49U 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CtJLTURE. 



Oct. 



the Simpson. Can't you get the raikoatl 

 company to let yon set out the plants and 

 cultivate them ? The early variety I have 

 several times spoken of can easily be made 

 to fill the gap between fruit-blossoms and 

 clover. — We often have the experience with 

 queens you mention, and I would much rath- 

 er havetwo queens in a hive than none, and 

 so we put in a queen-cell, in all doubtful 

 cases.— Thanks for your hint on the buck- 

 wheat. The trouble is. that, with our many 

 lines of business, I can not remember who 

 has made me good offers ; and in the case 

 you gave, when I made you the offer I prob- 

 ably had all the seed it seemed I should be 

 able to sell. When a *' run '' came for it, 

 and we were out, your offer was forgotten. 

 We now have a book containing the name of 

 everything we deal in, and of whom we buy. 

 AVhen some one makes us an offer, we go to 

 this book. The book is large, and we "have 

 had trouble already to so arrange it alpha- 

 betically that we can turn to the desired ar- 

 ticle instantly. I don't think it was wicked 

 at all for you to smile : why did you not 

 " smile '" right back, on a postal card? 



MONEV-BOARDS vs. €H[.%.FIi" CUSHIONS, 



ETC. 



fHAVE not lost a single swarm in the winter for 

 four years. First, as soon as the hees are done 

 ' gathering- good honey from basswood, I weigh 

 or examine all swarms; and if any of them do not 

 ebntaia honey enough, I feed them good honey un- 

 til they do. Next, before cold weather sets in I raise 

 up the slats which cover the holes in the honey- 

 board, and with a narrow knife-blade remove the 

 little bits of comb on top of the frames, being sure 

 to remove it from between the frames when there 

 is any, thus giving a little passage between all the 

 combs where one did not pi-e\'iously exist. Now, 

 when they are set in the cellar I remove the slats 

 from the two front holes in the honey-board; place 

 the super over them, and then let them alone until 

 spring; still, about the middle of winter I raise up 

 one end of the super about an inch, and let it re- 

 main so for the purpose of giving them more air. I 

 put nothing in the super, because I believe the air 

 will carry off the moisture from the bees much bet- 

 ter than anything else; neither (and this is what I 

 consider an important point in wintering) do I loos- 

 en the honey-board after it gets so late that the bees 

 can not glue it on again. I would not do it for much 

 less than the price of the swarm. I believe that re- 

 moving the honey-board, or substitute thereof, al- 

 lows too great an escape of the heat from the bees; 

 because they want a little upward ventilation, it 

 does not follow that they want the roof of their 

 house torn off. 



And now a word about honey-boards. If I am not 

 badly mistaken, wood is the greatest non-conductor 

 of heat of anj' thing that we can place over our 

 bees. I would not exchange a good pine honey- 

 board for all the chaff that ever grew in the West. 

 I believe that a swarm of bees can be exposed to 

 too much cold in a cellar by removing the honey- 

 board, and so allowing the heat from the bees to be 

 constantly escaping. I use the Langstroth hive. 



Nelson Hubbard. 



South Strafford, Vt., July, 1881. 



(Juite a number of our neighbors winter 



bees in the old-style L. hive, with honey- 

 boa^-d, right out on their summer stands ; 

 and as several small apiaries came through 

 with scarcely more than their usual loss, in 

 this way. it "can not be so very reckless, aft- 

 er all. They uncover a few of the holes in 

 the honey-board, right over the cluster, and 

 that is alf. I feel pretty sure that it is a bad 

 thing to break the honey-board loose, late in 

 the fall, and I am inclined to think this is 

 one thing that caused so many to die where 

 queens were introduced late in the fall. Sta- 

 tistics liave shown very decided advantages 

 in chaff hives : but I think they might per- 

 haps do just as well, if the cushion in the 

 upper story were omitted, and a board with 

 a few holes in put in its place. This is to be 

 done, of course, before cold weather sets in. 

 The number of openings, very likely, should 

 be governed by the strength of the colony. 



CAliIFORNIA. 



IS IT r.EALLV so MUCH AHEAD OF US, AFTER ALT,? 



/P]; LEANIXGS for this month came to hand, and 

 tiSf ^ ^^ike great pleasure in reading the letters of 

 ^"^ the different correspondents, and have sonie 

 good laughs in comparing the different modes of 

 wintering, for they are all new to the amateur bee- 

 keepers on this coast. 



I think there would be but few going iiUo the bee 

 business here had they to build cellars to put their 

 bees in, or go to the trouble of packing in chaff, saw- 

 dust, old cirpct, etc., to save their bees; that is too 

 much like work; and to go into winter-quarters 

 with fifty or sixty stands of bees, and come out in 

 the spring with only one-half, is rather discourag- 

 ing. Here we place our hive on the stand, and it re- 

 mains there without any protection, summer and 

 winter. But we have our setbacks in this country 

 as well as j'ou in the East, and perhaps lose as many 

 bees on account of drougth as you do from freezing. 

 The last few years have been very tmcertain; we 

 can count only on every other year for a honey crop. 



In 1879 I had 1;.'5 stands; the spring opened finely. 

 In February the willow was in bloom, and the bees 

 breeding i:p strong. In March there was a world of 

 bloom, and the bees gathering honey in April. I ex- 

 tracted from the colonies, and had my bees in good 

 shape, and there was a good prospect of a large hon- 

 ey crop. The first of May we had a few days of hot 

 north-east winds, which blasted all the bloom; the 

 bees killed off the drones, and went into winter- 

 quarters with but little honey. The consequence 

 was, in the spring of 1880 I had only 30 stands alive 

 out of 133, and most of my neighbors were in the 

 same boat. I know you will say, "Why did you not 

 feed?" But we did not all the same, but think we 

 will the next time. You would have laughed to see 

 your old friend Wilkin traveling around with his 

 wagon loaded with bee-hives, hunting for a good lo- 

 cation, and he, was not the only one that had to 

 " boosker." 



I started in the spring of 1890 with 30 weak stands; 

 the year proved to be a splendid one. In the fall I had 

 80 strong stands, and had extracted over nine tons 

 of honey. That is a pretty good yield from thirty 

 stands, so you see what can be done with bees in a 

 good year in this country. But this year is almost 

 as bad as 1879. There was plenty of bloom, but no 

 honey. There are a great many who have not taken 



