1881 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



338 



23. While all the defects of the Italians can be rem- 

 edied by care and skill, hardly a single leading one of 

 the blacks seems to admit of any cure. 



They can not be kept from racing and tumblinar 

 off their combs, nor cured of their propensity to rob 

 under almost any circumstances, nor made brave or 

 self-reliant under adverse conditions, in any degree 

 to compare with Italians, or willing, like them, to be 

 persistently industrious when honey is to be got on- 

 ly by the hardest kind of work. 



While 1 do not claim to have given all the points 

 of difference between these two species of bees, I 

 have been the more particular, because of the pain- 

 ful conviction that so few are now living of the old 

 generation of bee-keepers who have had a sufficient- 

 ly long and large experience to be able to give the 

 facts on this subject. Having now no interest of 

 any kind whatever in the sale of Italians, or any 

 other species of bees, perhaps my judgment in this 

 matter may, with some, tind a more ready accep- 

 tance. Of one thing I am sure,— that the Italians 

 are in greatest favor with those who are best ac- 

 quainted with the striking points of difference be- 

 tween them and the blacks, and that the use of 

 movable frames, with all the manipulations which 

 follow in their wake, have set a seal of condemna- 

 tion upon black bees which can never be removed. 



While accepting the judgment of the careful ob- 

 servers who claim that the Cyprian and Palestine 

 bees are superior even to the Italians, I am still 

 hopeful that the coming red-clover bee, which is to 

 make our land to flow with honey, even more than 

 the Holy Land once did, will be born of a union be- 

 tween Apis dorsata and some of the best kinds now 

 in our possession. • L. L. Lanqstroth. 



Oxford, O., April, 1881. 



Very many thanks, friend L. I can hard- 

 ly tell you how vividly the points you men- 

 tion bring back to memory my own experi- 

 ences in all these different points ; and if 

 any one would prove the truthfulness of ev- 

 ery assertion made, he has only now to get 

 some black bees, and attem])t to work with 

 them as we do now with Italians. In our 

 older books, we see many points laid down, 

 and wonder at them, while the explanation 

 is, that the books were written for quite an- 

 other race of bees than the Italians and hy- 

 brids that we find now almost everywhere, 

 even in the trees of our forests. I may, at 

 some future time, embody these two papers 

 in our A J3 C book. 



SAVED BY SIGAR CANDY, IN PLACE OF 

 HONEY. 



¥011 find inclosed an order for one of your hives 

 complete and all ready for the bees. 

 — ' I am a beginner in the bee line. I bought a 

 three-frame nucleus last summer, but knew noth- 

 ing about bees except what I learn from your A B 

 Cof Bee Culture and Prof. A. J. Cook's Manual, but 

 expect to learn more by experience. Last fall I fed 

 them with syrup, so that they went into winter- 

 quarters with plenty of food in five frames, just be- 

 fore cold weather. I put a division-board on each 

 side of the cluster, and then made a box of rough 

 boards just like the one on page ICl of your ABC 

 book, leaving a space of four inches all around the 

 hive, which I filled in with short straw, leaving an 

 entrance for the bees through it at the mouth of the 

 hive. In Feb. we had two or three pleasant days, on 



one of which the bees came out. I saw they had the 

 dysentery, and so I opened the hive and took but 

 one of the outside frames; moved two of the others, 

 and in the middle put a frame containing sugar. I 

 left them until the middle of April, when I uncover- 

 ed them, raised the hive, swept the dead bees from 

 the bottom-board, and found sugar there, and, upon 

 examining the frames, I found the sugar all gone, 

 and the frame one-third full of comb. I have now 

 got a pretty strong colony. The person I bought 

 mine of had nearly 60 colonies last fall, but lost all 

 except one. He told me of one man who lives a few 

 miles from here who went into winter-quarters with 

 nearly 300 colonies and lost all except 12. I know two 

 other persons who kept a few colonies, but have lost 

 all this last winter. W. Platts. 



Davenport, Scott Co., Iowa, May 17, 1881. 



I should say, friend P., that you saved 

 your colony, without question, by the sugar. 

 I presume you mean sugar candy poured in- 

 to a frame, although you do not say so. 

 Whenever you can get a colony to take the 

 feed offered until you*get them into the con- 

 dition of comb-building, you are all right. 

 There is no further trouble, when they will 

 build new combs. 



^ ••* ^ 



CANDY FOR QUEEN-CAGES, 



BY THE BARREL. 



W SEND you to-day the "latest improvement" in 

 Ji|[ "Peet" cages. First, I think they need more 

 — ' air than you give them. The double wire makes 

 smothering impossible. Second, the candy I would 

 have "patented," but it would be too easily "in- 

 fringed." It is the best thing- ever discovered for 

 feeding bees under any and all circumstances, as it 

 contains the exact elements in the exact propor- 

 tions that the bees require, and will not dry out 

 though exposed to the air a year. I have it manu- 

 factured by the barrel, and can furnish it at 10c per 

 lb. I provision cages as follows: Remove the cover 

 from the box, and prick a small hole in bottom, and 

 punch a Ji-in. hole in the side. Get a barrel of solid 

 candied honey in which a hole has been dug in the 

 center to allow it to drain. Invert the tin box over 

 a smooth place, and press down until the honey 

 touches the bottom of box; run the point of honey- 

 knife under box, and lift out. Shave the honey otf 

 level, and put lid tight. If the work is properly 

 done, without breaking the honey, it will never run. 

 I have used the cage some without loss. I can fur- 

 nish cages provisioned at 12V4c (with 2 boxes.) 



KEPOBT. 



I wintered 19 colonies in house apiary without 

 loss, all strong; 20 in chaff-packed hives; lost 6, and 

 united 3, selling queens; 6 in cellar, lost 4. Total, 45; 

 lost 13. All of my fecst QMt'Ciis sai't'c7; 95per cent of 

 bees are dead in this section. The house apiary is 

 on a new system, which I am going to adopt "unani- 

 mously." It has been in use 2 years; is a success 

 summer and winter. I will describe it If I get time. 



Oliver Foster. 

 • Mt. Vernon, Iowa, May 25, 1881. 



Well, now, friend F., that is just like you. 

 Every bee was spry and active, and I let 

 them stand on my table a couple of days be- 

 fore I let them out into the pail bee-hive. 

 The bees had eaten but a small part of the 

 honey in the box, and on opening it I found 

 the candy moist yet, standing up firmly 



