452 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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Wesley Foster, Boulder, Colo. 



The paragraph entitled "Smoke at the 

 entrance," page 388, July 1, fifth line, should 

 have read "a pound of honey" instead of 

 "a pound of bees." 



Colorado is a land of paradoxes — 84 degrees 

 in the shade here May 10, and on the 11th 

 three inches of snow at Silver Lake, only 

 about fifteen miles straight west of here by 

 air-line. We had a freeze here, too, which 

 nipped our corn and killed most of our to- 

 matoes. Colorado has not the mellowness 

 of a spring in the Eastern and Middle States, 

 as the air is dry, and the sun always shines 

 with a hot dry glare. The skies are such a 

 deep, deep blue, that looking ujiward seems 

 like peering into a well. 



One can seldom find violets and ferns ex- 

 cept in the dark shaded ravines and caiions; 

 and in one of these ravines I found the bees 

 working on the violets. That is the first 

 time I ever saw bees on them. The bees lo- 

 cated close to the foothills have a chance at 

 the profuse bloom of the wild cherries, plums, 

 and wild flowers that run riot in the ravines, 

 clog the caiion depths along the streams, 

 and cover the mesas with their color and 

 perfume in the spring. Many a wild bee is 

 seen among the bloom too. Fifty of our 

 colonies are now located here near the foot- 

 hills; and when alfalfa blooms they will be 

 moved several miles east for a chance at 

 this prince of honey-yielders. This is the 

 extent of our migratory bee-keeping this 

 year. 



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THE LAYING OF THE QUEENS. 



Since May 1 I have been watching the 

 work of my queens pretty carefully, and 

 have got hold of a few things that come pret- 

 ty near being facts. The queens on ^lay 1 

 had, on the average, about 7000 cells of eggs 

 and brood in various stages of development, 

 which, if in one frame of solid worker comb, 

 with no pop-holes, would fill this frame clear 

 to the wood on all four sides. This brood 

 was in from three to five frames. By June 

 1 the queens had their hives full of brood 

 and eggs. I have found that a good queen 

 will rarely get over five frames of brood in 

 an eight-frame hive; that is what would 

 make five solid frames of brood filled to the 

 edges. This amount of brood would be in 

 seven or eight combs, as I get the queens 

 laying in nearly every frame by spreading 

 the sealed brood. As nearly as I can come 

 at it I should say that my queens laid on 

 the average 40,000 eggs from the 15th of 

 May to the 15th of June. I should think at 

 least ten per cent never hatched out of the 

 egg, either on account of being unfertile or 

 chilled by cool weather. Another ten per 

 cent, perhaps fifteen per cent, was lost be- 

 tween the egg and the hatching of the bees. 

 About 30,000 workers on the average is what 

 I get in new workers from a month of lay- 

 ing, in the breeding season. For this loca- 



tion, where the bees do not build uj) as rap- 

 idly as in the East and a good many other 

 places, I think two months will be needed 

 before a hive will be strong enough to swarm. 

 I know there are colonies that will come 

 through the winter almost strong enough to 

 swarm; but the average will be on four and 

 five frames. Our bees were more often found 

 on two and three frames this spring than on 

 even four and li\e. 



If a queen will be able to lay 80,000 eggs 

 from May 1 to July 1, and have 60,000 of 

 them hatch into bees, in all probability she 

 will maintain throughout the honey-flow a 

 little over 50,000 workers, which I consider 

 a good swarm of bees fit for storing surplus. 

 The mortality among bees is very heavy, 

 and from watching the brood-nests I am 

 confident the heaviest loss is in the egg, lar- 

 val, and pupa stages. Changes in tempera- 

 ture and moisture aflfect the early stages of 

 bee develoi)ment very much, for we find our 

 bees having very definite ideas about drafts 

 and moisture in the hive. The bee has for 

 thousands of generations sought propolis to 

 seal up holes with, and has sought the trees 

 to avoid dampness, principally, I think. 

 The most primitive bees still have their bur- 

 rows in the ground, and doubtless the mor- 

 tality is very high among them. 



FAIRS AND EXPOSITIONS. 



We have had so much talk about adver- 

 tising honey and disposing of the crojj that 

 it is very apparent there is a serious prob- 

 lem before the bee-keepers for solution. 

 Colorado bee-men are fortunate in having 

 the Colorado State Fair management willing 

 to devote money and space in order to get 

 up a creditable display. The prizes are gen- 

 erous, and a good many will win enough 

 prize money to pay them for the expense of 

 making an exhibit. This is good advertis- 

 ing, and it is cheap. It's within the reach 

 of every careful honey-producer to make an 

 exhibit, help advertise honey, and, no doubt, 

 win some prize money. 



The State Fair management write me that 

 they have contracted with Mr. Frank G. 

 Odell, "the bee-wizard," as the papers call 

 him, of Lincoln, Nebraska, to do some bee 

 demonstrating and lecturing on the grounds 

 at the fair. Mr. Odell is secretary of the 

 Nebraska Bee-keepers' Association, and is 

 an entertaining speaker who mixes the lore 

 of the bee in with some wonderful stunts in 

 a way that is very interesting to the people 

 as a whole. 



The Inter-State fair held in Denver each 

 year also makes a fair allowance for the api- 

 ary department; and it is possible to get 

 from one fair to the other, and so exhibit in 

 both. Now is the time to get the honey 

 ready. If one gets the fair habit, I rather 

 think it will stay by him, and there are 

 worse habits than the one of exhibiting at 

 fairs. 



