826 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



BEE-KEEPING IN THE STATE OF WASHINGTON. 



In reply to the query of E. J. Johnson, p. 

 442, 1 would state that I have lived in Clarke 

 Co., in the southwestern part of Washington, 

 for nearly thirty years, and to the best of 

 my knowledge there is no one in the bee- 

 keeping business exclusively, it being prin- 

 cipally carried on by the farmers who own 

 a few colonies apiece, usually not more than 

 twenty; and when they use a hive that is 

 recognizable as such it is usually of the 

 Langstroth eight or ten frame size. 



Our principal honey- plants, I believe, are 

 white and alsike clover, a low scrubby bush 

 called here buck- brush, which has a small 

 bell-shaped pink flower, followed by a round 

 berry which is white when ripe; willow, the 

 soft and vine maples; fruit-bloom, and, in 

 the wilder parts, fire weed. In the eastern 

 part of the State there are alfalfa, sweet- 

 clover, catnip, and horehound. Besides the 

 above-named flowers there are numerous 

 other varieties of lesser importance, but in 

 no part is the quantity large enough to war- 

 rant extensive bee- keeping. 



In regard to the fir-trees it was only once, 

 several years ago, that I noticed the bees 

 gathering what was apparently an exudation 

 from the trees, and I believe it was only 

 from the white firs that it was gathered; 

 and the grade of honey produced was un- 

 salable, being of a dark resinous nature, 

 and partly candied, or, rather, granulated, 

 when it came off the hives. This, I believe, 

 was the result of a very dry time when 

 there was little or no nectar obtainable from 

 the usual sources. John B. Addison. 



Washougal, Wash. 



honey in the brood-nest when running 

 for comb or extracted honey. 

 On p. 84 W. K. Morrison says, even where 

 extracted honey is run for in the orthodox 

 manner, there is too much honey in the 

 brood- nest and too much swarming. Wheth- 

 er I run my apiary in a correct manner in 

 Mr. Morrison's estimation or not, I find my 

 colonies of bees that I run for extracted 

 honey just opposite the statement he has 

 made above. I use the Langstroth frame in 

 the brood- chamber, and queen-excluder 

 above. I find those I extract from do but 

 little swarming, and that the brood- chamber 

 has been so filled up during the breeding sea- 

 son with brood that there is but little honey 

 for winter. It is all stored in the extracting- 

 frames above, and I have to hold in reserve 

 full extracting- frames of honey for their 

 winter use; and he says it is needless to say 

 the conditions are worse when comb honey 

 is sought for. The bees keep piling in hon- 

 ey in brood- combs till actually the colony 

 dwindles to a mere handful of bees. I can 

 not see where his shallow-frame hives are 

 going to prevent them from dwindling, for 

 the more young bees we have the less the 

 death-rate. They must have plenty of room 

 to rear brood if they are strong colonies, 

 and we must have strong colonies when the 

 honey-flow comes if we get a good yield of 



honey; and I believe it is generally admitted 

 that it is not the shallow hive that winters 

 best in our nothern climate on the summer 

 stand. 



I have found nothing that has been better 

 for my use than the Langstroth frames, and 

 ten of them in a hive; but the next thing of 

 great importance is a prolific queen— one 

 that will keep these frames full of brood, 

 and I have not found any better than a Car- 

 niolan queen to do it. 



Harrison, Ohio. J, G. Creighton. 



IS it necessary for a queen- breeder to 



HAVE A LARGE NUMBER OF IM- 

 PORTED BREEDERS? 



The Chambers cell-building hive may be 

 all right, but why all this multitude of im- 

 ported queens? It seems to me useless 

 when he can get the number of queens de- 

 sired just as well from one or two as from 

 fifteen, and certainly home-raised queens 

 are just as good as imported, for cell- build- 

 ing; and if the imported is kept in a small 

 mating- box, such as I use, it is as handy, or 

 more so, than to have a large hive to look 

 over for larvae of the right age to graft 

 with. Also, he will find the wear and tear 

 will be much less on his breeder than if kept 

 in a large hive with a full colony. All I do 

 when I want to start a lot of cells is, four 

 days before, to put a clean card of worker 

 comb in with my breeder, and I have larvae 

 just as I want them in a small, convenient 

 frame to handle, and of the right age to 

 graft without a hunt all over a large frame 

 for what I want, as I sometimes have to do. 



Hartford, Conn. A. W. Yates 



HOW SOME people HANDLE BEES. 



The outlook for the bee industry in these 

 parts is not encouraging, because of the 

 great losses in bees. This loss is due to the 

 short honey crop and to careless methods in 

 handling. Our surplus honey is gathered 

 from white clover, and is principally gather- 

 ed in June; and by the slipshod method of 

 handling bees here they are seldom in condi- 

 tion to store any surplus honey. The sea- 

 sons of 1903 and 1904 were good for surplus 

 honey, and everybody was buying bees and 

 going into the business, thinking all the 

 knowledge necessary for handling bees was 

 to know how to hive them and take off the 

 surplus honey. To give an idea of the way 

 some parties handle bees in this locality I will 

 give a brief description. This includes a 

 majority of the bee-keepers of these parts. 

 They leave the colonies on the summer stand 

 all winter without any protection, with the 

 super on filled with sections. A great many 

 use the old box hive, and think it superior 

 to the frame hive; and a great many of those 

 who use the frame hive never look inside nor 

 make any effort to control swarming. It is 

 even no uncommon thing to hear bells and 

 pans rattling during the swarming period. 



Republic, Mo. Geo. W. Bryant. 



