5i)0 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



the gloves are a great relief— indeed, I may 

 say almost a necessity; and I believe the av- 

 erage practical bee-keeper who is not afraid 

 of stings would do well to make a practice 

 of using fingerless gloves like those first de- 

 scribed. He will be able to do more work 

 with less interruption; and, moreover, I do 

 not believe it is wise for the average honey- 

 producer to get too much of the bee-poison 

 into his system. What earthly reason can 

 there be for getting stings if they can be 

 avoided? The fingerless gloves or gauntlets 

 are almost as useful as a bee-veil. 



I got this idea from that practical bee- 

 keeper, W. L. Coggshall, of West Groton, 

 N. Y. A picture of him with these gaunt- 

 lets on will be found in all the late editions 

 of the A B C of Bee Culture, under head of 

 "Veils." You can make them yourself or 

 you can buy them of your dealer. 



A TACK-PULLER THE HANDIEST HIVE-TOOL. 



The other day when Mr. Chalon Fowls, 

 of Oberlin, Ohio, was here to visit us he 

 brought with him an ordinary carpet-tack 

 puller; and as he handed it to me he said, 

 "Here, Ernest, is the best hive-tool ever 

 invented." But this tack- puller, instead of 

 having a round shank between the handle 

 and claw, had a flat one. Mr. Fowls ex- 

 plained that the divided claw was just right 

 for straddling T tins and tin rabbets in 

 cleaning off propolis and likewise for clean- 

 ing the V edge on Hoff'man frames, and, 

 moreover, that it was the thing to pry those 

 frames apart. The slightly hooked claw 

 gives a tremendous leverage. When the 

 shank or blade of the claw is laid down flat 

 it enables one to scrape off burr- combs as 

 well as propohs. 



The tool retails at most hardware stores 

 at 10 cents. I have been testing it in one of 

 our bee-yards, and I must say I am greatly 

 pleased with it. I do not know but it is as 

 good as the best tool ever invented for this 

 particular purpose. Mr. Fowls has a string 

 hitched on his, about a yftrd long, to be 

 attached to his pants or vest button. If he 

 slips the tool in his pocket the string shows 

 where it is, and, at the same time, prevents 

 the thing from getting away from him. 



Mr. Fowls said all the bee-keepers in his 

 locality are now using this tool, and prefer 

 it to any thing else they have yet seen. 

 When you come to remember that tacks are 

 used very commonly in a board for fastening 

 wire cloth, the tack-puller, as a special tool 

 for the purpose, comes in very handy after 

 the bees have been hauled to an outyard. 



BUYING bees in OLD HIVES WITH GAPING 

 CORNERS. 



In buying up bees, as spoken of elsewhere 

 in this issue, we secured quite an aggrega- 

 tion of old hives that had warped apart so 

 the bees could go through the corners, be- 

 tween the cover aud hive, and between the 

 body and bottom -board. In practicing the 

 shake-out plan of forced swarming, we un- 

 fortunately shook a little too close, with 



the result that the few bees remainiog were 

 not able to put up a defense with all the 

 gaping cracks, in addition to the entrances; 

 and before we knew it we had furious rob- 

 bing at the outyard where these hives were. 

 Fortunately we had on hand a lot of good 

 Dovetailed hives, and immediately went to 

 work transferring the combs into said hives, 

 crammed the entrances up with grass, which 

 would wilt out in time, shutting the robbers 

 in with the bees that were vainly attempt- 

 ing to defend their combs. After the rob- 

 bers had been shut up with the other bees 

 for a few days they all became part and 

 parcel of the new colony, and the grass in 

 the meantime will have wilted enough to let 

 bees out automatically. Did the robbing 

 stop ? Almost immediately after the last 

 combs were put into bee- tight hives. 



You may say that our boys ought to have 

 known better; but when one is used to shak- 

 ing from bee-tight hives it would be very 

 natural foj; him not to take into considera- 

 tion the extra set of entrances due to 

 cracks, and warping of the hive-boards. 



SOME THINGS TO REMEMBER IN PRACTICING 



CONTROLLING SWARMING ON THE 



RETURN-INGBEE PLAN. 



We are already practicing the Sibbald 

 and some of the other non-swarming plans 

 at one or more of our outyards; but we find 

 this: In order to make the principle of catch- 

 ing flying bees work in a new hive on the 

 old stand, said hive must have a "drawing 

 card " in the shape of a card of comb, brood, 

 and bees from the parent hive. What will 

 answer almost as well is the shaking the 

 bees from a couple of combs into or in front 

 of the new hive, because there must be bees 

 in the hive to attract the attention and draw 

 in those from the field. Wherever practic- 

 able the new hives should be as much like 

 the old ones, in style and appearance, as 

 may be. Even a newly painted hive, exactly 

 like the old one, has a tendency to create 

 distrust on the part of returning bees. 



Appearances indicated in the early part 

 of the season that Southern California would 

 have one of its big crops of honey; but we 

 are informed that the conditions now are 

 somewhat discouraging, and that the prob- 

 abilities are that the crop will not material- 

 ize as was first expected. To a great ex- 

 tent this is true also of Texas. There has 

 been an unusual amount of chilly weather 

 throughout the entire country. It is not too 

 late to get a good crop from white clover in 

 the clover belt, and we are hopeful. 



Owing to so much cold or chilly weather, 

 accompanied by heavy rains during the past 

 month, there has been not a little chilled 

 brood, many samples of which have been 

 sent in to know if it were foul brood. We 

 are finding to-day in our own yards patches 

 of considerable size that were left high and 

 dry owing to the contraction of the cluster, 

 allowing even the capped brood to chill and 

 die. 



