496 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Heads of Grain From Different Fields 



THE BACKLOT BUZZER 



The doctor who patched up the old bee.trce hunter 

 waiited to know if they were really wild bees he 

 captured. The patient said the bees weren't espe- 

 cially wild, but the owner of the tree was. 



June Faith. 



Such countless questions darkening our days! 



Such wide-eyed wonders drifting down the 

 ways 



Of living and of laughter and of light. 



And thru the weary darkness of the night! 



"Why?" and "Why?" and "Why?" from 

 soul on soul, 



And "How?" and "Whence?" and "Whith- 

 er?" thru the whole 



Unending and unsatisfying cry 



Of climbers on the trail that leads so high. 



O shaken souls, and stirred! why strain to 

 know 



These dim far things when bees are hum- 

 ming so? 



Let go your strangling questions — this is 

 June! 



Let go and listen — life is all atune! 



Come hear her birds and bees — why, all my 

 hives 



Resound with rapture of a million lives 



That flash, ecstatic, thru a few swift hours, 



Anil live and live and live with all their 

 ])Owers! 



By fields of clover-lt'nom wild roses nod. 

 Come, climb and sing and leave the rest with 

 God. 

 NashA'ille, Tenn. Grace Allen. 



How to Make Increase by Feeding; What 

 Feeder to Use. 



My little beeyard is doing finely, having 

 here a number of good days during fruit- 

 bloom, some of which is still on. The strong 

 colonies have brood-chambers full of honey 

 and brood, and supers with baits are now 

 filled with bees doing something, anyway. 



What, in your opinion, is the best way for 

 me to increase the coming year to 100 colo- 

 nies? It is a rather slow process building 

 up from the few I have, 12 colonies now, by 

 stealing a comb now and then from them 

 and ordering packages in the spring from 

 the South. 



How, where, and for what price can I buy 

 combs with honey in them, say 200 combs in 

 Hoffman frames, clean and free from any 

 fear of foul brood? If I had these combs 

 I could have 100 colonies by a year from 

 now, and from that on it would be easy. I 

 do not like to buy bees in hives. 



Youngstown, O. C. E. Blanchard, M.D. 



[It will be perfectly feasible for you to 

 increase your twelve colonies up to a hun- 

 dred. The writer did this some years ago, 

 or, rather, we took ten colonies, supplied 

 them with laying queens, gave them only, 

 frames of foundation, increased up to over 

 90, and secured a crop of 2000 pounds of 

 honey, but the conditions that year were 

 favorable. They are very favorable this 

 year, and we see no reason why you could 

 not duplicate the feat. 



In order to make the increase rapidly, and 

 not waste time, it would be necessary for 

 you to buy untested queens. However, by 

 making a smaller increase, or by running a 

 scries of nuclei, you can raise your own 

 queens. You would not need very many 

 nuclei, but simply enough to furnish you 

 young queens as fast as the increase was 

 made, which, of course, would be rather 

 gradual. 



The Alexander plan of increase we would 

 consider as good as any; but under your 

 conditions what you will need to do after 

 the honey-flow is over is to divide your 

 colonies up and supply each division with 

 a laying queen to start on at once, because 

 it will be only a waste of time to make a 

 division unless the colony has its own queen. 



We would use the Boardman feeder and 

 stop up all the holes excejjt one. Make a 

 syrup of about 50 per cent water, 50 per cent 

 sugar, by weight, and with the holes all 

 stopped up but one, you will be able to make 

 the syriip in the feeder last about 48 hours. 

 A slow feed to the bees after the honey-flow 

 is over is much better for increase and get- 

 ting brood than a large amount of feed at 

 one time. The ordinary open feeder, like the 

 Doolittle, the Miller, or the Alexander, or 

 even the Simplicity, gives the syrup too 

 rapidly. It excites the bees, they rush out 

 into the air, start more or less robbing, caus- 



