184 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



WHY BEES WINTER WELL ONE WINTER, AND DO NOT 

 ANOTHER, UNDER THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES. 



This is candid, and I agree exactly. No one can 

 tell why two swarms, sitting side by side, as near 

 alike as two peas, should not winter alike; and yet, 

 often one dies before March, while the other comes 

 through a splendid colonj'. 



FASTENING BEES IN THE HIVES IN AVINTER. 



Packed in chaff, as you propose, bees do not need 

 an entrance at all, especially in the cellar, and out of 

 doors only where they can fly. Hence I close mine 

 as tight as I can make them at the bottom in cellar, 

 and generally do those out of doors. 



WHEN TO TAKE BEES OUT OF THE CELLAR. 



As you advise waiting till pollen is plenty (which 

 advice is good), your advice as to the time of day in 

 putting out is bad, as it is so warm at this season of 

 the year that robbing will likely result from those 

 set out previously, or from those wintered on sum- 

 mer stands. Set out when sun is an hour high, on a 

 warm day, and they will have a nice fly, and protect 

 themselves the next morning. 



WEAK COLONIES THAT CONSUME SCARCELY ANY 



STORES, COMPARATIVELY, NOT BEING OP MUCH 



VALUE. 



Beg pardon, but this is not so. The colony that 

 consumes the least stores in cellar wintering is al- 

 ways the best colony in the spring, and the one that 

 will remain quiet till pollen is plenty. Now set them 

 out, and you willhave no spring dwindling, but each 

 bee in the hive will be strong and vigorous, and as 

 the weather is warm, they rush things. 



I agree with this, but my remarks were 

 meant to apply to those so small they could 

 not need much. 



NO. OF STOCKS IN A PERFECT CELLAR, NOT IM- 

 PORTANT. 



With a cellar like ours it makes no difference 

 whether there is one or 100 colonies in it, as it is not 

 dependent on the bees for warmth, but it is the tem- 

 perature of the gi'ound at a depth of 8 feet, and that 

 temperature is from 43 to 45 degrees above zero. 



BEES THAT ARE FOUND ON THE FENCES AND W/VLKS 

 IN THE SPRING, LADEN WITH POLLEN, ETC. 



I believe these bees die of old age, caused by a 

 used-up vitality from holding the excrement so long, 

 as I gave in the A. B. J., which friend Root and oth- 

 ers "blowed" about so much. If you will consider, 

 you will see that all evidences point that way. 



SAVING SOILED OR MOLDY COMBS. 



This sounds better than what you say on page 250. 

 I believe it well pays to save all pieces of worker 

 comb 6 inches square. This you save, while fdn. 

 costs money. 



Conclusion. 



G. M. DOOLITILE. 



Borodino, N. Y., Nov. 1, 1880. 



"OUK BEES." 



FROM AWAY DOWN IN FLORIDA. 



S BOUGHT them last February, and paid $5.00 for 

 three boxes of bees. Also another, badly in- 

 fested with moths, for which I paid nothing. 

 From this one I drove out the bees, took out the 

 comb and killed the moths, replaced the comb, and 

 returned the bees. In mooring, the comb broke 

 down in one box and killed the bees. We moved 

 them by boat 30 miles. Three swarms at home were 



soon all right and at work. There is nothing pecul- 

 iar about them, only they are our bees. We had been 

 housekeeping 35 years, and these were the flrst bees 

 I ever owned. 



Tlwir home is our "Island Home" on Merritt's 

 Island, in Indian River, Florida. This is not only a 

 land of flowers, but of sunshine. This is true of all 

 Florida in a general sense, but it is particularly true 

 of Indian River. The showers of summer are much 

 alike in all parts of the State. But in winter, when 

 old people, invalids and bees, need sunshine, it is 

 most abundant here. The sunshine of winter is 

 diminished on the Gulf coast by fogs, and in the 

 northern part of the State by cloudy, rainy weather, 

 I am confident that no part of the American Union 

 has as many hours of sunshine, particularly in win- 

 ter, as this Indian River country. Perhaps I don't 

 know, but I have lived in ten of these United States, 

 and made the study of climatology a specialty for 

 years. 



Our bees, then, have plenty of sunshine, and that, 

 too, when it is most enjoyable, most conducive to 

 their prosperity, and makes wintering a subject of 

 quite another aspect as compax-ed with Ohio. It is 

 even quite different here from what it is in the 

 northern part of the State. All that part of bee lit- 

 erature that relates to wintering is of no value to 

 us. Every letter I get from the North tells of a ter- 

 ribly cold winter; but here, more or less bees could 

 be seen on the wing nearlj' every day, and choice 

 tropical and hot-house plants have bloomed in our 

 yard all winter. Of tropical fruits, we have in culti- ' 

 vation the guava, pine-apple, oocoanut, mango, sapo- 

 dilla, cheremoya, and coffee; none of which show 

 any marks of frost. So j'ou can see that winter is 

 really eliminated from an Indian River year, and 

 that, too, when even in Florida not less than a mil- 

 lion of oranges were ruined by being frozen. This 

 much about winter and wintering. Now for the 

 summer. The two best colonics gave us two more 

 in MaJ^ These were hived in boxes, which they 

 filled in a very short time with the finest honey I 

 ever saw. It was from tho saw palmetto {SabaJ ser- 

 rulata.) It was thicker than white-clover honey, 

 equally as light color, with a peculiarly rich flavor. 

 The saw palmetto is very abundant here, and the 

 books say it blossoms from June to August; but 

 here U: blooms from February to June. The cab- 

 bage T^almetto (Sabal Palmetto), from some cause 

 bloomed but little in this region. Early in July we 

 transferred the five colonies to movable-frame hives. 

 Befoi'e and at the time of transferring we took from 

 them about 100 lbs. of honey. July and August are 

 said to be bad honey months here. During these 

 months they about hold their own. 



The partridge pea {Cassia Chamcvcrista) is abun- 

 dant in this region, and blooms mostly in August; 

 but these and all other flowers were destroyed by 

 the terrible gale of August 20. About this time we 

 made a sixth colony by dividing. They went to work 

 as best they could, and seemed to be doing as well 

 as any of them; but none of them did much more 

 than get their living. As the weather grew cool 

 they were cross, and I gave them little attention 

 until Nov. 20, when I opened my eyes to the fact 

 that oiir bees were starving! One colony was already 

 dead, and others fast going the same road. Wo be- 

 gan at once to feed them with sugar-cane syrup, on 

 which they lived and prospered. 



Dec. 24. Looked them over and found brood in 

 two of the hives. 



