34 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Jan. 15 



Sittings 



By J. E. Cbane, Middlebury, Vt. 



On page 683, Nov. 1, attention is called to 

 the necessity of strong colonies for working 

 a late flow. Good advice, and it is just as 

 good for working an early or mid-summer 

 flow. 



After looking at those beautiful pictures 

 on pages 690 and 691, of the field meeting of 

 the Massachusetts Association of Bee-keep- 

 ers, it makes me regret more than ever that 

 I could not accept their pressing invitation 

 to be present. 



I think it will pay to read that article 

 twice by Albion Platz, page 651, Oct. 15, on 

 stimulative feeding. Evidently we can not 

 improve much on Nature's methods; and 

 the closer we study this old teacher the 

 more success we shall have. ^ 



4>- 



Hip! hip! hurrah! Vermont at last has a 

 foul-brood law. Conditions were favorable, 

 and a few of us put our shoulders to the 

 work and it went through. We did not get 

 all we desired, but enough to make it work 

 in our small state, and we hope in the near 

 future to eradicate entirely this scourge of 

 foul brood. 



Wesley Foster, page 682, Nov. 1, gives us 

 a glimpse of Colorado winters. It must be 

 a great thing to be able to leave bees out all 

 winter without packing or care. By the 

 way, I have found a most excellent material 

 for packing to insure safe wintering is \% 

 inches of live bees packed around a moderate- 

 sized colony. 



The editor says, page 711, Nov. 15, he 

 would like to see the question of a settling- 

 tank vs. strainers settled. Well, we have 

 settled it so far as we are concerned. Unless 

 honey is quite warm or thin we find it too 

 great a task to strain it satisfactorily, and 

 now prefer to trust to a settling-tank. [This 

 opinion seems to be growing. — Ed.] 



I was much interested in the short edito- 

 rial, page 643, Oct. 15, on the value of bees 

 as fertilizers of cranberry-blossoms. Mr. 

 Martin, Commissioner of Agriculture for 

 Vermont, recently informed me that, while 

 the apple crop of Western Vermont is large, 

 that of Addison Co., where the most bees 

 are kept, is much larger than in the adjoin- 

 ing counties. 



-^ 



A very interesting article is that by D. M. 

 Macdonald, page .617, Oct. 1, on securing 

 heather honey in Great Britain. Some of 

 his methods are especially applicable to 

 this or any country, and we do well to re- 

 member them; viz., to get the hive full. 



crainmed with brood in all stages, with an 

 abundance of hatching bees, strong colonies 

 just as the flowers begin to bloom, from 

 which the harvest is expected. But why 

 heather honey sells at so much higher a 

 price than clover honey I fail to see. 

 -^ 

 Attention is called, page 679, Nov. 1, by 

 the editor to the relative price of comb and 

 extracted honey. I believe that here in the 

 East, in small packages, say from % to one 

 pound in glass, extracted honey sells as 

 high as or higher than comb; but in larger 

 quantities the extracted sells for less. How- 

 ever, when we speak of a pound of comb 

 honey we think of a section, which often 

 does not weigh over 14 ounces after the wood 

 and wax are removed. 



Mr. Holtermann's note, page 614, Oct. 1, 

 on percolator feeders, seems to me quite to 

 the point. I never could see the sense of 

 letting our sugar dissolve slowly in cold 

 water when we could melt it in half or a 

 quarter the time with hot water. W^e have 

 to feed heavily here in Vermont, especially 

 some years. With hot water we are able 

 to melt up two or more barrels of sugar and 

 take it from six to ten miles away and feed 

 the same day, and then repeat again the 

 next day. How long would it take with 

 "percolator feeders "? 

 <^ 



A number of articles have recently ap- 

 peared as to the practicability or possibility 

 of breeding out the swarming impulse. 

 Some think it can be done, while others 

 claim it is impossible. Now, I am not go- 

 ing into the fight, but just going to stand 

 on the fence and "holler " for the under 

 dog. One thing seems to me very clear, 

 however. The swarming instinct or impulse, 

 or whatever you may call it, is a very vari- 

 able quality in different breeds or races, or 

 even strains of bees of the same race. Fur- 

 thermore, when any quality, either in plants 

 or animals, over which man has control, is 

 variable, he can either increase or diminish 

 that quality by careful breeding and selec- 

 tion. 



Mr. W. E. McFarland tells us, page 655, 

 Oct. 15, of a wise chicken he has, that ev- 

 ery afternoon goes around among his hives 

 catching drones. A great deal has been 

 written about improving our bees, and I 

 am of the opinion that, a breed of chickens 

 such as he describes would be a decided ac- 

 quisition. Try as we do to cut down the 

 drones, we always have quite too many, 

 and a few chickens with drone-eating hab- 

 its would just fill the bill. Only think ! 

 instead of our drones being a complete 

 waste, as now, they would furnish food for 

 our feathered family; and our hens, instead 

 of just furnishing eggs will earn us money 

 at drone-catching. But how about our 

 choice drones? I think we will just set 

 such hives on a barrel, so the chickens 

 wouldn't find them. 



