JANUARY 15, 1916 



79 



Heads of Grain From Different Fields 



The Backlot Buzzer 



BY J. H. DONAHEY 



Make your own hives if you will, hut 

 don't try to make one out of a grocery-box 

 with a meat-saw and a claw hammer. 



Winter Pictures 



BY GSACE ALLEX 



Gray clouds that creep across the sky; 



Grim icebergs haunting northern seas; 



A far-off war where countless die 



And men in mountain passes freeze; 



The city streets, a frosty glare 



Where huddled poor folk cough and wheeze; 



The country, desolate and bare, 



Where winds may stalk it as they please; 



And while they howl — a dismal choir — 



AVithin a cottage hid by trees, 



A man sits by a glowing fire, 



Reading a book on bees! 



Wintering on Two Sets of Combs 

 I have wintered my colonies with two sets 

 of combs ever since I kept bees. I use ten 

 and fourteen L. frame hives, some single 

 and some double-walled. I put a zinc sieve 

 under the single-walled hives to let the dead 

 bees and dirt drop out of the combs. I want 

 little honey in the bottom combs, and I want 

 six combs of solid honey or an equivalent 

 amount in the upper hive. 



I pack dry empty combs as tightly as T 

 can against the side of the hive. Then I 



lay three or four half -inch strips across the 

 top of the combs to give the bees a passage 

 between the combs; put the matting from 

 tea-chests over them, put a box on top that 

 telescopes over the top of the hives an inch, 

 and fill it with six inches or more of dry 

 leaves or planer shavings. Dry wheat chaff 

 is the best packing material I have ever 

 used, but I cannot get it here. 



Where the entrance is the full width of 

 the hive I stop up the middle, leaving 

 about 21/^ inches at each end open, and put 

 boards in front of the entrance so that light 

 tannot get in to call out the bees while it 

 i:i still too cold for them to fly. 



My top-bars are % inch thick by % inch 

 wide. I think the thick top-bars would not 

 be suitable to winter bees in double-story 

 hives. In cold weather the bees would not 

 move up thru the narrow opening between 

 the frames over the amount of wood they 

 would have to cross. 



New Hampton, N. Y. E. D. Howell. 



The True Boneset 



Gleanings for Oct. 15 contained some ex- 

 cellent illustrations of wild flowers noted as 

 honey producers. One, called boneset (Eu- 

 patorium perfoliatum), is not boneset, Eupa- 

 torium perfoliatum, but is another species of 

 eupatorium. Here it -completely covers all 

 closely grazed pastures, lying on wet black 

 lands, and is an important honey-plant some 

 seasons. 



Boneset grows only in the vicinity of 

 springs, in sandy stray spots; has but few 

 flowers, and bees do not seem to work much 

 on it. The stems of boneset seem to come 

 thru the leaves like the red honeysuckle. The 

 leaf has no petiole. For reference I refer 

 you to Lloyd library, Cincinnati, Ohio, 

 which I believe is the most complete collec- 

 tion of botanical and allied subjects in ex- 

 istence. 



Elk City, Kan. Dr. J. T. Blank. 



[Mr. Crane has called attention to this in 

 his department. — Ed.] 



Introducing Queens: Are They Known by 

 Their Odor? 



In an editorial headed "The Smoke Meth- 

 od of Queen Introduction Not Always Suc- 

 cessful, ' ' in the first September number, you 

 say "Ovei'smoking or undersmoking will 

 Ifad to failure." I 1 elieve you are wrong. 

 You might easily fail by not smoking 

 enough, but not by smoking too much. 



I have smoked the bees in a particularly 

 savage colony until half of them were on 

 the floor in a state of stupor, and the queen 

 witli tliem for all I knew, but she turned 

 up laying all right. The bees were none the 

 worse, so far as I could see. 



I always use plenty of smoke. I have 

 used this method for thirty years, with one 



