134 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Mar. 



€ 



Uvairif 



From Diiferent Fields. 



HOW I RAISE MY QUEENS. 



^ HAVE Ijeen a pupil in your ABC class three 

 Jijl years, and I would like to tell you how I raise 

 my queens. I go to my imported queen's hive, 

 spread the combs, suspend a new empty comb be- 

 tween the brood, and after finding eggs sulHcient, or 

 after 3 days, I lift out the frame and replace with an- 

 other. The frame of eggs, or minute larvse, is cut 

 into two zig-zag or tooth-shaped forms, then given to 

 a strong colony, made two days before, having no 

 queen, and nil brood then sealed taken away. After 

 354 days the small or poor larvaj are destroyed in 

 some of the cells. After cells are sealed over, they 

 are cut out to be put in the lamp nursery. 



HOW I HATCH MY QUEENS. 



The cells are each put into a small block cage, 

 point down, fastened bj' touching with a small dab 

 of beeswax, melted over a lamp chimney in a tin 

 cup. Soft bee candy is put into each queen-cage 

 for the young queen's first lunch, made from 5 pts. 

 A sugar, 1 pt. grape sugar, 1 pt. honey. The cage is 

 then covered with a loose piece of wire cloth, and 

 put into a common brood-frame with other similar 

 cages, and hung in the nursery. On this principle, 

 no cells are destroyed bj' the young queens, and are 

 all ready to be carried to the nucleus. The slides 

 are then pulled out of the cage, and the young queen 

 forced out by a few puffs of smoke at tbe entrance 

 of the nucleus. John Conser. 



Glenn, Johnson Co., Kan., Jan. 28, 1881. 



The above plan differs but little from the 

 usual way, only that we rather prefer to 

 keep a close watch of the queens, and put 

 in hives just about as fast as they hatch, and 

 let them take their " first lunch " from new 

 honey just brought in from the flowers. 'We 

 seldom have queens sting each other in the 

 nursery, if they are looked to pretty often. 



CAN "we" make a living? 



Three months ago I ventured to take a " partner 

 for life;" have settled down on the plan of "Ten 

 Acres Enough," with the intent, however, of mak- 

 ing bee-ism our principal business; still working 

 at light forms of job printing for indoor work, as I 

 am not able to farm even a few acres. Do you think 

 we can make a living? 



MAPLE-SUGAR BEE CANDY. 



I have only 13 colonies of bees, all good stock; but 

 several of them are about out of honey. I am feed- 

 ing them now on maple sugar in "bricks." Can I 

 carry them safely through? I have already found 

 a number of our neighbors' bees "played out;" some 

 small colonies are frozen, with ^ney all around 

 them; others starved in empty hi\^s. 



S. P. YODER. 



Vistula, Elkhart Co., Ind., Jan. 11, 1881. 



Yes, friend Y.; I do think that you and 

 that new partner can make a living, without 

 any doubt about it at all, providing you are 

 willing to accept such a living as God sees 

 best to give you. Make expenses come inside 

 of the income ; make economy one of the 

 tine arts, and years hence you may look back 

 to these days of trust and trial as having 

 been the very happiest of your lives.— The 



maple sugar, if of fair quality, is all right, 

 and makes very good bee candy. Little 

 cakes, such as are made for the children, 

 are just right for a weak colony of bees to 

 warm up. Friends, can not we who forget 

 to sign our names now and then, give friend 

 Y. a little lift in the way of an order for 

 printing a few envelopes or letter-heads V 



UNPAINTED HIVES, VERSUS PAINTED. 



Inclosed please find a note on " Painting Bee- 

 hives," which I cut from a recent copy of the New 

 York Times. 



Painting Bee-Hives. — So -e persons paint their bee-hives, 

 but it is not generally thought advisahle bj- bee-keepers. It is 

 very important that hives should be dry inside, aiul unless the 

 walls are porous the niui.^ture will condense insiiie wlicnever the 

 temperature is low outside. If the wood is painted it is made 

 impervious to moisture, and this will eoUeet inside and do mis- 

 chief. If the bare wood is thouj^ht to be disagreeable in ap- 

 pearance it may be washed with a porous coating of water-lime, 

 whith is lii-ow 11, or the hives may be washed with lime colored 

 brown with oclier or umber. 



I believe I have never examined a hive occupied 

 by a colony of bees f 'ir even one season, in which the 

 entire inside surface (accessible to the bees) was not 

 completely coated with propolis, rendering the walls 

 of the hive impervious to moisture, from the inside. 

 Now, if I am right, what harm can there come from 

 having the hives well painted, thus protecting the 

 walls from the moisture outside? 



H. C. Markham. 



Ann Arbor, Mich., Jan. 29, 1S81. 



There is an element of truth in the paper 

 you send, friend M.; but still it is thought 

 best to paint hives, and make some other 

 provision for the escai)e of the dampness and 

 moisture. It is for this reason we make the 

 chalf hive in such narrow pieces, principally, 

 that tlie dampness may escape in the cracks 

 between the narrow siding. The Simplicity 

 hives, having a loose cover, usually permit 

 all the evaporation that is needed in the 

 summer time, and, with a mat over the top, 

 about all that would ordinarily be needed in 

 the winter. Tight box hives, with no open- 

 ings in the top, or but few small ones, would 

 very likely winter bees better unpainted ; 

 and if the boards were rotten a little, and 

 checked by cracks, they would be better 

 still. This is why bees often winter better 

 in such hives than they do in new, tight, 

 painted ones. The lu-opolis on the inside, I 

 hardly think as impervious to moisture as is 

 the paint; but still, it is a signiricant fact, 

 that the bees always seem to prefer to have 

 things pretty well waxed at^ the approach of 

 cold weather; and Avith a liive like the chaff 

 hive, I think they are the better for the 

 propolis. Stocks that are strong enough to 

 have the whole interior of their hive well 

 propolized, are pretty sure to stand the zero 

 freezes, if my observations have been cor- 

 rect. ^ 



THE "BLESSED LITTLE PETS." 



I tried to run my bees one year without the aid of 

 Gleanings, and found it could not be done. Honey 

 in this section of the country was almost a total 

 failure. We were compelled to feed almost every 

 month during the time the bees were out of the cel- 

 lar, only some few stocks being able to get their win- 

 ter supplies during the entire summer; but, sir, des- 

 perate cases require desperate remedies. Speaking 

 for Bros. Kendig and Stephens, as well as myself, we 

 came to the rescue and stocked our bees out for 

 winter with sugar syrup, and I say that the man or 



