April, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



295 



HEAD S OF GRAIN Tg pH lQtrraF F ERENT FIELDS 



seconds will be all the bees require. It is 

 not necessary for any water to remain stand- 

 ing between the cross-strips on the board. 

 Once this remains wet, the bees will be able 

 to get all the water they want. But it is an 

 easy matter, of course, to open the cock a 

 little more when the flow of water is con- 

 sidered insufficient. 



For my small apiary I have to fill this keg 

 only once every four or five weeks. In a 

 large apiary a barrel should be used. Care 

 must be taken that the drip-board stand in 

 the shade. J. H. Hamelberg. 



Soest, Holland. 



All Plans 0. K. On page 1161 E. G. 



When the Honey's Baldwin tells us what 

 Coming in not to do in introduc- 



ing queens by the hon- 

 ey method. My experience has been that 

 any old method is O. K. when bees are gath- 

 ering honey freely, and that no method is a 

 sucess when no honey is coming in. 



When I first tried the smoke method I was 

 delighted. I thought I had found just what 

 I had been wanting for years. I introduced 

 a large number of queens with practically 

 no losses; but in the fall, after the honey- 

 flow was over, about SO per cent of queens 

 introduced were killed. I had the same ex- 

 perience with the honey method. 



Last fall I went to an outyard, introduced 

 40 queens, and lost only one. About a week 

 later, in exactly the same manner, I intro- 

 duced in the same yard 25 in one day and 

 lost 22 of them. Eight days later I removed 

 all cells, and gave more queens by this same 

 method and had them all accepted. I after- 

 ward introduced about 35 more queens in the 

 same 3'ard, with a loss of about half a dozen. 

 In each case the old queen was removed, cells 

 torn down eight days later, and the young 

 queen given. 



I had very little trouble with robbers, al- 

 tho no honey was coming in. The last half- 

 dozen queens given to the bees, I let the rob- 

 bers get started while looking over the 

 combs to see if they were ■ queenless, and I 

 fear some three or four of those hives are 

 queenless now. J. M. Cutts. 



Montgomery, Ala. 



=io^c«= 



When Excluders are For the successful 

 Necessary, and when production of bulk 

 They are Not comb honey, exclud- 



ers are very desirable 

 if not an absolute necessity. As to sections, 

 out of hundreds of thousands produced I 

 have never found brood in more than two 

 or three indiv'idual sections. 



In the production of extracted honey it is 

 no detriment to allow the queen full run of 

 the supers during the early part of the sea- 



son. There are always some queens that 

 persist in laying in the super, so that, toward 

 the latter part of the honey-flow, it is well 

 to use the excluders in such cases. 



As to whether excluders hinder the storing 

 of honey in the supers, I have never been 

 quite able to make up my mind. Very often 

 I find a colony that is laackward in storing 

 surplus in the super thru an excluder that 

 will pick up at once when the excluder is 

 removed; then, again, side by side will be 

 found two colonies of apparently the same 

 strength — the one without an excluder mov- 

 ing very leisurely along, and the other with 

 an excluder literally jamming every avail- 

 able cell full of honey, and crying for more 

 space. Tho I find the excluder very valuable 

 in the production of honey, particularly at 

 the latter end of the flow, its chief value to 

 me is its use in manipulating for increase and 

 building up. Jos. J. Anderson. 



Salem, Ida. 



Catch Those In the Nov. 15th is- 



Drones with an sue, page 1087, B. 



Alley Trap Palmer asks what be- 



comes of the drones 

 after shaking for foul brood. Provide the 

 hive that the bees are to be shaken into with 

 a good Alley queen and drone trap, and see 

 that it is well secured so no bees or drones 

 can escape without going thru the trap. 

 Just at night place the hive where it is to 

 stand. Smoke the foul - brood colony well. 

 Use a very little tobacco. Close the en- 

 trance for two or three minutes. Then 

 shake the bees into the hive with the queen 

 and drone trap on it and close it up. The 

 drones are thus captured so they cannot go 

 into other hives. J. G. French. 



Vernon, Conn. 



An Easy Method of 

 Filling Combs with 

 Syrup for Feeding 



Gi\'ing colonies of 

 s e a 1 e d stores in 

 spring i s always 

 recommended as the 

 best method to stimulate bees or replenish 

 colonies short of stores by up-to-date bee- 

 keepers in spring. Having stores on hand 

 for this purpose is not always possible; so 

 some other means must be used. There has 

 been a method used similar to this by filling 

 empty combs with warm syrup (half and 

 half) and jilacing the same in the hive next 

 to the brood-nest in the evening. So far as 

 stimulating is concerned I believe it sur- 

 passes sealed stores. Why this method is not 

 advocated more I do not know unless the 

 method of filling has been too slow or mussy. 

 Tlie following is my method: 



I hnve a box that is made on the order of 

 a Doolitle feeder — large enough to receive 

 a Langstroth frame. I fill this within about 



