618 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



(B®[ii]w©[p©s}GD®m© mBGDd [D(o)®DB1i1^D 



At Borodino, New York 



WORK WITH THE BEES IN THE FALL. 



"What should be done with the bees in 

 October, when the honey crop is entirely 

 over, but when there are still supers on — 

 mostly those holding the combs that have 

 been run through the extractor and return- 

 ed to the hives for cleaning? " 



"It is best to take these off before the end 

 of the month; and if you have never tried 

 the plan of removing them by cold instead 

 of with smoke I would advise you to try it." 



"How is that?" 



"When smoke is used, part of the bees 

 are driven down below, after which the 

 combs have to be handled separately to 

 shake and brush ofT the remaining bees. 

 To do away with this handling of each sep- 

 arate comb, some prefer the bee-escape, as 

 in taking off supers of comb honey. While 

 this is preferable to the smoke, it requires 

 much lifting of hives and handling of the 

 escape-boards. 



When removing supers by the cold plan, 

 unless the supers are full or partially so of 

 section honey, wait until there is a cool or 

 cold spell, when the mercury sinks nearly 

 to the freezing-jioint, when the bees will 

 have congregated in the brood-chamber. 

 At the end of this cold spell there is gen- 

 erally a morning when there is a frost, 

 when, by rising early, all of the supers may 

 be taken off free from bees, requiring only 

 one lifting of the super, with not a single 

 comb to handle separately. I have prac- 

 ticed this plan for years, but I do not re- 

 member to have told any one about it 

 before, neither do I remember having read 

 about it for several years. In this way the 

 whole apiary can be gone over, and all su- 

 pers taken off in an hour or so, and these 

 supers collected and wheeled into the store- 

 house, usually before the bees begin to fly. 

 Then by delaying until cool weather comes, 

 one may avoid the possible development of 

 eggs from the wax-moth among the combs 

 after they are deprived of the bees." 



"I have some weak colonies, part of 

 which I fear do not have stores enough for 

 winter. How about these ? " 



"Colonies that have not succeeded in se- 

 curing a sufficient surplus, or those that are 

 queenless or too weak in bees to go well 

 through the winter, should be united -with- 

 out delay, either with stronger colonies or 

 with one another. In this way it is possi- 

 ble to have good colonies in the spring in- 

 stead of hives of empty combs and dead 

 bees. ' ' 



"But how is this uniting best done?" 



"The old way was to move the colonies 

 toward each other a little each day so that 

 the bees would mark anew at each flight, 

 thus saving a loss by their going back to 

 the old location when finally brought to- 

 gether and united. But few use that plan 

 now. After a cool, cloudy, windy, or rainy 

 spell, bees generally mark their location 



more or less, especially in the fall or early 

 spring. At such a time a newspaper should 

 be spread on top of the hive containing the 

 colony where one wishes the united colony 

 to stand, and one of the other weak colonies 

 should be placed on top of it, then another 

 newspaper on top of this, and the third col- 

 ony on top of this paper, and so on, accord- 

 ing to the number to be united. When it 

 grows warmer the bees will eat or gnaw 

 holes through the papers, and the whole 

 will become one colony, flying out through 

 the entrance of the lower hive, marking 

 this new location as does a new swarm, ow- 

 ing to the mixup of bees before their flight. 

 In a week or two, select combs containing 

 sufficient stores for winter, and remove all 

 other combs. The colony should be con- 

 fined to one hive for winter." 



"This is a great improvement over the 

 old plan; but I prefer to go over each hive 

 to be united some warm day, selecting the 

 best queen to keep, using or killing the oth- 

 ers, and leaving with the bees only the 

 three or four combs containing the most 

 honey, spreading these apart far enough so 

 that the bees will cluster between them 

 during a cold spell. Then when a cold 

 morning comes, all there is to do is to in- 

 sert the fingers down between the ends of 

 these frames with the bees bunched between 

 them; and by clutching them with the fin- 

 gers and thumb they can be carried as a 

 handful and inserted in the selected hive, 

 putting the two, three, or four weaklings in 

 as planned. In this way the bees are all 

 mixed uji, when all desire to fight is gone; 

 and, through the mixing, the new location 

 is marked, so that no loss occurs by return- 

 ing to the old stands. 



"If, after uniting all that are not strong 

 enough to winter alone, some are lacking 

 in stores, feeding may be done. The best 

 way to feed is to secure heavy combs from 

 colonies which have more honey than they 

 need, exchanging these for those having 

 little in them. But it is not always safe to 

 depend on this way. The wise apiarist will 

 look out for heavy combs during the sur- 

 plus season, and, instead of extracting ev- 

 ery thing which has honey, he will put 

 enough of these heavy combs in su])ers, 

 tiered up on colonies strong enough to keep 

 them until they are needed for use. If, 

 after all the colonies have enough for win- 

 ter, there remains a surplus of these heavy 

 combs, they can be stored away for use the 

 next spring, by any colonies which may 

 not have enough to carry them until the 

 flowers yield." 



Cat Eats Bees. 



I have seen mention several times of chickens 

 picking bees from the front of liives. Did you ever 

 hear of a cat eating them? We have a cat that 

 wiU sit in front of the hive or on top and pick out 

 the bees heavy with pollen. 



Monaca, Pa. Chas. P. Blair. 



