1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



873 



WHAT DO QUEEN-BREEDERS KNOW OF THEIR 



STOCK? 



A queen-breeder, to receive and deserve 

 the confidence and patronage of bee-keep- 

 ers, should have some reliable data concern- 

 ing the length of life of his bees and the 

 Quantity and quality of the honey they pro- 

 duce. How many really know any thing 

 about these points? 



THE ALEXANDER BEE-HAT. 



I used a hat made on this principle some 

 years ago, and I have tried and observed 

 them at various times since as I have seen 

 them in use by other bee-keepers, but I can 

 not say that I like them. Such a hat is 

 substantial, and a good protection against 

 stings, besides being cool and airy, but in 

 general convenience and comfort it is far 

 behind a good veil of netting. 



GREASE TO PREVENT PROPOLIS-DAUBING. 



Do not neglect to try greasing your fin- 

 gers at times when the propolis is soft and 

 sticky, and inclined to daub up every thing 

 it touches. You may think you would rather 

 have the propolis than be bothered with the 

 grease. I thought so once. All I ask of 

 you is that you try it. Probably any grease 

 will do. Vaseline is good. I have used 

 mutton tallow largely, just because I had 

 plenty of it. 



WHEN YOU SPILL YOUR NAILS. 



Speaking of small wire nails, what a nui- 

 sance it is to spill a lot of them, especially 

 if they fall into rubbish or grass! Very 

 often it will cost all they are worth to pick 

 them up and keep them clean. At such 

 times a little magnet is a handy thing to 

 have. A magnet that you can buy for ten 

 or fifteen cents will pick them up quicker 

 than you could do it any other way, and they 

 will be perfectly free from the sawdust or 

 other rubbish they may have fallen into. 



GET RID OF CROSS BEES. 



Weed out the cross stock. Often there 

 are only two or three really cross colonies in 

 a large apiary, and by getting rid of these 

 you will be able to work much more com- 

 fortably and rapidly. I do not mean simply 

 those that are cross when being examined— 

 that is, when you have their hive open— but 

 those that are ready to attack you as soon 

 as you enter the apiary, and which hover 

 around just in front of your nose all the 



time you are at work there. Sometimes it 

 is a little difficult to determine whence they 

 come, but usually a little observation will 

 enable you to tell from which hive they 

 come. When foimd, make a note on it, 

 and give them a new queen at the earliest 

 opportunity. 



CLEANING HONEY-BOARDS. 



The bees are sometimes inclined to fill up 

 the perforations of queen- excluding zinc 

 when used as a honey-board, especially if left 

 on in the fall when no honey is coming in. 

 To clean out this wax and propolis, lay 

 the honey-board out in the sun, on the hot 

 ground, or on a dark-colored board; and 

 when the wax is softened thoroughly, scrape 

 both sides with a sharp metal or wood 

 scraper. For the wood-zinc boards, this 

 must be narrow enough to go easily between 

 the slats. The metal scraper is best; but in 

 the absence of that a piece split from a 

 broken section will do very good work. Run 

 it rapidly back and forth, first on one side 

 and then on the other, and you will be as- 

 tonished to see how it will take the wax and 

 propolis out of the perforations without go- 

 ing down into them. Keep the scraper per- 

 pendicular to the surface of the zinc. 

 J0 



SMALL WIRE NAILS. 



Do you keep on hand plenty of wire nails 

 of assorted sizes? Nothing will add more to 

 the convenience of the wood worker than 

 nails that are just suited to the job on hand. 

 I frequently see people using nails that are 

 several times as large as they should be to 

 secure good results, while a less common 

 fault is to use a nail so small that it does 

 not make substantial work. Very often 

 this is simply because they have not learned 

 the convenience of having nails that are just 

 right, but sometimes it is because they can 

 not readily get them. When I began to use 

 wire nails 1 had to send to The A. I. Root 

 Co. for even the ordinary sizes. Then the 

 hardware men began keeping the common 

 sizes used in carpentering; but for several 

 years in that Illinois city of 10,000 I could 

 not buy the smaller sizes, because they said 

 they could not afford to carry them in stock 

 because there was no demand for them. 

 Before I left there, though, I could biy al- 

 most any size of wire nail in bulk. Now the 

 same process must be gone through here, 

 Although nails are used here by the carload, 

 the smaller sizes are not handled to any ex- 

 tent, just because they are not demanded 

 yet. 



THE SEASON UP TO DATE. 



In writing any thing to be published at an 

 unknown time in the future, the matter 

 sometimes gets out of date before it is 

 printed. I predicted early swarms on ac- 

 count of the cleome that was beginning to 

 appear at the time I wrote. The swarming 

 season is practically all over at this time, 

 and there was not as much of it as was ex- 



