156 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



half a dozen thicknesses of burlap as wide 

 as the super, and long enough to reach well 

 over the ends. This makes a cheap and 

 very warm as well as ventilated winter case. 



It takes care of the unsalable honey, and 

 gives the bees No. 1 stores. Their natural 

 home in the rotten, lined, hollow tree could 

 serve them no better. 

 Des Moines, la. 



SOME NEW EXPERIENCES IN BEEKEEPING 



BY GARDNER B. WILLIS 



Two years ago I had a colony that had 

 two queens in October. I saw both at the 

 same time, and all was quiet and peaceful 

 in the hive. I left the bees alone for them 

 to choose the queen they wished to keep. 



MOTH LARV.E. 



Last summer, in a nucleus I observed 

 some young bees still in the cells, and alive 

 after their heads had come thru. The next 

 day they were still there. I took a tooth- 



pick and removed one, when, to my sui'- 

 prise, a small white worm came from its 

 abdomen. About eighteen were like this, 

 either a small white worm about half an 

 inch long in the abdomen, or in the bottom 

 of the cell. I removed all the bees in the 

 cells that were like this, and have seen noth- 

 ing like it since.* 



DRONES IN WINTER. 



I have a hive in my back yard that has 

 at least 75 drones in it. One warm day 

 early in December I observed drones going 

 and coming from this hive. My first thought 

 was that tlie hive was queenless. I unpack- 

 ed it and looked it all thru, but there was 

 the queen with one wing that I clipped last 

 summer. I know the colony is all right, al- 

 tho it has all these drones. 



The onlv way I can account for this, and 

 yet I don't see how it can mean anything, 

 is that I took these frames and bees from 

 a fourteen-frame hive used for queen-rear- 

 ing, and this was done before the frost came. 

 There has been no excluder or separator in 

 the hive since the change was made. But 

 there were the drones and the queen, and a 

 good strong colony of bees with plenty of 

 stores. 



SMOKE METHOD OF INTRODUCING. 



Much has been written about introducing 

 queens. The smoke method has been hit 

 often and hard; but from my experience it 

 has seldom if ever failed. I starve the 

 queen for half an hour, and then introduce 

 by the method advocated by Arthur C. 

 Miller. 



One day last summer I found a black 

 queen in one of my queen-rearing hives in 

 the backyard. The bees had balled her ; and 

 when I came to the rescue, there she was, a 

 black queen. Where she came from I did 

 not know. On the other side of the divisioii 

 zinc was the queen that belonged to the 

 hive. 



Another experience I must mention. T 

 introduced a queen; and, looking at the 

 nucleus two days later from which she was 

 taken, there she was, wliere she was before, 

 and laving. The hive to which she had 



Unfiuislied sections 

 packed super. 



for extra winter stores in a 



* We liave seen the same thing. Probably not 

 file wax worm, but (he larvaa of some fly. — Ed. 



