718 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



■write long letters. At most, put only one or 

 two sentences on a postal card. It is a tre- 

 mendous job to review a big pile of corre- 

 spondence. 



If you are writing about other matters be 

 sure to put your bee report on a special slip 

 of paper or card so that our mailing clerk 

 can separate them. 



A. I. R. WORKING WITH BEES AGAIN. 



You will see by the editorials signed ' ' A. 

 1. R. " elsewhere that we have our senior 

 -editor working among the bees again. As 

 we are short of help 1 pressed him into ser- 

 "vice by telling him that we wanted him to 

 help our Mr. Pritchard to make up 50 baby 

 nuclei and drive back to the north yard. Do 

 not forget to read his story, as it is told 

 with his old-time enthusiasm. 



DEATH OF J. C. ACKLIN. 



Just as we go to press we have received 

 sad news of the sudden death of J. C. Ack- 

 lin at the hospital. No particulars have 

 been received at this writing. Mr. Acklin 

 was one of the most prominent bee keepers 

 and supply-dealers in the Northwest. He 

 was a lovable man, respected by all who 

 knew him best. His business will be han- 

 dled by Mrs. H. G. Acklin, as formerly. 

 Further particulars given in next issue. 



CAUCASIANS FOR QUEEN-REARING, GETTING 

 BEES FOR "TWIN HIVES," ETC 



I HAVE mentioned elsewhere that I took a 

 daughter of our Caucasian queen, reared 

 last fall in our Medina apiary, up to my place 

 in Michigan. This Caucasian daughter pro- 

 duced pretty well-marked Italians, indicat- 

 ing that she was crossed with an Italian 

 drone. Well, her bees left at Medina not 

 only started a great lot of queen-cells after 

 their queen was removed, but they have 

 been kept starting grafted cell cups ever 

 since, and are now at it to-day, six weeks 

 since the queen that was taken to Michigan 

 was removed. Mr. Pritchard, who has 

 charge of our basswood apiary, says they 

 are the best colony of bees he ever had to 

 make use of every grafted cell cup; and not 

 only that, they are so gentle to handle that 

 he never uses a smoker nor a veil; and I no- 

 ticed that in his hurry he crushed several 

 bees besides. It seems too bad to injure or 

 mutilate bees that are so good-natured they 

 do not resent it. I know about the plea that 

 a man's time is worth more than the life of 

 two or three bees in a colony of 40,000; but 

 for all that, I would have all my hives and 

 implements so it would not take a good deal 

 of time to avoid injaring even a single bee, 

 especially when I had one of these nice gen- 

 tle colonies that are such good honey-gath- 

 erers. 



Let me now digress a little. Just a week 

 ago yesterday. May 18, we purchased, ten 

 miles out in the country, forty colonies of 

 bees. We are to have just the bees and 

 combs— no hives. On the day I have men- 

 tioned we further transferred the bees into 

 two- story eight- frame hives, putting the 



brood-combs all into the upper story, above 

 a perforated zinc honey-board, and the queen 

 and bees all into the lower story, on frames 

 of foundation. Yesterday (just one week 

 after this transferring), Mr. Pritchard and 

 I went out with the automobile, carrying 24 

 twin nucleus hives. Our plan was to put 

 bees enough into each little twin hive from 

 this out-apiary. I said that it would be a 

 big half-day's work. My companion thought 

 that, with the arrangements he had made, 

 we could do it in two hours. Now, please 

 note that we did not have to hunt any queens, 

 for they were all below perforated zinc* in 

 the lower stories which were not molested. 

 We just had to take combs from the upper 

 story, and shake off the bees into 24 little 

 hives— two compartments in each hive, re- 



("/,<' 





F 



VHojccTio/y ,,My \^ 1 

 On top-bat? -^iU-M 



TWIN NUCLEUS HIVE. 



member. The little hives were first distrib- 

 uted through the apiary, one placed at the 

 side of each full hive. The covers were re- 

 moved so as to have every thing in readiness ; 

 then the enamel-cloth covering was turned 

 back, and a tin tunnel with square bottom 

 (just such as we used to use when we sold 

 bees by the pound) was placed over one 

 compartment of the nucleus hive. A little 

 smoke was puffed into the entrance to drive 

 the bees pretty well into the upper story; 

 then I loosened the cover while a little smoke 

 was puffed in so they would not sting too 

 bad. Mr. Pritchard picked out the first 



*The queen excluding zinc honey-boards fulfilled 

 their office so well that only one queen in the forty 

 hives was found in the upper story, and she might have 

 been put in there by some mistake when the transfer- 

 ring was first done. This is a better report from our 

 perforated zinc than I expected. 



