]90'1 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1443 



AN EFFECTIVE WAY FOR ATTACHING ALIGHT- 

 ING-BOARDS TO HIVE-ENTRANCES. 



lu order to attach alighting-boards to the 

 entraiifes, take a stiff wire, about No. 9 or 

 10 size, and cut two pieces about 8 inches in 

 length: bend them as shown, thus: 



Take any kind of board as wide as you 

 wish your alighting-l)oard. Put two little 

 cleats on the uijder side, with nails: then 

 drive the | end of wire through the boaril 

 and cleat, leaving out the stout end hook: 

 hook the stout end into the entrance so as to 

 catQh inside of the hive. Your alighting- 

 board is as wide as you want it. and will not 

 get out of place either on a hive on the 

 grountl or on one on a high l)ench. 



Bend the wire at such a length as to leave 

 no space for bees to jump over from board 

 to hive. I have to use it on the old-style 

 Danz. board. An old barrel will furnish 

 stuiT to make them, some staves Ijeing plenty 

 wide on a l)iscuit or cracker box, when one 

 has no lumlier to cut up. Wires should be 

 near the end to be out of the way. 



Lindsays. Va. D. L. Morris. 



[The doorstep here shown is certainly very 

 excellent, simple, and effective. Such door- 

 steps will easily pay for themselves in the 

 early fall or spring of the year. Many bees 

 will be lost in coming out on the first bright 

 day, and. lieing chilled, on returning they 

 will be unal)le to get into their hive unless 

 an easy runway is provided. — Ed.] 



EXTRA-FANCY COMB HONEY WITHOUT SEPA- 

 RATORS. 



1 use the 4X'') bee way sections, and always 

 have to pay extra for them, but they are the 

 best, in my estimation. You state in Glean- 

 ings that there is no first-class honey pro- 

 duced without .separators. Now. I can send 

 you some of the very finest of section honey 

 that was yjroduced without either fence or 

 separators. JNIy crop for this j'ear, 199(5, is 

 1000 lbs. of section and 545 of extracted, taken 

 from 24 hives of weak colonies, spring count. 

 Now my sections will grade exti'a fancy, all 

 but 100 lbs. produced in sections of last year, 

 which is a little darker in capping, but it is 

 all straight, and would crate either side to — 

 in fact, I produce it so nice that I exhil)ited 

 400 lbs. at the county fair three years ago. 

 and so perfect was it that they nearly all call- 

 ed it manufactured — said it was impossible 



to get bees to do such straight nice work. I 

 always find a ready sale at 18 cts. for 10 lbs. 

 or more, and 20 cts. for any thing less. 

 Other bee-men using separatoi-s get 14 to 16 

 for their best. A. Koontz. 



Crestline, O. 



[We have no doul)t that you can produce 

 beautiful comb honey of the finest kind with- 

 out separators: liut "the average liee-keeper, 

 judging from samples of honey that have 

 been sent here, not separatored, makes a 

 imngling mess of it. I have some on my 

 ilesk now which, if it had been separatored, 

 would bring a good price. As it is, the hon- 

 ey will have to l)e cut out of the sections and 

 sold on wootlen Imtter-dishes. But say, friend 

 Koontz, you must have some scheme or plan 

 by which you can pi'oduce such fine honey 

 withoitt separators. Granting that there is 

 something in the man and management, 

 there must be something in the device itself. 

 If you have no objections we should ])e glad 

 to illustrate it in these columns. We will 

 pay all expense of photos or drawings: or 

 send your section-.super here and we will 

 prej^are an illustration of it. — Ed.] 



honey as a preventive of colds ; A FAM- 

 ILY THAT KEEL'S W^ELL BY EATING HONEY. 



I am sending you a photo of our family — 

 myself, wife, and eight children. We do not 

 eat much comb honey. Iiut large quantities 

 of extracted. In years of scarcity of honey 

 we would get out before the winter was 

 over, and I always noticed that almost all 

 of the family woiiltl have bad colds. Honey, 

 I think, is a great pi'eventive of colds. We 

 live in a beautiful valley, four miles from 

 the village of Greene, N. Y., on the Chenan- 

 go River. Here basswood is al^undaut all 

 along the river-banks and on the hills. As 

 much as 120 lbs. of comb honey has been 

 gathered l)y a single colony here. We no- 

 ticed your otfer in your issue for June 1, so 

 we send a family photo, hoping it will be 

 acceptable. " B. H. Bradley. 



Greene. N. Y., Aug. 17. 



WHAT IS A PURE ITALIAN QUEEN? 



Will you kindly give me an exact defini- 

 tion of a pure Italian queen? I have expect- 

 ed them to produce l)ees, every one of which 

 would show three bands, but have been dis- 

 appointed every time. I have procured new 

 queens. In every case I have found some 

 bees that did n(jt show a single band. In 

 some of the instances the dark l^ees may have 

 cH:)me from other colonies; but in the present 

 case (a $5.00 queen from a relial)le lireeder) 

 the hive is situated over 30 yards from any 

 other colony, in a window: so where have 

 the black bees come from? The majority of 

 the bees are plainly marked (the young bees 

 (piite handsome), but quite a ntimber of bees 

 can be picked oitt showing no yellow mark- 

 ings. How can I distinguish between a pure 

 Italian and a hybrid? i have I'ead up the 

 subject in the A B C. Can you shed any 

 further light on this case? I feel sure that I 



