June, 19'. 



(CLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



391 



HEADS' OF GRAINlgglarDIFFERENT FIELDS gj 



once go to thoiii. I tlioii tie the i)ole on 

 the huhler till all the bees have settled on 

 them, tlieii take them down. I have my 

 liive ready with four frames lifted out so I 

 can unhook the wire from the pole and drop 

 the cluster and frames into the open space, 

 jjiving it a good shake after stopping the 

 front entrance a few minutes to stop the 

 rush of bees. I then take out the combs the 

 bees were on and drop in the combs first 

 taken out, which I have close at hand, and 

 put on the cover. If I do not get all the 

 bees the first time, I put the combs back in 

 the tree again, and when all have clustered 

 I take them to the hive and shako them in 

 front. W. S. Williams. 



Julian, Pa. 



a - IP ^,9s===if> 



Cool and Dry We are having the worst con- 

 Weather in ilitions of weather for bee- 

 Southern keeping Ave have had for 



California. many, many years, consider- 



ing the amount of rainfall 

 we had during the past winter. March and 

 April were comparatively dry. Unless we 

 have rain soon and some warm clear weath- 

 er, there will not be more than one-fourth to 

 lialf a crop, and we may be lucky if we 

 liave our bees fill up for winter. 



Word comes to me that many tons of 

 sugar were fed to bees in certain sec- 

 tions of southern California. Bees that 

 liave been left rich or full of honey the pre- 

 vious season will come through in much bet- 

 ter condition and not need to be fed. The 

 fact is, many extract too closely and bees 

 go through the winter in a weakened and 

 starving condition, which causes a great loss 

 to anyone that follows that practice. 



The exaggerated reports of the great crop 

 of honey expected will be far short Avhen 

 the crop is harvested. These exaggerated 

 reports always have a depressing effect upon 

 the price of honey. A late issue of a bee- 

 keepers ' periodical of this state, by mis- 

 take, made me say that an immense crop is 

 expected in California. T wish to state 

 through your journal that this was not writ- 

 ten by me. We can not be sure of a cro]> 

 until we get it into the cans. 



Ventur.'i, Cal. M. H. Mendleson. 



:20^BB= 



Yellow Italians 1 sent for a few yellow 



Swarm More Than t h r e e-banded Italians 

 Darker-Colored. from Alabama a year 

 ago and noticed the dif- 

 ference in behavior between these yellow 

 Italians and my darker Italians in swarming. 

 I hived a swarm in June of the yellow kind 

 in a Jumbo hive, and the same colony 

 swarmed again in August. The same is 

 true of another colony of yellow bees hived 

 in June. They had many queen-cells started 

 in the first part of August, and. if I had not 



given them so large a super and strength- 

 ened other colonies from this hive when I 

 noticed the queen-cells started, they too 

 would have swarmed again in August. My 

 darker Italians do not swarm tliis way in 

 the fall. Emil A. Lund. 



Vining, Minn. 



Good Yield 1 started with one colony of 



in Oklahoma, black bees in 1918. Now I 

 have eleven colonies of Ital- 

 ians. I had seven colonies last spring. I 

 made increase and after selling six nuclei I 

 have eleven colonies left. One of them had 

 European foul brood so I had to treat it 

 during the honey flow and of course it made 

 no surplus honey. The other ten colonies 

 produced 1000 pounds of extracted honey 

 and 130 pounds of chunk honey. I sold the 

 chunk honey for 25c per pound. I have sold 

 900 pounds of extracted honey for 20c per 

 pound. H. Sharp. 



Shawnee, Olda. 



Colony With Two On June 16, 1921, I re- 

 Laying Queens queened a colony with a 



and a Queen-Cell. queen-cell and on June 

 29 the queen was lay- 

 ing. In looking through this colony on Aug- 

 ust 11 I saw a little black queen, so I sup- 

 posed the other queen was dead. Not being 

 satisfied Avitli this queen I decided to re- 

 queen the colony. I opened the hive on 

 August 25 to kill the queen and found a 

 laying queen Avhich I killed. She did not 

 look like the one I saw before, so I looked 

 farther and found another laying queen. 

 Next I found a sealed queen-cell which I 

 destroyed. This colony had one brood- 

 chamber and two comb-honey supers, two 

 laying queens and a sealed queen-cell in 07ie 

 hive at one time. I think this is unusual. 

 Trevose, Pa. E. Sterner. 



Qt= 



no ^ QC 



Wavy Combs From J. E. Crane has some 

 Vertical Wiring. combs over 40 years 

 old- free from sag, built 

 on the Van Deusen wired foundation. I 

 tested the Van Deusen foundation, and some 

 of the combs are practically perfect. In hot 

 weather there Avas a serious Avaviness and 

 bulge betAveen the A'ertieal Avires, and there 

 is a serious tendency for the sheet to curl, 

 eA-en when put in frames Avith three hori- 

 zontal Avires. If I Avere to use any founda- 

 tion such as the Van Deusen, containing 

 vertical Avires about an inch apart, I would 

 Avant all combs drawn before very hot 

 Aveather, and the sheet of foundation with 

 its vertical Avires to extend doAvn betAveen 

 tlie halA'es of a divided bottom-bar, to stop 

 the tendency to curl. E. P. Atwater. 



Meridian, Idaho. 



