1881 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



37 



pasturing- purposes. I have had considerable ex- 

 perience with the common; can't say it is very good, 

 especially if it is too dry. Lee Warner. 



Allison, 111., Dec. 8, 1880. 



Here is an answer to the above by "Neigh- 

 bor H." :— 



If your land is a ricb, black, damp, or sandy soil, I 

 know of nothing that will produce more pasture 

 than Aisike clover. I think it would thrive on the 

 prairies of the west (will someone report?) I would 

 not recommend it for a dry clay soil, though it is 

 said to grow luxuriantly on the Green Mountains of 

 Vermont. If you are seeding for pasture alone, I 

 would mix the common white clover, about one- 

 sixth part white, with the Aisike, and you will have 

 bee pasture, or any other kind that will suit. 



BEES THAT WON'T ACCEPT A QUEEN. 



During the past summer I endeavored to intro- 

 duce a queen to a hybrid colony of bees. I followed 

 instructions in A B C; released her every 48 hours 

 for 33 days, before the bees would permit her free- 

 dom. She commenced laying in a few days. In 6 

 days thereafter, the bees commenced building 

 queen-cells; as soon as they were capped over, I de- 

 stroyed them. In a short time they repeated the 

 operation; I again destroyed the cells, but they 

 were determined to outwit me, and so I repeated 

 these operations. I then let them have their way. 

 In due time the cells were capped, and within i days 

 after capping the cells they killed the queen. The 

 queen was a nice one, and a good layer. Do bees 

 act in this way often? If so, how can we tell when 

 we have a queen introduced? Wm. Parmalee. 



Bean Blossom, Ind., Dec. 8, 1880. 



This was one of the kind of stocks I men- 

 tion in our directions, that won't accept a 

 queen at all. I have estimated that we find 

 such a colony about one time in a hundred. 

 You did the very best you could, I believe, 

 unless'it was to have kept on destroying the 

 cells until your queen had some bees of her 

 own hatched, and then she would have been 

 safe. When we meet a colony of bees like 

 this, all attempts to introduce a queen by let- 

 ting the bees liberate thein themselves, would 

 be throwing queens away ; and this is why I 

 can not think it well to advise any style of 

 cage embracing such a plan. 



ADAMS' horse-power; home-made! ones, etc. 



I see a good deal about the Adams horse-power 

 (see p. 393, Dec. No., 1878, and Jan. and Feb. Nos., 

 1880), that it won't work. I made me one last Janu- 

 ary, and I have used it ever since. I am not much 

 of a carpenter, but I built that myself. I run a lathe 

 with it; the wheel is 14 ft. in diameter, which is 

 rather small, but does well, as I have proved by run- 

 ning it nearly every day since starting, and I make 

 saw-arbors cheaper than the most of your readers. 

 I make mine of wood, by screwing a piece of wood to 

 the arbor of the lathe, and put a saw on that, not 

 using the tail of the lathe at all. I don't get much 

 room from the lathe head, but make my hives on it 

 very well. H. T-. B. 



Palenvllle, Greene Co., N. Y., Dec. 14, 1880. 



FEEDINa NEW SWARMS, ETC. 



My bees, 3 hives in number, I commenced dividing 

 the 1,5th of May. I divided till I got four, and then 

 they began to swarm; the third swarm went to the 

 Woods, I suppose because they had nothing to store 



on. I cut the tree, and got them back home the 

 next day. I fed them for eight days on melted 

 sugar, and the eighth day they had their hive full. 



I commenced on 3 swarms the 10th of May, and 

 now I have 11 swarms with the 3 old ones, and 2 in 

 the woods, making in all 13 swarms. The last swarm 

 I saved came out Aug. 23. 



I did not aim to get any surplus honey this year, as 

 1 was after bees. Gilbert Summe. 



Bringhurst, Carroll Co., Ind., Dec. 11, 1880. 



It seems to me, friend 8., I should hardly 

 advise feeding new swarms, because the 

 bees seldom swarm unless they are getting 

 honey from the fields pretty freely; but as 

 you succeeded well by feeding, it may be all 

 right. My experience has been, that feeding 

 bees when honey is to be had, just makes 

 them stay at home, and they very often fail 

 to get as much out of a feeder as their com- 

 rades who are not thus fussed with get from 

 the fields a mile or so away. 



millers on the spider plants, etc. 



I am a subscriber to Gleanings, and also have 

 your ABC book. I have gained a great deal of 

 knowledge from them. I had been keeping bees for 

 fifteen years in the old box hives, but never got as 

 much honey from 6 hives as I have from one colony 

 in the Langstroth, with Italians, or, rather, hybrids. 

 I purchased a dollar queen last season, and am Ital- 

 ianizing. I took 90 lbs. from one colony and 60 from 

 another this last season, though I think the past 

 season has been a poor one. I prize the Spider plant 

 very highly. I could see the drops of honey on it 

 early in the morning, though I had to fight the mil- 

 ler and the taripin bug every night. There are 

 thousands of them. I burn them with a torch of 

 pine, at dark. J. D. Cooper. 



Travellers' Rest, Gremville Co., S. C, Nov. 29, 1880. 



I too, friend C, have noticed the great 

 moths on the Spider plants in the night; 

 and as I saw them, by the light of the lamp, 

 fill their great bodies'with the sparkling nec- 

 tar, while they buzzed about in such num- 

 bers as to make it seem probable that not a 

 sip could be left for the bees by morning, I 

 too, thought of trying some plan to destroy 

 them; but the only ])lan I could think of 

 was to raise a field large enough so that bees 

 and millers both could have a plenty. Per- 

 haps your plan is cheapest, however; but 

 somehow I rather dislike to lure the poor 

 fellows with such a tempting Horal feast, 

 and then burn them to death. 



A "parody" on winter— and black queens. 



The tlowery months of summer have come and 

 gone, and all nature is bound up in the iron grasp 

 of winter, and the hum of the honey-bee is silent in 

 the retirement of their waxen home, and the jingle 

 of the merry sleigh-bell is the order of the daj'. T 

 think it would be a good time to "pop the question," 

 Where did my black queen come from? On the 

 28th day of May last, I had a very fine hive of Italian 

 bees; and, to keep them from ruiinlng away in 

 swarming, I divided them, putting the new swarm 

 in a hive with comb where a black swarm had died 

 about six weeks before. Three days after they had 

 been put into their hive 1 opened them up, and 

 found them all right and filling up with eggs. I 

 thought I was getting on lovely; but, to my sur- 

 prise, when the young bees came out they were all 



