880 



GLEANINGS IN i3EE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



so straight. The prayer is answered, and we 

 caii lill almost any kiiid of an order yon may 

 send ; and besides that, I am well and stronj;'. 

 'I'he braiu-work has not hnrt me a i)article. 

 J 'lease do not think I am boasting or adver- 

 tising, for I wish and expect you to take this 

 great industry off my hands. I have opened 

 ihe way, and J wish' you to •■ go in and pos- 

 sess tlie land,'' to succeed and prosper. I 

 am to edit (tleaxixus; and to help me do 

 this is the purpose and end of my apiary. 

 ^Vhen you take the trade out of niy hands, 

 and sni)plythe demand for bees, I shall have 

 room to try raising honey, as I used to a tew 

 years ago." 



Jidfi []fh.— In buying swarms of bees by 

 the pound, we have been a little curious to 

 learn how much a natural swarm of bees 

 "would weigh, and the heaviest we bought 

 last year was about 7 lbs. AN'ell, a few days 

 ago neighbor Clark brought us a swarm of 

 hybrids, that he said he guessed weighed 

 about 18 lbs. 1 suggested he had put several 

 swarms together, but he insisted that it was 

 Just one swarm and no more ; when weighed, 

 they actually did show ch-Ka and iln-ci- 

 J'm(rih.'< lbs. As a sort of curiosity, I put 

 them into a two-story Simplicity, furnished 

 with 20 Avired frames of fdn." The next 

 morning I was ui) and in front of the hive, 

 about daylight. Under the inspiration of 

 the moment, I placed the hive on the bee- 

 hive scale, and before night of -Inly 7th they 

 had gained s lbs. The next day, July Sth, 

 they showed the astonishing record on the 

 dial, of 18^r lbs. as their day's work. Of 

 course, they built out the fdn. at the same 

 time. As the basswood season began to ap- 

 proach its close, just here the amount is 

 now tapering off eaVh day ; for on the itth 

 they gathered only s lbs., (i on the lOtti. and 

 to-day, the 11th, lean perceive a slight dis- 

 ])osition in the bees to rob. 



25//;.— Our apiary now numbers 81U colo- 

 nies. Since the 12th, we have had to use the 

 mosijuito-bar tents almost constantly, or the 

 robbers would dive down into each iiive the 

 very miinite it was opened. In a large apia- 

 ry like this they very soon learn to follow 

 the operator constantly, and unless the ut- 

 most care be used, trouble will come in the 

 shape of robbing that is no triflng matter. 

 Even with the tents they have got a habit 

 of pouncing on the entrance of every hive 

 just as soon as the tent is removed ; and un- 

 less the stock is a i)retty fair one, and the 

 entrance duly contracted, they would be 

 used up pretty shortly. I believe we have 

 had no case of robbing this season, so far, 

 which speaks pretty well for -lohn. All or- 

 ders for bees are tilled to date, and the last 

 order for dollar ([ueens will be sent off to- 

 morrow, nothing preventing. We have been 

 l)retty badly behind on queens a part of the 

 time, — at one time having orders on the 

 books for 150. We have had one lot of im- 

 ])orted (jueens from Italy this season : but 

 our friend Charley Bianconcini did not seem 

 to have his usual success in getting them 

 through alive. We are daily expecting an- 

 other' invoice. I can not yet answer the 

 question as to wliicli race of bees is best, 

 Cyprian, Holy-Land, or Italian. I feel pret- 

 ty sure the iloly-Lands excel iu the rapid 



production of brood, and therefore in bees; 

 but they are not, as a general thing, quite as 

 large as the others, aiid 1 am not sure tliey 

 gather as much honey. The Cyprians are 

 as large as the Italians, and perhaps a little 

 handsomer; that is, they show full yellow 

 bands, and are what almost anybody would 

 call nice Italians. The com})laint made, 

 that they are cross, I do not believe belongs 

 to all of the Cyprians. Those we had last 

 fall were very gentle, while those from the 

 (jueen I purchased of friend Hayhurst are as 

 nervous and touchy as almost any hybrids 

 you ever saw. We have ordered of friend 

 Jones both Cyprian and Holy-Land queens 

 this season, but he has as yet sent us none, 

 nor have I heard of his sending any to any 

 one. 



RAISING BEES IN A GREEMIOI SE. 



CAN AVE RAISE BEES EARLY IN THE SPRING, IRRE- 

 SPECTIVE OF THE WEATHER? 



OE^'ERAJ.,of the friends will remember 

 O^ what I said last spring on this subject, 

 ' and many of our older readers will re- 

 member the experiments I have made in 

 years gone by. Well, those who have fol- 

 lowed the matter can tell with what eager- 

 ness i read the following letter:— 



Last year I was givfu a hall'-intercst in a swarm of 

 Italian bees that swarmed, and which 1 had the g'ood 

 fortune to keep from s'oing awa}-. I tried to hive 

 them and was snccesslul. Tlicy were a late swarm, 

 some time in July. Parties said they would not live. 

 A neighbor who had 10 hives of bees told me so. 

 However, when eool fall weather came in December, 

 1 thought 1 would keep them if possible; so I moved 

 them into my warm jrreenhouse, set them upon a 

 high shelf, built e.xpressly for them. That was on 

 the ")th day of Dscember. 1 kept them there, and 

 left the hive open so they could fly whenever they 

 wanted to, and there the}' stood luitil the middle of 

 .April. Then 1 set them out on their summer stands. 

 I looked into the hive, which is sectional; I think 

 they had about 10 lbs. left after wiiUering: did not 

 get .'yi deail bv^es the entire winter. Last week they 

 swarmed. I caught them, put them in a hive that 

 had lieen used, and found the iiueen. I clipped her 

 wing-s; in an hour they came out. I looked, and 

 found the "old lady" in the grass; but before I 

 found her the bees had all gone back into the old 

 house hive. I put her in with them this morning; 

 they came out again, cut the same caper, and went 

 back again. What 1 want to know is, how to swarm 

 bees artificially. I saw your advertisement of ABC 

 for beginners in the bee business, and I should be 

 glad to receive a copy of the work to enlighten me 

 on bees. The man that said my bees would not live 

 over winter lost 15 hives of bees himself out of 16. 

 So much for his judgment in that case. 



W. J. Kii»i). 



Logansport, Cass Co , Ind., June 7, 1881. 



I immediately sent him a complete A 15 C. 

 with the following letter:— 



We send you a whole book, friend K., and for pay I 

 want you to tell me if those bees flew in the green- 

 house, and went back into their hive again, without 

 Hying against the glass, and dying. If 1 had time, I 

 would gi all the way out there to find out about it. 



