GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July, 1917 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



you want tlieiu, take from any foloiiy which 

 can spare the bees, between sunset and dark, 

 one frame of honey with bees adhering', one 

 frame of as nearly maturing' brood as possi- 

 ble with the adhering bees and also the 

 queen, fixing them in a hive as has been 

 described. Leave them thus for four days; 

 then take out the queen, drop her in a spoon 

 of honey, and roll hei- around till she is 

 smeared. Any new honey which is a little 

 thin will answer. If the honey is thick and 

 old, I thin it with warm water till it is 

 about like new unsealed honey. A broom 

 splint is good for the rolling purpose. Re- 

 move the top of the hive from which she 

 was taken, four days before and put in two 

 combs to take the place of those used in 

 forming the nucleus, then turn out the 

 honey and queen with it, so' she and the 

 honey will run down between two combs. 

 Two days later give the nucleus a ripe 

 queen-cell, and in ten to thirteen days you 

 will have a laying queen in the nucleus, as 

 a rule, when they will be ready to build comb 

 of the worker size of cells if fed, or if a 

 good supply of nectar is coming in from 

 the fields. By taking the laying queen with 

 her bees in funning the nucleus, the bees will 

 mostly adhere to the queen if the work is 

 done at nightfall, and will not go back when 

 she is taken away four days later. 

 Borodino, N. Y. G. M. Doolittle. 



Letters from a Beekeeper's Wife 



The Bee Hive, July 1, 17. 

 Dear Sis: 



We hardly have time to breathe these 

 busy days. Rob is up eveiy morning at 

 four o'clock and so am I, and we work until 

 dark. You know we started our new yard 

 by taking twenty-five of the colonies from 

 our home ajiiary. We have increased now 

 to a hundred colonies, each with a fine, new 

 Italian queen, and altho they were small 

 at first they are building up rapidly. Be- 

 fore the end of the season we hope to have 

 them as strong as our best. Of course we 

 expect no honey when making such increase 

 — which is the difference between modern 

 beekeeping and the old way of letting the 

 bees swarm ad libitum. 



Some days Rob goes off at daybreak with 

 our old auto on which he has built a funny- 

 looking truck, ])iled high with supers. I 

 l)aek him a substantial lunch for he usually 

 stays in the Randolph yard all day, and at 

 the others not quite so long, looking over 



the colonies to locate those that are i^repar- 

 ing to swarm and to nip that tendency in 

 the bud. Our neighboring beekeepers think 

 he is a crank on this, but we know that it 

 pays. Then too he has extra supers to put 

 on where they are needed. It is back-break- 

 ing business, lifting supers all day and 

 bending over hives, but he loves it, and is 

 elated when he comes in at four or five 

 o'clock, hot, hungry, and so sticky and 

 mussed up, but with a truck load of supers 

 filled with beautiful white-clover honey. 



Getting up at such an early hour — I can't 

 picture you doing such a thing — gives me 

 time to do all of my own work and look 

 out for swarms in the home yard, and yet 

 have time to lie down for an hour or two 

 in the afternoon. We have dinner ready at 

 five when Rob gets home and the girls wash 

 the dishes while Rob and I g"o out to the 

 honey-house to extract. We should not be 

 extracting at night when the honey is cool, 

 but starting a new yard has cut down our 

 supply of combs, and right on top of that 

 came a good season. So we have to extract 

 almost every night after Rob comes home 

 to get combs for the next day. I never saw 

 anything like the bee business! There is 

 always something out of joint in our plans, 

 but I know one thing — next year we will 

 not be short of combs. After Rob has his 

 business built up we can adjust ourselves 

 better, and then extracting will come after 

 the rush of the honey-flow. 



Out in the honey-liouse that little gas- 

 engine chug-chugs and turns the fan as well 

 as the extractor, so it is not as hot as it 

 might be, but it is quite warm enougii ! We 

 both uncap as fast as possible, and Rob puts 

 the frames in and out of the extractor. It 

 is fearfully hard work for him after a 

 heavy day in the apiaries, but I enjoy it. 

 I like the honey smell •even tho it 5s 

 mixed with the odor from the engine, and I 

 like the way the wax falls away from the 

 knife. I can't say that I enjoy the sticki- 

 ness! I'm not proud but am so stuck up! 

 Clothes, hair, face, hands, even shoes acquire 

 honey, tho I have a special costume, a big 

 oilcloth apron with sleeves that covers me 

 entirely. 



We finish the day's work by eight o'clock 

 and go to bed, leaving the children to look 

 after themselves. Billy misses his usual 

 game of checkers with Daddy, and I miss 

 talking over the day with the children, but 

 this rush doesn't last long — that's one com- 

 fort. 



From the amount of honey we are getting 



