1881 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



;:589 



ed six times, and it is now full. I will tell j'ou how I 

 increase so fast. I put full stories over strong stocks, 

 and give them fdn.; in two days this is drawn out 

 ready for the queens to lay. I now divide upper 

 and lower stories equally, making two hives, having 

 t he old hi ve on the same stand. I no w go to my two- 

 frame nucleus, and get a queen, and just let her 

 crawl right into the qucenless hive; in a few min- 

 utes I look through to see if the queen is all right. I 

 have lost only one out of 20 or more, and I sa^'e by 

 this plan, in one month, on 'M colonies, about 5 good 

 strong colonies. If you buy your queens you had 

 better not do this, or you might lose your dollar. 



If horsemint will do as well as it has this j'ear, and 

 could only last a couple of weeks longer, we could 

 all have honey. As I have received many letters in 

 regard to this State for honey, I will say, portions of 

 it can not be beat. On Chambers' Creek, in Ellis Co., 

 Dees do well nearly every year. Plenty of basswood 

 in Leon, Houston, Henderson, and nearly all the 

 eastern counties. I had a pleasant visit from Dan'l 

 Kcepler, Napoleon, O., net long since. 



, B. F. Carkoll. 



Dresden, Tex., June 10, 1881. 



TKIAI^S IN QUEEN-REARING. 



fjlRIEND NOVICE:— I am having so many strange 

 freaks in queen-rearing, that I have conclud- 

 "^ ed to report, and ask if others are having 

 such fun. Mrs. L. Harrison writes me for queens, 

 and says, "Something is taking my young queens 

 when they fly out to mate." I have had so much of 

 this kind of "biz," that it is worrying me. I lost 5 

 out of 1 in the fore part of the last week in June, 

 and have lost such a large per cent in this way, that 

 I dare not promise queens until I have them laying. 

 Have lost two in succession from ditferent nuclei. 

 This cuts a " feller's " nose off pretty fast, as he can 

 test a queen while he is getting one mated. Where 

 ray heaviest losses occur, the nuclei are from 13 to 

 20 feet apart, some facing east, some west, and some 

 south. 



Two days ago I opened a hive containing a cell, 

 and found a young queen in a ball of bees. As soon 

 as released she flew and alighted in the hive again. 

 There was but one young queen in that part of the 

 yard, and thinking she had come out and made a 

 mistake in going back, I carried her to her supposed 

 hive and released her again. She flew, and was seen 

 .no more. Further examinations showed that no 

 queen was missing. Where did she come from? 



A colony cast a swarm. The next day, I took a 

 laying queen and dropped her in the old hive; but 

 the bees did not treat her just right, so I put her in 

 a small cage and left her. Next day, I tore down 

 the cells and tried her again; but the bees did not 

 act right, so I put her in a Pcet cage, on a comb, 

 and waited another day, when I found her iu the 

 cage with quite a number of bees; but all was quiet. 

 I loosed the cage a little and shut up the hive. The 

 same day that I took her from the nuclevis I put a 

 hatching cell in her place, and the young queen was 

 accepted. The next morning, after looking at the 

 queen in the cage. I saw the young queen and sev- 

 eral bees, all dead at the entrance of the nucleus. 

 Looking for the cause, I found the old lady there as 

 quiet as if nothing had been going on. 



I have one colony with two queens — a mother and 

 daughter. The old lady is not doing a very big busi- 

 ness; perhaps 24 eggs per day. We have had too 



much rain for a good honey yield. Basswood is over, 

 and but little honey from it. Bees are gaining but 

 little now, as clover is past its heaviest bloom. 



S. A. Shuck. 

 Bryant, Fulton Co., 111., July 13, 1881. 



There may be kiiiK-birds or bee-martins 

 that take oft" your queens, friend S. ; 

 but I hardly think there is any thing annss 

 so bad as that. Once in awhile our (jueens 

 seem to get lost badly, and again every thing 

 will go on all right, and almost none will be 

 lost.' Stick to it, and be assured you will 

 get the upper hand of the difficulties event- 

 ually. It is alwavs a little risky, moving a 

 (lueen from one hive to another iu the same 

 apiary. They often step out and go home. 



^VINTERING WITHOUT POLLEN. 



FRIEND LANE'S IDEAS ON THE M.A.TTER. 



fDO not think, after all the reports that we have 

 from veterans and all, that we have found the 

 — ' road to successful wintering; but I think that 

 we are approaching it. I have been experimenting 

 on a small scale for the three past winters. I will 

 say right here that I always pack my bees in chaff 

 on summer stands (the more chaff the better.) I 

 find that the bees usually store more pollen around 

 the last brood in the fall (if they can get it) than at 

 any other season, filling the cell? three-fourths full, 

 flnishing with honey when the brood has hatched 

 and cold weather approaches; they use this empty 

 space to cluster on, uncapping and using the honey; 

 by the second week in January they have this all un- 

 capped; about this time the queen commences to 

 lay. If the winter is mild, the bees will use aU this 

 uncapped pollen to start brood-rearing; if very cold, 

 they have to consume it themselves; the result is 

 sickness and death, and the colder and damper the 

 interior of the hive, the more fatal the sickness. 

 The plan is, remove those pollen sheets and replace 

 them with solid combs of honey (I prefer buckwheat 

 and blackheart honey for this purpose.) 



In the spring, say as soon as bees will work on 

 flour in the open air, give them a comb containing 

 an abundance of pollen on each side of cluster, and 

 note the result of this plan of wintering. Friends, 

 please try a few colonies this winter on the above 

 plan, and report the result. My opinion is, that this 

 is the long-looked-for secret in wintering bees. 



S. H. Lane. 



Whitestown, Boone Co., Indiana, July 15, 1881. 



Our friend D. A. Jones reports, in the A. B. J. for 

 July 13th, that his losses during the past winter 

 were comparatively small. As nearly as I can get 

 at it, he had between six and seven hundred colonies. 



APIS uor:<.4ta found at last. 

 In the same No. of the A. B. J. mentioned above, 

 we have a letter of almost romantic, thrilling inter- 

 est, detailing how friend Benton has at last found 

 and captured swarms of Apis dorsata. Were it not 

 for its length, I should like to give it. He does not 

 at present report favorably in regard to them as 

 honey -gatherers. Strangely enough, the Youth'x 

 Comiianidn for Julylith also gives an account of 

 the methods of capturing Apis dorsata, with an en- 

 graving of the way in which the natives hunt and 

 capture them, mainly for the wax, throwing the 

 honey away. This was as far back as in 1857. Both 

 descriptions of the way the bees build on limbs, etc., 

 agree substantially. 



