NOVEMBER 15, 1916 



1083 



Heads of Grain from Different Fields 



THE BACKLOT BUZZER. 



BY J. H. DONAHEY 



" What's that ?" " Yes, this is Gleanings." 

 " What's the proper way to introduce a queen?" 

 " It all depends on whose queen it is. If it's your 

 queen, you say, ' Permit me ; etc., jtist like that; but 

 if it is a bee you'd better write to Doolittle or Miller 

 They don't do it that way. 



NOVEMBER THOUGHTS 



BY GRACE ALLEN 

 Poor frosted blossoms, you must miss 



The grace and beauty of those bowers 

 That spring laid here along the hills 



And gladdened with her brimming showers! 

 Yet, no; you are not even ghosts 

 Of all the myriad April flowers — 

 They are gone — 

 Forever. 



Dear morning-hours, how chill and slow 



You creep from out the eastern sky! 

 More swift you came when from our hill 



We saw June dawning — he and I! 

 Yet you are not the morning-hours 



That found us there and passed us by — 



They are gone — 



Forever. 



My bees, how quiet you are grown! 



My heart recalls your springtime way — 

 How swift you flashed! — how gay and sweet 



You made the blossomed plum one day! 

 Yet yon, alas, are not the bees 



That hummed so witchingly in May — 

 They are gone — 

 Forever. 



Where Else Could the Bees Have Got the 

 Black Queen? 



By chance I caught a swarm of black 

 bees, and I put them in a box. I keep my 

 bees in close rows with all queens clipped. 

 This black colony was between two golden 

 Italian colonies. In the spring the one yel- 

 low colony became queenless, and in due time 

 I had a J^oung queen in that hive, as black 

 as a crow, which, later on, produced hybrid 

 bees. If that was not a case of those queen- 

 less Italians stealing an egg from the black 

 colony, I should like to hear from some one 

 better versed. 



Grand Valley, Pa. Geo. C. Morrison. 



[A virgin from the black colony might 

 by mistake have gone into a hive of the 

 goldens. If so she might kill the old queen 

 and take possession. — Ed.] 



How to Get Rid of the Cross Ones. 



Apiarists are troubled sometimes by bees 

 following them angrily while they are work- 

 ing and opening the hives. This is a very 

 common occurrence; but no one tells how to 

 be delivered of the annoyance. 



My plan is this: Uncover the smoker; 

 work the bellows until there is a good flame, 

 and keep it blowing, keeping up a sort of 

 circular motion. The movement and flying 

 of the flames attracts the bees, which, by 

 crossing against the flame, or jumping inside 

 the smoker, disappear completely, and leave 

 you free to do your work. I repeat the per- 

 formance whenever two or three come to 

 bother again. 



I have used this plan for years with the 

 greatest success. C. M. Carmona. 



San Eafael, Trinidad, B. W. I. 



An Uncapping-can Made of a Barrel. 



One day, while extracting, my uncapping- 

 can filled up before I was thru. I had a 

 32-gallon barrel that I had formerly used 

 for storing honey. I took out the head, 

 cleaned it out thoroly, and nailed a block 5 

 inches high in the center of the bottom. 



I then cut a piece of aluininum-coated 

 wire cloth a little larger in diameter than 

 the barrel and bent up the edge all around 

 so as to form it in a shape similar to a pie- 

 pan. This I tacked to the inside of the 

 barrel, 5 inches from the bottom, putting a 

 tack every 2 to 3 inches. The center of the 

 wire cloth then rested on the block nailed 

 to the bottom. 



1 boic'l a 1^/4 -inch hole just above the 

 bottom of the barrel and made a spigot to 

 fit it. A stick nailed across the top of the 

 barrel, with a nail driven thru from below, 

 completed the arrangement. 



The whole thing did not take much longer 

 to make than to tell about it, and it .worked 

 as well as any capping-can I ever used. 



