352 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



blacks, very weak and queenless ; also my pet 

 queen of Nellis, with but few adherents, and surely 

 dwindling. I united the blacks, and was much 

 amused to see how beautifully they behaved to- 

 ward the Nellis queen, circling around and bowing- 

 low to her, and offering food immediatelj'. I ex- 

 pected a quarrel between the blacks and the few 

 Italians; but no: without caging or smoking, they 

 took up with thPir new abode, and in an hour were 

 carrying in pollen, and now how jealous and cross 

 they are when I open the hive I 



I wintered 4 colonies, or, rather, nuclei, in the cel- 

 lar. They had so little honey I felt sure I must feed 

 during the winter, and so put them in the cellar as 

 an experiment. I am satisfied my cellar will keep 

 bees better than outdoor wintering. They con- 

 sumed much less honey; were not troubled with 

 dysentery, and are among my strongest and best 

 colonies. Box hives have suffered. The doctor 

 has lost all, so if I had time to bother I might safely 

 Italianize now, without fear of hybrids. But, I am 

 teaching school; and if you will tell me how I can 

 manage swarming, with no one at home while I am 

 at the schoolhouse, I will be so glad. I have an ex- 

 tractor, and I have clipped 5 queens. I fear I may 

 fail to keep them, even if clipped; but there is one 

 satisfaction -they certainly can not go to the woods 

 to occupy hives set up to decoy them, and thus en- 

 rich the apiary of bee-keepers who will not take a 

 journal nor try to keep up with the times. But I 

 don't want to lose my pet Italians if I can help it. 

 Bees worked on and gathered stores from apples. 

 Thousands of bushels lay on the gound last fall, and 

 rotted. That may have been one cause of so much 

 dysentery, ev-ery hive wintered out of doors being- 

 more or less affected in this region. After all, I like 

 the old Simplicity best of all hives. The VA story 

 hive is not satisfactory to me. 



Another year I intend to stay hy my bees, and do 

 better by them; but as I must be in the schoolhouse 

 during June and July, I do not see what I can do 

 with them, except hire some one to watch them for 

 me. Mrs. T. M. Squihb. 



Redding, Ct., May 23, 188!. 



Well, I thought at first it would be a pretty 

 hard matter, my friend, to tell you how to 

 manage an apiary while you were in school ; 

 but you can certainly do as we do, — raise 

 queens, and sell bees by the pound. This is 

 certainly a most effectual way to prevent 

 swarming, and it is a pretty good way to pre- 

 vent wintering too. I don't know that it 

 would do to ask Doolittle to help solve your 

 problem, for he stays home from church 

 swarming time. I presume if he were a 

 school-teacher he would stay home from 

 school every day ; and I am not sure but I 

 should too. 



WHAT WILL LESS THAN ONE POUND OF BEES DO 

 ON THE FOURTH OF .TOLY ? 



The question has often been, what a pound of bees 

 will do in a season. I can not tell what a pound of 

 bees will do, but I can tell what less than that many 

 bees did for me in 1879 -the poorest season I have 

 ever seen in the twenty years I have kept bees. In 

 the month of March I found one of my swarms was 

 queenless, but it had a queen-cell which hatched in 

 good time. She proved a drone-layer. What be- 

 came of her I do not know ; but by the first of May 

 they were again queenless. The hive filled with 

 drones, and, the few workers that still stayed in the 



hive growing less every day until the 16th of June, 

 I then put a qvieen-cell In the hive, and one card 

 sparsely filled with worker brood capped over. Oq 

 the 4th of July I opened the hive; there was the 

 queen and the workers, a handful in all; the drones 

 all gone, and no brood. They now went to work for 

 several days. There seemed to be but one bee that 

 worked, but she did her very best. By the first of 

 August there was quite a colony at work. In the 

 fall, when I packed them, they weighed 71! i lbs.; 

 came through the winter strong and good; I expect 

 they will swarm everyday; am now watching them 

 from the window while I write. In packing bees for 

 winter I take off the cloth and put the crate that 

 holds the sections or empty boxes under the cover, 

 early enough for the Itees to make all tight — always 

 keeping them on their summer stands, about four 

 inches from the ground on the lowest side, and six 

 on the highest. Alzaida. 



Or Letters from Those Who have Mpido 

 Bee Culture a Failure. 



^ to Canada. 



LL my 23 colonies dead but one — on my road 



)anada. Oh! say, friend Root, I nearly 



forgot! Can't you send me a present of a 



nice colony? You are a pretty clever old "felly," I 

 think. If you do, be sure to send a good one. Don't 

 get huffy — you know we must ask if we receive, 

 and knock before the door will be opened. 



John Baker. 

 Saxonburg, Butler Co., Pa., May 11, 1881. 



You are right, friend 1>. I am real glad 

 to know you do want some more bees, and I 

 really think you ought to have them ; but 

 after studying some over the matter, I am 

 convinced that God sees it will do you and 

 me both more good to go to work and earn 

 them, than to have him give them to us 

 without such effort. It just occurs to me. 

 that there is another reason why I should 

 not give you one. I have so many friends 

 in the same boat as yourself, it would make 

 me a poor man; and then, I lost about all 

 my own too. Why, come to think of it, I 

 have as many excuses to offer as the woman 

 who would not lend her tub. She said it 

 was broken, leaked, and was full of water; 

 besides that, she hadn't any, and wanted to 

 use it herself. 



Your card received. Thank you for your kind 

 M'ords, but my bees are dead. I don't know of any 

 more in this county, yet there may be more. I have 

 sown some white clover a friend sent me, and when 

 it blooms I will often think of bees, and will, if I am 

 able, try them again. J. B. Harris. 



Plum Creek, Neb., May 15, 1881. 



I thought a few lines from this locality concern- 

 ing bees would be of interest to bee-keepers, so here 

 it is. Box stands for box hives; G. P., Gallup 

 frames. L. for Langstroth. 



LAST FALL. SPRING. LAsf I'ALL. 



S. Foi-st, in a. V. I L. Fossey, 



B. Brink, 

 K. Llovd, X< 

 ^V. Snow, 11 

 >".F. CoMi-pll ',1 

 Total 



A. Whaley, 



I H. Pomeroy, 



I S. Cotti-ell, 



SPRING. 



« (1. V. 



ft Bo.\- 



3 G. F. 



1 Box 



Payette, Ohio, June 7, 1881. 



170 30 

 N. E. COTTRELL. 



