1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



305 



AN AMATEURS FIRST 

 YEAR. 



BY R. J. RULIFFSON. 



For several years I 

 felt that I had latent 

 somewhere in my sys- 

 tem those germs 

 which, if given proper 

 culture, would produce 

 a distressing case of 

 bee fever; and during 

 the summer of 1909 

 these same germs be- 

 gan to multiply so 

 rapidly that, on the 

 12th of August of that 

 year, I bought a five- 

 frame nucleus of Ital- 

 ian bees with a select 

 tested queen. This 

 locality is an excep- 

 tionally good one for 

 flowers, flowering 

 shrubs, clover, linden, 

 and for locust and 

 sweet clover. 



The nucleus arrived 

 with apparently n o 

 loss of bees in transit, 

 and was duly installed 

 at sunset on the day 

 of its arrival. This 

 was about the last of 

 the honey-flow from 



basswood here; but sweet clover came on in 

 great profusion, and by Sept. 20, or there- 

 about, these bees had drawn out the foun- 

 dation in the remaining five frames, and 

 had become a full-sized colony. 



The fall was an unusually dry and hot 

 one; but I could have secured a small amount 

 of surplus from buckwheat and aster. How- 

 ever, I let the bees fill their hive to overflow- 

 ing; in fact, they went so far as to build 

 many bridges of wax between the brood- 

 frames that they filled with honey. Late 

 in October I built a cover out of y& matched 

 boards to slip down over the hive for winter 

 protection. I did not know enough to pro- 

 vide a chaff cover, as I think I would now 

 do; but over the frames was a piece of oil- 

 cloth, and over that the regular cover. This 

 constituted the only protection afforded the 

 colony; but during the winter and spring I 

 found less than fifty dead bees; and these 

 represented nearly all there were, as their 

 hive at all times w^as as clean as a dining- 

 table. 



On March 10 a neighbor (a florist) com- 

 plained to me that t5ie bees were ruining 

 the lilac, genista, rambler rose, and other 

 flowers which hewasholdingback for Easter 

 trade. I went over to his greenhouses with 

 him, and found bees in such numbers that 

 they made the rambler blossoms look like a 

 balled queen. There were quantities of 

 black and hybrid bees there also; but as I 

 lived next door, my bees were charged with 

 all the damage. Later in the day, after the 



R J. RULIFFSON S SWARM SHAKEN ON 

 BOARD OF THE NEW HIVE. 



THE ALIGHTING- 



sun had gone down, my neighbor began to 

 cool off to such an extent that he was per- 

 fectly agreeable to an arrangement whereby 

 my bees could be closed in until Easter. I 

 accordingly put my bees in the cellar. Dur- 

 ing the period of confinement there were 

 warm days when I believe I felt worse than 

 the bees in their mad attempt to get out after 

 pollen; but I managed to relieve temporarily 

 their desire to get through the wire netting 

 by sprinkling water on it. The Saturday 

 before Easter, I i)ut them out on the old 

 stand, at which time there were pussy-wil- 

 lows in bloom, and these, with the soft 

 maples, were sufficient to keep the bees out 

 of the greenhouse. 



On one of the nice warm days in April I 

 decided to clip the queen. There was very 

 little choice in surgical instruments, as I 

 had nothing between my wife's manicure 

 scissors and the ax, so I chose the former 

 with its curved blades, and, taking the 

 smoker (I do not use veil or gloves at any 

 time) , I started in on this very uncertain 

 undertaking. I discovered the queen on one 

 of the center frames, and at each attempt to 

 get hold of her I failed. Finally, however, 

 I got her between my thumb and index fin- 

 ger. I do not believe my first trip in an air- 

 ship could be half as nerve-racking as the 

 fear that I would squeeze her too tight and 

 permanently injure her. At the same time, 

 I wanted to clip off enough of the wing-bow 

 and yet not cut too close to the body. I 

 finally decided that I would cut off only.the 



