368 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



•TrxE. 1921 



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BEES, MEN AND THINGS 



(You may find it here) 



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SOME years 

 ago 50 per 

 cent of my 

 golden Italian 

 queens were 

 lost in mating, 

 while only 90 

 per cent of the 

 blacks or hybrids 

 were lost. The 



mortality of the gohlen Italian queens is 

 two to one of the hybrids or black queens, 

 during winter. Seven years ago I bought a 

 golden queen in southern Iowa from which 

 T raised many queens. I have never known 

 any of that particular strain to cast a 

 swarm, or to contract foul brood. However, 

 about 70 per cent of the queens would die 

 the first winter. One undersized golden 

 queen stayed with me three summers. Dur- 

 ing all that time I never knew her to lay 

 a drone egg. Her eggs would all produce 

 workers whether laid in drone comb or not. 

 Did any one ever observe the like! In the 

 spring of 1917, one of my colonies dwindled 

 for the want of feed. I gave them some 

 pound sections, in order to save the queen; 

 they hardly covered three sections, but they 

 built up rapidly, and gave me a surplus of 

 28 lbs." — C. F. Wieneke, Linn County, la. 

 "There are only a few bees around here. 

 Some of them are kept in grocery boxes, 

 the frames made of lath, with no founda- 

 tion. One man asked me how I killed mv 

 bees and asked me to look at his hives, which 

 I did. He had three swarms which were 

 kept in grocery boxes. I asked him about 

 how much honey he thought was in the 

 hives in which were the bees he wanted 

 killed. He estimated not less than two gal- 

 lons in each hive. I lifted on the hives. They 

 had no suiters, and I was sure that no two 

 gallons was in them. I told him that I would 

 give him the amount of honey that he 

 thought was in the hives — clean, good-fla- 

 vored honey, for the hives. He would not 

 do it. He would rather kill the bees and 

 squeeze the combs with the dead bees in 

 them. I suppose he was afraid he would lose 

 a few ounces of bad-flavored honey. I think 

 ills hives had no movable frames, and were 

 not worth more than two gallons of honey. 

 He had kept bees several years, and never 

 got any honey. I wanted the bees, and 

 thought it was a pity to kill the poor things. 

 Box-hive beekeepers are funny things. ' ' — 

 Edwin J. Dahlquist, Chisago County, Minn. 

 "Inclosed find $1.00 for Miller Memorial 

 Fund. I wish I could have made it more, 

 but have had hard luck with my bees. They 

 were never in finer condition than they were 

 this spring. However, last week two of my 

 neighbors sprayed their apple trees when 

 in full bloom, and, as a consequence, fully 

 two-thirds of my bees are dead. These far- 

 mers were told again and again not to spray 

 while trees are in full bloom — that if they 

 ilid, it would kill the bees; but it was of no 



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use. It was a 

 pitiful sight to 

 see the bees roll 

 out of the hives 

 and die, and the 

 ground in the 

 bee-yard was 

 literally covered 

 with dead and 

 dying bees. The 

 at the lowest, is 



damage to iiie, figu 



•500, besides the loss of the honey crop. ' ' 



G. A. Barbisch Houston County, Minn. 



One of my colonies swarmed on a very 

 hot day and clustered on a tree. Realizing 

 that I could not get a hive ready for an 

 hour or so I immediately grabbed a large 

 sack, climbed the tree, pulled the sack up 

 over the limb and bees, and hived, or, 

 rather, "sacked" the whole swarm. It was 

 hot. I hung those bees in the woodhouse 

 and worked away on the hives. An hour 

 passed by, and then another. I had not 

 thought of an airhole for the bees. When 

 we finished the hive and frames two or 

 three hours had gone by, and, to my sur- 

 prise, when I turned down the sack in front 

 of the hive most of the bees fell out, and 

 there they lay, as dead as Hector. I had 

 not thought the sack close enough to 

 smother the bees, but that was exactly what 

 happened. I lost the bees but gained the 

 experience. — A. C. Kerley, Supt. of Schools, 

 Burke County, N. C. 



"On account of the bad weather, the con- 

 ditions in the South are not near so good 

 as they were a month ago. I left an over- 

 abundance of honey on the hives last year; 

 but, on account of the early warm weather, 

 the bees are dependent mostly on what they 

 can gather, and I expect where the bees 

 w^ere not in as good condition as mine there 

 has been considerable loss. "^ — J. M. Cutts, 

 Maricopa County, Ala. 



' ' Has the editor read those articles in the 

 Farm and Home about sweet clover, and 

 the favor it is gaining wath farmers for soil 

 improvement"? I wish all beekeepers could 

 read them, and realize what sweet clover 

 may mean to the beekeeping industry." — 

 Chas. W. Reed, Kings County, N. Y. 



' ' Altho I never had any experience with 

 bees I found the queen easily today without 

 a single sting. Clover is very thrifty, and 

 all indications lead me to believe that the 

 crop of honey will be large." — Merle L. 

 Walradt, Chautauqua County, N. Y. 



"One thing I want to tell you is that we 

 have not had any white clover for three 

 years, but we have a grand prospect for it 

 this coming year." — Thos. McNallie, Jasper 

 County, Mo. 



' ' My annual white sweet clover is white 

 with bloom, and the bees are working it." — 

 C v.. Smith, Caddo County, Okla. 



