1881 



GLEANINGS IX BEE CULTURE. 



:i box hive made in the good old way, with hand- 

 saw and plane. Nearly every one here keeps their 

 bees in box bives. E. H. Cook. 



Andover, Ct., Dec (i, IKSO. 



ALMOST "BLASTED HOPES." 



I reckon I am in Rlasted Hopes, but still I will try 

 to get our. Three years ago I bought U stands of 

 l)ees, and ]:> since, in chaff hives. I have 27 now all 

 in chalf hives. One has frozen to death alreadj' this 

 winter, and I fear that very few bees will be left 

 ali^e till spring, l)ccause brood-rearing stopped ear- 

 lier than common, and the bees are too old to stand 

 a severe winter. We got no honey here in Clark Co. 

 this year, and our greatest bee man here (O. Olson) 

 has gone to Florida to try it there. liees here are 

 mostly hybrids and Italians. They have not done 

 nearly as well since the introduction of the royal 

 blood as before. They are death to the miller, but I 

 don't belie\e that, after a few years, they are nearly 

 as hardy or proliHc as the common black bee, nor 

 are they any better honey-gatherer*. 



JOSKPQ Garst. 



Springfield, Ohio, Dec. 10, 1880. 



celebrating the fourth of .tfly. 



I celebrated hist Fourth of July (or, rather, the 

 .")th, as the 4th fell on Sunday) by purchasing, in 

 Rockland Co., N. Y., my first swarm of bees. They 

 were black bees, in an "American" hive. Don't you 

 think that was a good way to celebrate the Fourth? 

 Some time in August I discovered they had no 

 queen. I at once purchased a tested Italian queen 

 of Messrs. A. J. King & C«., and now I have a colony 

 of beautiful Italians that plainly show all the three 

 bands. It is a rather weak stock, however, and I 

 have been obliged to feed some. About a week ago 

 1 bought a box hive of blacks, but it is too late to 

 transfer them this fall. The Italians are in a small 

 empty room in second story of house, east side. The 

 blacks are outdoors— protected, however. I hope to 

 have some good results to show next fall. 



Samuel A. Miller. 



nioomfield, Essex Co., N. J., Dec. 1, 1880. 



I think it a tirst-rale way to celebrate tlie 

 Fourth, friend M.: but I am afraid if you 

 have put your Italians in a room, as a good 

 many of the .V ]> (' class do, you liave, by 

 your mistaken kindness, defeated any chance 

 of celebrating the Fourth in issi,with that 

 colony of bees. The trouble is, with any 

 room aliove ground, that you can not well 

 make it perfectly dark; and as soon as a 

 warm day comes," the bees will get out in the 

 room, and never get liack again. ^Vnd even 

 if you should make it iierfectly dark, which 

 I hardly ever knew a green hand to do. you 

 would give the bees a colder place to live in 

 than outdoors, because they could not have 

 the benefit of any sunshine. Leave the bees 

 outdoors, on their summer stands, ixnless 

 you can i)ut them iti a warm, dry, dark cel- 

 lar; and never, under any circumstances, 

 put them in a room above ground, unless it 

 has all the conditions of a cellar, or allows 

 the bees to go out through the* wall, as in 

 the house apiary. 



hardening plaster plates, etc. 

 In Colby's communication, page 444, your answer 

 is incorrect. I was glad to see Doolittle's answers 

 on page 571, and I think I know why he lost his bees; 



thej' didn't go into winter-quarters with enough 

 j'oungbees; had been queenless in the fall, or else 

 frames of brood had been removed to strengthen 

 other hives. I never lose a full hive, even if not 

 prepared for winter, except from want of stores; 

 and I have wintered, without a single loss, a two- 

 frame nucleus, but I never failed to have plenty (if 

 young l)ees in them. I always winter outdoors. 

 Oxford, Pa., Dec. ti, 1880. S. W. Morrison, M. D. 



jSIy answer referred to. which friend M. 

 says was incorrect, was that I feared adding 

 alum to the water in which plaster was dis- 

 solved, for making Faris plates, would not 

 prevent water from dissolving them. It is 

 possible that the alum enters into a chemic- 

 al combination so as to become insoluble, 

 and I shall be very glad to know tliat I was 

 wrong. Who can report from experience? 

 I presume a great many can tell friend I), 

 why they think his bees died ; but we have 

 very few among us who have not been com- 

 pelled, sooner or later, to own up that the 

 bees died, sometimes, when they did not 

 know the reasOH why. 



getting queen-cells for queen-rearing. 



I was interested in reading the articles by Messrs. 

 Tow^lsend and Brooks, pp. 333, 303, Volume VIII., 

 Gleanings, in regard to obtaining queen-cells, as I 

 had been experimenting in the same direction; viz., 

 placing the strips of brood so that the base occupies 

 a horizontal Instead of vertical position. I hare ob- 

 tained the best results by cutting the brood-comb 

 into strips containing but one row of perfect cells, 

 and fastening these to the ordinarj' thin comb- 

 guides, two or three of which are then tacked to the 

 empty frames horizontally, and so that the queen- 

 colls will be built within the frame. 



The principal advantages of this method are econ- 

 omy in the use of brood, and of time in preparing it 

 for the cell-building colony; also, where the queen- 

 cells are finished they can be easily separated with 

 a sharp knife, leaving each one attached to a short 

 piece of wood in the nicest shape for use in the nu- 

 cleus or nursery. For some reason which I do not 

 uiiderstand, the bees will build more and better cells 

 if the comb is placed on the strips of wood in such a 

 manner that the base will be below the lower edge 

 of the strip. To fasten the comb, I prefer to pour 

 the melted wa.\ on the wood and lay the comb in it. 



1 think better queens are obtained by doing the 

 "stealing" of condemned larva? when they are three 

 days old, and by removing them from about two- 

 thirds of the queen-cells started. 



E. M. Hayhurst. 



Kansas C:ty, Mo., Dec. 8, 1880. 



Thanks, friend IT. If I get the idea, the 

 comb-guides are tacked to the side-liars of 

 the frame ; the strip of larvte is then pretty 

 nearly in the usual position of a comb, when 

 fastened with melted wax against these 

 strips; and that the bees may have full i)lay 

 in working all around their queen-cells, the 

 strip of brood should be slipped down on the 

 comb-guide pretty well. The cells Avith 

 their opening uppermost will suffice to hold 

 the inverted ones securely ; then, after hav- 

 ing them start a great many from young, 3- 

 days-old larva?, a part of them are torn down, 

 that they may concentrate their efforts on 

 only a few. and have these few strong and 

 healthy. 



