1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1377 



iu the cc-llar is all bosh. Is there the slightest 

 reason why a bee that has spent four months 

 in a nice irar)u. dry plaee. and is bright and 

 healthy, can not stand a siulden drop in the 

 temperature a good deal better than one 

 that has spent most of its vitality in keeping 

 warm? I saj-. no. and I shall put some out 

 when the first warm days of March come, 

 and leave them out. I wish others would 

 try a few and see how it works. Mind you, 

 I mean healthv ones. 

 East Blou]ufield, N. Y. 



[Having read over very carefully all you 

 say, I do not see very much in your general 

 philosophy to criticise, on the subject of 3 

 change of air. Indeed, I think I can agree 

 with most of your propositions if not all of 

 them. 



In quoting Mr. Hutchinson I did not mean 

 to say that he was the first or only advocate 

 of early setting in. I merely referred to 

 him as being the most prominent advocate 

 of the practice at^he time. — Ed.] 



DARK-GREEN HONEY. 



VV^ill you kindly tell me whence came my 

 dai'k-green honey? The time of this houey- 

 llow was the latter part of July, at about the 

 height of the linden l)lossom: and I had sup- 

 posed that they were the source, but I noticed 

 iu the Aug. loth Gleanings your report of 

 I he clear white houey you cut from your lit- 

 tle hives, and I concluded that I was wrong. 

 The amount gathered of the green honey 

 was large — as, for example, in 75 lbs. extract- 

 ed from 3 hives there was about 62 lbs. of the 

 green honey; the remainder was like that of 

 earlier in the season — clear amber yellow. 

 Tlie fiavor of the dark-green honey is very 

 delicious — better than any except the apple- 

 Ijlossom honey of the very early part of the 

 sea.son. My neighbor, with 20 hives, has 

 about the same proportion also. 



Boston, Mass. Art. Stone. 



[The honey from sweet clover has a slight- 

 ly gi-eeuish tinge, but not a "dark green." 

 It is p'issil)le your bees might have gathered 

 the honey in question from this source. 

 When mixetl with other honey, sweet clover 

 lias a very tine fiavor, and might Ije classed 

 tjy some as quite green, and by others as 

 only slightly so. I c*an scarcely conceive of 

 any honey being a dark green unless the 

 bees gathered consideral)le Paris green that 

 had been used as a spray; but in that case 

 the honev. of course, would be poisonous. — 

 Ed.] 



BUILDING UP A WEAK COLONY IN THE FALL. 



Would you expect a weak colony of i)ees 

 placed over a very strong colony to build up 

 in the fall of the year as successfully as in 

 the spring? or would the bees kill the queen 

 and the bees of the weak colony? I placeil 

 a weak colony over a strong one. and they 

 killed the queen and bees. 



Springfield, Mo. E. W. Alexander. 



[The results in the fall, perhaps, would 

 not be quite the equal of those iu early 

 spring: but when I hear a report of a queen 

 being immediately killed, and the bees, I 

 feel satisfied that some important detail of 

 direction was not carefully followed. Prob- 

 ably in your case the two sets of bees were 

 put together so that either one or both lots 

 of bees were more or less disturljed. See 

 the article by E. W. Alexander of Delanson, 

 N. Y., on this subject on p. 1357 of this issue. 

 —Ed.] 



a cement bee-cellar built in a .sand- 

 BANK. 



I have built a fine bee-cellar and bee- 

 house. The material cost $300 for lumber 

 and cement, $65 for brick in the walls; 20 

 feet square, one foot thick, built iu the cen- 

 ter of the bee-yaril iu a gravel and sand-bank. 

 I had the riglit material in the hole to build 

 the wall without drawing any sand or gravel. 

 It is 8 feet deep. I shall use a tackle to let 

 the hives down, four at a time, through the 

 floor. I have stairs to go down. I have five 

 ventilators, one on each corner, one in the 

 center of the roof, 12x22 inches square, i 

 used hard oak sills, 8X10 inches square. 

 There is a cement wall to the top of the sills, 

 inside; building is eight feet high; four win- 

 dows in the center of each side; roof, four- 

 feet slant; roof of paroid, lined inside with 

 red rope siding, ploweil and grooved, 6 inches 

 wide, painted on the four sides red, with 

 blue from the bottom to the top. I can put 

 in 56 hives. I built it myself, or it would 

 have cost about $500 dollars. Carpenters 

 here want $4.00 a day. J. W. Utter. 



Amity, N. Y. 



A COLONY THAT CONTINUALLY RAISES QUEEN- 

 CELLS. 



I have a queenless hive that keeps on 

 raising queen-cells. The queens hatch out 

 all right; but when I give them a frame of 

 brood they will raise queen-cells again. They 

 have been doing this for two months without a 

 miss, and there has never been an egg laid 

 in the hive, that I have seen. Can you ex- 

 plain? 



There has been plenty of drones ever since 

 spring. The bees have made a living every 

 day this summer. There has not been an 

 egg laid in the hive since the first of June, so 

 there are no fertile workers. 



Salem, N. J. Henry Bassett. 



[At first sight this looks like a case of lay- 

 ing workers; but when you say the queens 

 hatch out of the cells, that throws that sup- 

 position out of consideration. I give it up. 

 —Ed.] 



