1086 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



the Gulf states from Florida to Texas. The 

 blooming time is from April to August, and 

 where the vines are abundant a surplus is 

 obtained. 



The black berries have a scanty pulp, and, 

 when dried, are much wrinkled. The taste 

 is sweet and pleasant, and the juice would 

 undoubtedly be attractive to bees, not one 

 but every season. Careful examination with 

 a lens showed small holes or perforations in 

 a number of the dried berries, thru which 

 bees could easily insert their tongue. But 

 in many of the berries I could find no punc- 

 tures. Very likely Mr. Potts is right, and 

 the holes are made by some other insects. 

 If made by bees it would seem probable that 

 all the berries would be punctured, since as 

 many as four bees were observed on one 

 berry. Before drawing any definite conclu- 

 sion as to whether bees add largely to their 

 stores from this source, further and more 

 extended observation would seem desirable; 

 and I would suggest you bring the matter 

 to the attention of the readers of Gleanings. 



Brood Being Carried Out. 



The bees keep carrying out brood even af- 

 ter the young bees are nearly ready to leave 

 the cell. They were carrying out seven-day- 

 old larva), and I thought that it was lack of 

 feed, so commenced feeding cane syrup, us- 

 ing the Boardman feeder. It did not seem 

 to make any difference. The goldenrod flow 

 is now on, and the bees are bringing in both 

 honey and pollen, but as yet there is no 

 change. I am just starting with bees in 

 Florida. I never had this trouble in my api 

 ary in Michigan. Ira J. Monroe. 



New Augustine, Fla. 



[It is a little difficult to decide what is 

 your trouble without more detail. It is pos- 

 sible that the brood at some time was chilled 

 or overheated. If the entrance of a hive be 

 closed temporarily on a hot day, some of the 

 brood may be injured, and the result will be 

 that it will be carried out later. This will 

 be shown by the young bees hatching out 

 without wings. On the other hand, if the 

 moth-worm is working among the combs it 

 may destroy some brood, with the result that 

 young bees will be carried out. If you were 

 located in the northern states we should nat- 

 urally conclude that the brood had been 

 chilled by cool weather coming on. It is not 

 an uncommon thing to see dead larvae and 

 some young bees out in front of the entrance 

 of a hive as a result of the brood being 

 chilled perhaps a week or two before. In 

 your climate, however, there would be no 

 such trouble. Possibly the bees have gath- 

 ered something that has killed the brood. 

 You would do well to look very carefully to 

 see whether there are any moth-worms at 

 work on the combs. — Ed.] 



Losses in Parcel-Post Shipments. 



I wonder if it will surprise Mr. Chadwick 

 when I tell him that my wife and I have 

 charge of the postofiice in this little town, 



and that we know that certain packages 

 must have been willfully broken or else 

 handled in a very violent manner. I believe 

 both are partly true. Mr. Chadwick weak- 

 ens his own argument when he says, page 

 18:1. March 1, "These sacks are handled as 

 carefully as ^s possible with the volume of 

 other parcels that are daily going thru the 

 mail. ' ' That is exactly the trouble — ' ' as 

 carefully as is possible." At the junction 

 town just west of here I have seen fifty 

 tons of mail transferred from the C. M. & 

 St. P. to the C. N. W. in a very short time, 

 and I know that more than one "fragile" 

 tag was flattened out under a ton of other 

 "fragile" stuff, as the clerks had neither 

 time nor room to care for it properly. 



I was writing about extracted honey, 

 which was put into tin cans which had the 

 covers soldered on and were packed in cor- 

 rugated paper. Some of these arrived at 

 their destination empty, but no complaint of 

 mail-matter being injured with honey. I do 

 not charge that the honey was stolen, but 

 it beats any sleight-of-hand work I can do, 

 and I am counted quite clever. When I 

 went to insuring every package the trouble 

 ceased. Dr. A. F. Bonney. 



Buck Grove, la. 



Winter Protection for Southern States. 



I live southeast of central Kansas. I 

 should like to ask you if, for wintering in 

 this locality, the regular eight-frame dove- 

 tailed hive would be all right with felt roof- 

 ing, 3 X 4-feet pieces, capping it down over 

 the hive and folding the ends down well, and 

 tying binder twine around the hive. Of 

 course I would leave them on their summer 

 stands on four bricks, the north wind fairly 

 well broken off. 



Very few people pay much attention to 

 bees here. They put them in a box and 

 don 't pack at all in winter. 



Geo. C. Ableson. 



Fredonia, Kan., Oct. 16. 



[Ordinarily the locality of southeast Kan- 

 sas would not require any special winter 

 case. That is to say, bees will winter in 

 single-walled hives; but it would pay to 

 wrap the bees as you describe; yes, to go 

 even further, and put regular winter cases 

 around them, supplying packing of two or 

 three inches. The government experts who 

 have been testing out this matter have come 

 to the conclusion that winter packing in the 

 southern states will save a good many bees 

 and the loss of considerable brood. We be- 

 lieve that it would be advisable to err on the 

 safe side by giving too much packing rather 

 than not enough. Of course, wrapping the 

 hives in paper as you describe is an old 

 method that is used somewhat in the south- 

 ern states, and it is a great deal better than 

 no packing. Better go a little better, and 

 place newspapers on top of the hive and 

 around it, and then fold the other paper 

 around in the manner that you propose. — Ed.] 



