18 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



here at our home. However, while occa- 

 sionally one will form the poultry-killing 

 habit, by far the greater number confine 

 their food to small animals and insects. 



While I have not made any special study 

 as to the extent that bees enter into their 

 diet, I should expect every skunk to eat 

 bees freely if they ehanee to find them, for 

 insects seem to be the natural and preferi'ed 

 food of the animals. So far as I can tell, 

 they show little preference as to the kind of 

 insects, but seek those which are most abun- 

 dant and consequently easiest to obtain. 

 Probably only occasionally does one learn 

 how to get the bees from the hive by dis- 

 turbing them. As the skunk feeds mostly 

 at night when the bees are quiet, they would 

 not be likely to find them in cool weather 

 unless they had first chanced upon a hive 

 when the bees were hanging out during 

 warm nights. I can readly see that skunks 

 are a serious pest in the beeyard in many 

 localities. On the other hand, aside from 

 the beekeeper, there is seldom serious cause 

 of complaint. So few individuals become 

 destructive in proportion to the whole num- 

 ber, that the good they do far overbalances 

 their injury in the poultry-yard. I am 

 familiar Avith the fact that, where one 

 animal takes to killing chickens, it often 

 happens that several others of the same 

 family learn the same trick. 



It is not a difficult matter for the poul- 

 tryman to protect his chickens from possi- 

 ble attack; and the destruction of the large 

 numbers of gTasshoppers, crickets, mice, 

 goi^hers, and other pests which make up 

 the bulk of the food of the skunk would 

 seem to make it worth his while to do so, 



rather than to fight the pests after killing 

 the skunk. 



With the beekeeper it is a different mat- 

 ter, for it is not easy to protect his bees 

 from attacks by the animals. Insects being 

 the preferred food, he can expect a visit 

 from every skunk that chances to pass the 

 apiary. These animals are very skillful in 

 catching insects, and one who has not ob- 

 served them closely will be surprised at the 

 facility with which they make a capture. 

 Where one's apiary is in a compact form 

 and on comparatively level ground it should 

 not be difficult to fence out the animals 

 with a small-mesh woven fence, altho it 

 would be some exjDense. 



Just at present some of these animals are 

 living in our barn close to the hen-roost. 

 Altho we see them frequently they are not 

 very timid, and show no disposition to at- 

 tack the poultry, which are housed in small 

 buildings with roosts less than two feet 

 from the ground. 



Atlantic, Iowa. 



[During this last year, for some reason 

 skunks in this particular locality seemed to 

 have been much more numerous than usual, 

 and the reiJorts of their depredations in 

 different parts of the country lead us to 

 believe that the condition is not local. Per- 

 hai^s, as our correspondent intimates, the 

 beekeepers suffer the most ; but we have 

 always supposed that poultrymen consider 

 skunks as natural enemies on account of the 

 loss of young chickens. Several years ago 

 we shot a skunk after it had killed nine or 

 ten little chickens by biting holes in the 

 back of their heads. — Ed.] 



A HANDY QUEEN-CELL CAGE 



BY JOHN H. EOSSER 



For the past six months I have been 

 working for A. H. Stephens, a 600-colony 

 beekeeper living sixty miles or so from 

 Brisbane and near the New South Wales 

 border. When queen-rearing we tried a 

 cell-cage after Dr. Miller's pattern with 

 queen-excluder sides. (When we used wire- 

 cloth sides our virgins were dark.) The 

 queens from the new cage were good, but 

 it was not as convenient to work with as 

 we should have liked. 



Mr. Stephens thought of trying a cage 

 that would hang in a Langstroth frame, and 

 whose divisions would be just deep enough 

 for the queen to hatch in, and just wide 

 enough for the cell to turn around. We 

 used a tin slide for a cover, and found that 



it killed a few queens. So we put a strip 

 of calico under the slide — result, a perfect 

 cage. 



•Ti^ 



^^ 



TOP \/few 



These are the dimensions: Length 16% 

 inches, depth 1% inches, width 1 1/16 inch- 

 es, with 26 divisions, each 1/2 by % inch 

 in width. To make it, take a piece of queen- 



