on arrival at their 

 southern destination are moved immediately. 

 It would not be advisable to wait to get 

 some drayman, but through correspondence 

 have one ready as soon as possible when the 

 bees arrive, or several of them. Bees ought 

 to have a flight almost immediately on ar- 

 riving at destination. 



Load the bees on shipboard on top of the 

 deck in the shade where they can get plenty 

 of air. If you can get the room, spread 

 them out; if not, pile them up, but leave 

 plenty of air space between. The hives will 

 need to be secured to the deck to prevent 

 being knocked around in a heavy sea. —Ed.] 



BEST TIME TO REQUEEN. 



I wish to requeen. What is the best time 

 for this— before, after, or during the honey- 

 flow, or as early as possible in spring, or as 

 late as possible in fall? My queens are not 

 clipped. What is the best time for attend- 

 ing to that? Austin D. Wolfe. 



Parkville, Mo., Nov. 21. 



[The best time to requeen is immediately 

 after the honey-flow, or main honey-flow. 

 If you requeen in the spring you are liable 

 to set the colony back by several days. Re- 

 queening can be done, however, before the 

 honey-flow, without material loss, on the 

 following plan: Leave the old queen in the 

 hive; cage the new one, and leave her caged 

 for two or three days while the old one is go- 

 ing on with her regular work. At the end 

 of that time uncover the candy for the in- 

 troducing-cage; dig out enough so the queen 

 will be released in three or four hours by the 



bees; and before closing up the hive remove 

 the old queen. The new queen, having the 

 scent of the old colony, will be accepted as 

 soon as she is released, the presence of the 

 old queen not interfering in the least. In 

 this way a colony is requeened with hardly 

 any loss of time. —Ed.] 



HIVE-RABBETS. 



Seeing the account of Mr. Brunskog's 

 manner of lengthening the top-bar by chang- 

 ing the hive-rabbet, page 609, and the sub- 

 sequent comments, pages 636 and 848, impels 

 me to send you a description of the rabbet 

 as made in the hives, in use at the present 

 time, in our apiaries. 



Knocking out the rabbet and nailing on a 

 cleat, as Mr. Brunskog does, is what we do 

 exactly. We, however, drop the cleat down 

 till the top edge is one inch below the upper 

 edge of hive end. This arrangement will al- 

 low the frames to be picked up by the ends. 



which is the correct way. The rabbet, as 

 now made in the Dovetailed hive, is itsweak- 

 est point. Before adopting our present style, 

 quite one-half of our hives had the rabbets 

 broken out, any way. The least tap is suf-i 

 ficient to break out a rabbet; and we have 

 had them, when securely stuck to the cover, 

 split out and come away with that. 



Mr. Brunskog has improved upon hive-rab- 

 bets by giving more room in which to length- 

 en the top-bar, and giving a secure handhold; 

 but he has, it appears, entirely lost sight of 

 the most importantpoint— access to the ends 

 of the frames. Dr. L. E. Kerr. 



Germania, Ark. 



[Your suggestion is a good one, and it is 

 in one respect superior to Brunskog's in that 

 it can be applied to hives already in use, and 

 to covers already in use, by cutting out the 

 rabbet by nailing on an extra cleat below the 

 one already on the cover. But in another 

 way it is open to a serious objectfon; name- 

 ly, that such hives and covers and frames 

 with extra long top-bars would not be inter- 

 changeable with other hives in use over the 

 country, and to that extent it would be odd- 

 sized and irregular. 



The average bee-keeper who has a consid- 

 erable number of colonies is quite liable to 



