1881 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



527 



good strong colony, and concluded to work that for 

 extracted honey. We will give the readers the re- 

 sult from this one, so they can see the source from 

 which our honey came, and the yield:— 



Willow, b'.i lbs.; apple, I'J?*; white clover, 58}4; 

 tiasswood, 97; teasel and red clover, 233 lbs. Total, 

 413 lbs. We also worked a small apiary of 15 stoclcs 

 a mile or so from home, and obtained from them 

 874 lbs. of box honey and 14C0 of extracted, giving 

 3274 lbs. in all, or 151'/2 lbs. average to the colony. 



One thing we noticed with pleasure, which was, 

 that our colonies gave nearly an equal yield per 

 hive. This is what I have been breeding for for the 

 past few years, hoping to obtain like results from 

 all, and not have one stock in the yard give a large 

 yield, and another nothing. When we, as apiarists 

 of America, can bring our bees up to such a stand- 

 ard of excellence that all C(il(jnics.will produce an 

 equal amount of honey, and said amount bo as 

 large as that produced by our very best colony of a 

 few years ago, we shall have no further need of im- 

 porting stock, for Apig Amciicana will be the best 

 bee in the world. - G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1881. 



GETTING A LAYING QUEEN FROM EACH 

 NUCLEUS ONCE IN 10 DAYS, AND IN- 

 CREASING 1 L.K. OF BEES TO 5 

 COLONIES IN ONE SEASON. 



CAN ALL OF THE ABC CLASS DO IT EVEKY TIME ? 



^fMHE friends will please imagine that we are sit- 

 JSjj ting on the blue grass, under the elm-tree, 

 near our apiary. As the young bees are gaily 

 sporting in the warm October sunshine, and the 

 workers are busily carrying in the pollen and a lit- 

 tle honey from smartweed and goldenrod, we will, 

 as pleasantly, examine October Gleanings. As our 

 time is short, we will notice only two items. 



First, here is friend Hutchinson, who has some- 

 thing to say about certain very cheap nucleus hives, 

 in which he finds a laying queen once in about ten 

 days. Now look here, friend H. ; if that is the way 

 you do, I have got to scratch around and see what is 

 the matter, for I can not begin to do it in our yard. 

 How do you manage it? Don't your bees ever kill 

 any virgin queens, or tear down the queen-cells 

 "ready to hatch" that you sometimes give them? 

 Do your queens never get lost in mating? and do 

 they always begin to lay before the tenth day, so as 

 to have time to leave a few eggs to keep up the 

 strength of the colony? 



I used to think that I could successfully intro- 

 duce newly hatched queens to small nucleus hives, 

 almost every time, and at the same time that I re- 

 moved their laying queen; but I did not do it this 

 past summer, and I had to (or thought 1 did) adopt 

 the rule of leaving them queenless three or four 

 days before offering a stranger; and even then I 

 would occasionally lose a queen. 



Neighbor H. makes an experiment which is emi- 

 nently successful. He takes a pound of bees in 

 May, gives them a few empty combs, and, by and by, 

 some pans of sugar syrup. By the last of Septem- 

 ber they have increased to 5 fair colonies in good or- 

 der for winter. 



Some of the enthusiastic ABC class who, by the 

 way, need to be curbed in a little, want to know if 

 those bees increased to so great an extent with the 

 help only of the few combs first given, and the pans 



of syrup fed indiscriminately, or were they guided 

 and helped all through the long dry hot summer by 

 the active brain and skillful hand of a thorough bee- 

 master who fed them just right, gave them com- 

 plete combs when needed, also queens from another 

 apiary? In other words, may these inexperienced 

 friends expect to do half or even one-fourth as well? 



Please stand up. Neighbor H., and tell us all 

 about it. You see, you and I hope to sell these ABC 

 friends a great many pounds of bees next summer, 

 and we do not want them to lose money; neither do 

 we want our bees to suffer by the mistakes of our 

 customers. Hence I think it would be a good plan 

 for you to tell them just what to do with their bees. 

 Do it now, that they may have plentj' of time to 

 study the matter tho^oughlJ^ E. M. Hayhukst. 



Kansas City, Mo., Oct., 1S81. 



May I not speak a little first, friend Ilay- 

 hurst? Perhaps 1 sliould explain to our 

 readers, that I put the liead and sub-head on 

 this article, and I also wrote about what 

 Neighbor H. Iiad done with a single pound 

 of bees. Well, I would say, for friend 

 Hutchinson, that I thinlc he did not intend 

 to say he could get a queen in ten days on 

 the average, but that it happened he did 

 once or twice with those little liives. 1 know 

 pretty well that both he and 2s"eighbor H. 

 have their share of bad luck. Now about 

 Neighbor II. 's pound of bees. He said he 

 was going to increase them to five colonies, 

 and I bantered him so much about it that it 

 stirred him up to an unusual degree of de- 

 termination. They are not wintered yet, 

 and if you had not Avritten your piece, I am 

 afraid they never would have been, all of 

 them. If you want to know Avhether it does 

 Neighbor II. good to stir him up now and 

 then or not, just ask his wife. Now he may 

 answer the rest. 



neighbor h.'s STony about " that pound op 

 bees." 



As friend Hayhurst requests me to stand up and 

 tell all about that pound of bees, I will arise. On 

 the 15th of May I put up a pound of bees to ship. 

 The weather was very warm; white-clover honey 

 was coming in very fast; they got daubed with hon- 

 ey, and when I got to the factory they weie all in 

 the bottom of the cage nearly suffocated. I put 

 them in a chaff hive on empty combs in Mr. Root's 

 apiary. They were Italian bees, but I put a tested 

 Holy-Land queen with them, more for the purpose 

 of showing the bees to visitors than any thing else. 

 I also gave them two frames of new honey, mostly 

 unsealed. I covered them with the winter chaff 

 cushion, and then left them severely alone for 

 about a month, when I divided them first.* And 

 here is where the trick commences. There were 7 

 frames of brood. I took all the hatching and sealed 

 brood and the queen for the new swarm, leaving the 

 eggs and larva? to rear queen-cells from. When T 

 rear queen-cells 1 always like to feed the colony. I 

 have fed $11.00 worth of sugar and $3.00 worth of 

 honey. I have raised from that queen over 100 

 queen-cells and two laying queens, and have given 

 the five two laying queens from the other apiary. 



Medina, O., Oct. 26, 1881. Neighbor H. 



*JIr. Root asked me how many swarms I coulil make, and 1 

 said five; he laughed, but I have the five. 



