1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



777 



led out the swarm, and this aged wingless 

 queen started to go along with the "young 

 folks," when you caught and caged her. 

 When bees hang in a cluster in that way 

 there is pretty sure to be a queen of some 

 sort among them. The best way is to hive 

 them just as if you had not found one queen 

 already and caged her. The brood in the 

 hive might have been the work of the laying 

 queen that led off the swarm; or both queens 

 may have contributed to the brood. If you 

 give the wingless queen some bees you can 

 soon tell whether she is of any value.— 

 A. L R.] 



SHOULD COMB HONEY BE LEFT ON THE 

 HIVES TILL THE END OF THE SEASON? 



Reading Mr. Dan White's article in regard 

 to letting the honey stay in the hive until it 

 is well ripe, would you leave all the supers 

 for section honey over the colonies until the 

 season is practically over, or does it make 

 less difference with section honey than with 

 extracted? that is, should the full supers 

 still be left on the hives when empty ones 

 are put under? Will the quality be better 

 by letting them stay on? 



Fredericktown, Mo. Jas. Bachler. 



[Mr. Dan White was speaking particular- 

 ly of extracted honey. In the production of 

 comb honey one would have to take it off as 

 soon as it was sealed, to avoid travel-stain; 

 while if on the hive a long time it will im- 

 prove in flavor, yet it will deteriorate in out- 

 ward appearance. It is this factor, very 

 largely, that decides the sale of all comb 

 honey. Of two sections, clover or basswood, 

 one that has been on the hive a long time, 

 and one just long enough to be sealed, the 

 latter will outsell the other because of its 

 cleanness and freshness. The long-time-on- 

 the-hive section might look like last year's 

 honey or old goods.— Ed.] 



COMMENTS ON THE ALEXANDER ARTICLE ON 

 INCREASE. 



I commenced to read Gleanings in 

 and have read a good many articles on bees 

 in that time; and if a better or more prac- 

 tical article than " How Shall we Make Our 

 Increase?" by E. W. Alexander, was ever 

 printed in it, I have failed to see it or compre- 

 hend any thing its equal. The loss of brood, 

 a practical bee-keeper would see at once, 

 would be a big item making toward the better- 

 ment of the colony to be. I can readily see 

 that one must have strong colonies for this 

 manipulation. The Sibbald plan is somewhat 

 after Dr. Miller's plan of managing swarming 

 colonies. He printed it several years ago in 

 Gleanings — m fact, it is in his ' ' Year 

 Among the Bees." 



He calls it his ' ' put-ups, ' ' as the old colo- 

 ny is placed above the swarm ; and then later 

 the old colony is put back with the swarm. 

 Instead of leaving a queen-cell with the bees 

 in the new hive he gave them a frame of 

 choice brood to raise queen-cells. It's a 

 good plan too. I have tried it many times. 



By the way, in manipulating swarming 

 colonies or those you have shaken, the best 

 place for the colony is on top of the new 

 hive. I mean on top of the cover of the new 

 hive. Have them as two separate colonies, 

 with their two entrances. Flying bees are 

 not so apt to find the old hive if it's on top 

 as they would if it is at the side. 



But there is the loss of brood in this case. 

 I have been thinking that, perhaps, it would 

 be profitable, when we take the old hive 

 from the top of the new one, by Alexander's 

 plan, containing the queen, if the bees 

 could be shaken from combs of brood into a 

 new hive containing a queen, as brood is 

 now all capped in the queenless part; conse- 

 quently there could be no loss in brood, thus 

 giving us a big force to go into the sections. 

 May be by doing this it would induce them 

 to swarm later. Geo. Shiber. 



Randolph, N. Y. 



capped-over cells containing no honey; 



WHAT does it mean? 



In extracting honey the other day I found 

 in a few hives which were well filled with 

 honey many cells sealed up with no honey in 

 them at all; in some, very little. I wondered 

 what the reason v/as. Fred Wulf. 



Columbia, Gal. 



[Friend W., I have noticed the above a 

 few times, but it is not a very frequent oc- 

 currence. The only explanation I can give 

 is that some of the bees made a blunder. 

 This seems unreasonable, especially as every 

 operation in the hive during the working 

 season is carried on with such precision and 

 economy of labor; and if anybody else can 

 give a better explanation I should be glad to 

 hear it. Perhaps some of the younger bees 

 that hadn't learned how made the blunder; 

 or it may be some of the veterans, so old as 

 to be childish, were so stupid as to go to 

 work and seal up the cells in the regular 

 way without noticing they had not been fill- 

 ed. I do not like this explanation, because 

 I have often watched the process of depos- 

 iting the honey in an observatory hive; and 

 it seemed as if they kept adding honey from 

 time to time as the cap was contracted, 

 and the opening made smaller and smaller. 

 When the last touch, or last bit of wax, was 

 put on to seal the cell over tight, the glitter- 

 ing ripened nectar seemed to come clear up 

 and touch the cap at every point. This very 

 peculiarity that we are now considering is 

 one of the things that is going to make it 

 impossible for man's inventive genius to cap 

 comb honey by artificial means. —A. I. R.] 



uncapping-can a good one. 



I should like to have bee-keepers who do 

 not care to purchase a regular uncapping- 

 can know how complete the tub used for 

 that purpose is, spoken of on page 759 last 

 year by J. W. Woodhouse. I have made 

 one, and am using it this season. It is a 

 good thing. S. B. HUSSEY. 



Rancocas, N. J. 



