424 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Sei'T. 



so other breeders have gone to using water in their 

 <iueen-cages, have they? How we all do sometimes 

 fall into the same groove, don't we, and at just 

 about the same time too? Postal cards are now 

 coming in thick and fast, and the best of it is, they : 

 all i-ead as follows: — 



■ ' yuffiis ciinu- til )iaii<l last Miglit in tine conilitinii Thanks 

 for prnmptuess. 



Some of my customers object to the painted wire 

 cloth upon queen-cages : and, as our hardware men 

 keep no other, I Innti off the paint. 



Akij- IJ.— a splendid raio. 



-Ik;/. 10. — Bees are brinjiing in their first buck- 

 wheat honey. 



-!((!/. 1;J. The apiary is just roaring every fore- 

 noon. I have just been up stairs, where I could 

 have the woods across the road as a background, 

 and I was astonished to see the mazy "criss-cross" 

 network that the bees made as they went aod came 

 from that two-and-a-half-mile-away forty-acre buck- 

 wheat field. 



NL'CLKl O.N STILTS. 



The nuclei in the Banner iipiary are all on "stilts," 

 and you have no idea how much easier and quicker 

 they can be "tended." For the benefit of a lady 

 reader of Gleaxixgs, who asks in a private letter 

 if I do not think that there is danger that the nu- 

 cleus hives may be blown off their stands, I will 

 say, that the hi\ es are nailed fast. 



EXTR.\-PUKE QUEENS. 



Atiij. 15.-Mr. M. B. Warner, of Cardiff, Oiion. Co., 

 N. Y., in a private letter to myself, says that friends 

 Doolittle and Bctsinger have, or have had, some 

 (luecns that were so pure that the queens reared 

 from their eggs would produce three-banded bees 

 whether they (the (lueens) had mated with Italian 

 or black drones. Mr. Warner says that he visited i 

 Doolittle a week or two ago, and friend D. told him i 

 that he (Doolittle) had two queens that he was reai- 

 iog queens from that would do this. Row is it, 

 friend D.? There is one thing about this matter 

 that puzzles me somewhat, and that is, liow we are j 

 to Inuiic how a queen has tnated, only as we judge by j 

 her progeny. 



Aud. 15.— The water-bottle in the queen-cages is 

 working finely. By using- a twtvdram vial, I have 

 succeeded in sending queens to both Texas and Cal- 

 ifornia. It seems that bees need to drink during 

 (hesehot days, just the same as other "folks" do. ' 

 W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Jtogersville, Genesee Co., Mich. 



Thanks, fiientl JI. : the queen came to 

 liaiid in line order. I am quite certain tha.t \ 

 painted wire cloth is jnst as good as any. 



A KEVIEAV OF HAYHIUST'S TEA- 

 PARTY. 



AS REPORTED IN .\UGrST GLE.^NINGS. 



^g^EFOKE brother Salisbury went to that party, 

 J*|ra he, it seems to me, had been reading the Dan- 



bury News man's wrestle with a stovepipe, or 



the Detroit Free Pirss' report of the police court, 

 and so he made himself merry at the expense of 

 Cyprian bees. 



As I have had two years' experience with Cyprian 

 bees, and now have 90 colonies of them, I would like 

 to "speak my little piece." 



The good points of the Cyprians are these: They 

 are very hardy, and stood the winter the best of an> 



bees I had. They are very prolific, and will breed up 

 early in the spring; they are not inclined to rob, and 

 will not let other bees rob them. They are great 

 honey-gatherers; work well on red clover, and at 

 this present tinte are filling their combs with red- 

 clover honey and pollen; and, lastly, they are the 

 best-natured bees I ever worked with. They will 

 never attack any one when their hive has not been 

 disturbed, mind their own business, and will not 

 buzz around your head when you are working with 

 another hive. I h&\e hitched my horse under a 

 shade tree within VZ feet of a colonj- of full-blood 

 Cyprians, and I never knew a bee to touch her; but 

 if you kick over their hive, as friend Hayhurst did, 

 they would be apt to pay you for it. The Cyprians 

 have come to this country, and they have come to 

 stay, and " don't yau forget it." NEionnou H. 

 Medina, O., Aug. 2:J, 1881. 



— -^•••^ 



NEIGHBOR H. 07i FEEDING BEES. 



THE "TIN-PAN" FEEUER. 



M, S September is the month when bees should be 

 Jl^\ fed, if they- need it, for winter, I will give my 



' way, even if it is old, for winter feeding. I 



dissolve 3 or 4 lbs. of granulated sugar in 2 lbs. of 

 water, and let it come to a boil ; if there is any scum, 

 take it off. Feed in the top of the hive, in a common 

 milk-pan, covered with a piece of chec^se cloth; 

 leave it loose enough so it will reach the bottom of 

 the pan when the bees take the syrup all out. Fix 

 it so the bees can not get under the cloth, and you 

 will not drown a bee. If j-ou boil j-our syrup, and 

 make it thick enough, the bees will seal it up the 

 same night they are fed; but if left thin, and dis- 

 solved in cold water, they will not seal it until the 

 water dries out in the hive. 



I have, within the past few days, had them empty 

 a pan in 5 hours. Tin pans cost only a dime, if you 

 do not happen to have as many in the house as are 

 needed, and you can hardly get a good feeder for 

 any less. Neiohbok H. 



Medina, ()., Aug. 2'2, 18S1. 



A REPORT FROIVI f.lNAIIA. , 



ALSO SOME HOPEfUL WORIJS KUOM -V YOUNG 

 FRIEND OF OURS. 



MjDlTOK (iLEANINGS:-You have ha<l no report 

 I from this part of Canada, to my knowledgei 

 aud as we intend to figure somewhat promi- 

 nently in the " bee-keeping" future, I will try to put 

 together a hurried report, to give you an idea of 

 what we are doing. 



Last season was much the same here as in other 

 localities; "onlyabout half an average;" there was 

 a good flow of huney in the latter part, however, and 

 bees went into winter-quarters in good condition, 

 and came through with little loss. Our original bee- 

 keeper in this immciiiate vicinity (who has kept bees 

 in a "sort" of way for about 20 years) wintered 30 

 colonies th? past winter, and sold down to 20 in the 

 spring; has made about 20^0 lbs., about one-third 

 comb hone.\ , and the rest extracted honey, and in- 

 creased to 6) by natural swarming. Another neigh- 

 bor commenced the season with 13; increased to -15, 

 and made 1500 lbs. extracted. My father wintered 11 

 out of 12; sold 2 in the spring: increased to 28, and 

 extracted nOd lbs. 



