541 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15 



' ' I find nearly every spring that some of 

 my colonies come out queenless, evidently 

 having gone into winter quarters that way. 

 Is there any way I can tell whether colonies 

 are queenless in the fall without opening the 

 hive and seeing the queen ? I have tried 

 thus looking for them, but the late fall is a 

 hard time in which to find a queen, as she is 

 not breeding then, and the bees thickly clus- 

 tered together. ' ' 



"I know it is hard work to find a queen 

 late in the fall, and for this reason I never 

 hunt for them unless it is absolutely neces- 

 sary to find one for some reason. But it 

 is not necessary to hunt for the queen to tell 

 whether a colony has a queen or not, as a 

 little smoke on any warm, evening will tell 

 you whether a colony is queenless or not at 

 that time of the year. If you have a colony 

 you mistrust is queenless, go to it between 

 the time of sunset and dark, or what would 

 be called early twilight, and puff" in at the 

 entrance a little smoke two or three times. 

 If you hear a loud mournful roaring in the 

 hive for some length of time after this 

 smoke has been blown in, you may know 

 that colony is queenless. By trying this 

 plan on a colony having a queen, and one 

 which has not, you will ever afterward be 

 able to tell at once in this matter." 



AN OUTDOOR ATMOSPHERIC FEEDER MAKING 

 USE OF A MASON JAR. 



I am sending you an atmospheric bee- 

 feeder of my own construction, which I 

 think should "take the cake." Its construc- 

 tion will be clear from the illustration. It 

 is designed for an outdoor feeder, but can 

 also be used in the upper story of a hive 

 just as well, and this is the way to use it: 



Fill a two-quart Mason jar with honey 

 and water, half and half. Invert the feeder 

 and lay it on top of the jar. Now, holding 

 the jar in one hand and the feeder with the 

 other, make a dextrous motion to invert the 

 two at once so as not to spill any feed, and 

 set it in a level place, say on top of a hive 

 or on a box previously prepared for it. It 

 works on the atmospheric principle— that is 

 to say, the feed flows down out of the jar as 

 fast as the bees take it out of ,the grooves 



FIG. 4.— THE WAY THE LITTLE FOLKS LIVE IN FLORIDA. 



