1026 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



"As this yellow on the fifth segment in- 

 creased, the dark or black stripes on the 

 first, second, and third segments vanished 

 altogether; and, as progress continued, the 

 black finally disappeared on the fourth seg- 

 ment also, which made such an individual 

 worker bee appear something like a lump of 

 gold as it sported in the sunshine in front of 

 its hive; and some writers told of the lumps 

 of gold, as such bees appeared to them, 

 when seeing these young yellow bees on 

 their first flight. This gave birth to the 

 name 'golden' Italians." 



' ' Then the five-banded bees and the gold- 

 en Italians are one and the same thing? " 



"Yes, only the goldens are a little more 

 advanced in the race toward the orange-yel- 

 low line than are the five-banded. While 

 this is so, the two terms are very largely 

 used indiscriminately, both being applied to 

 the very yellow bees of to-day. But the 

 term ' golden Italians ' is the better of the 

 two." 



"Thank you very much for this talk. It 

 will help me very much in understanding 

 better what I read about these bees." 



"But what is the general verdict of the 

 masses about the utility of the goldens as 

 compared with the leather-colored or the 

 three-banders? " 



' * Seems to be about equally divided. The 

 goldens having Cyprian blood in them are 

 very vindictive, and for this reason many 

 are opposed to them; but the queen-breeder 

 has more calls for the goldens than for any 

 thing else, and that in spite of the desire on 

 the part of some to make it appear that the 

 three-banders are the best of all bees." 



OUTDOOR feeding; some suggestions for 



PREVENTING ROBBING. 



I have read with much interest your arti- 

 cle, page 855, on outdoor feeding, and there 

 are some questions about the matter for 

 which I should thank you for answers; and 

 I have one suggestion on which I should like 

 your opinion. I have 13 colonies of hybrids, 

 and one to which I recently introduced a 

 queen from vour yards. I wish to feed only 

 enough to keep up brood-rearing, as my 

 hives have nearly enough stores for winter, 

 I believe. Suppose I should try the plan, 

 feeding only a little daily, would not the 

 bees be Inclined to rob in the after part of 

 the day, when the feed is exhausted? My 

 suggestion for preventing this is as follows : 

 Make fruit-jar feeders as described in a re- 

 cent issue of Gleanings, leaving room on 

 the grooved board for a second fruit-jar, 

 which is to be placed in a slight depression 



in the board, and liUed with very dilute hon- 

 ey or pure water. While the first jar con- 

 tains honey, the atmospheric principle would 

 work, letting down only the richer food; but 

 as soon as that is exhausted the other jar 

 would begin to pour out its contents, dilut- 

 ing the food until the feed already in the 

 grooves would be diluted until the bees 

 would consider it not worth the taking. 

 What is your judgment on the plan? Sup- 

 pose I should substitute Mason jars with 

 perforated caps for the 60-lb. can : how 

 many of these would it take to accommodate 

 my 14 colonies? and how much feed should 

 be used daily, for the purpose of keeping up 

 brooding? 1 think I shall not need to feed 

 before frost, as there is considerable hearts- 

 ease here, and some white clover. They are 

 getting a little pollen from plaintain. Lit- 

 tle or no trouble from robbers as yet. 



0. W. Brackney. 

 Wapakoneta, O., Aug. 25. 



[As you have only so few colonies, the same 

 need for feeding outdoors to prevent robbing 

 would not exist as in the case of a larger 

 apiary. If the entrance were contracted 

 down to about 6X|, there would be no rob- 

 bing unless you were doing a class of work 

 requiring the opening of the hives pretty 

 often. As you are having a good honey- 

 flow just now, or were at the time you 

 wrote, my suggestion is that you do all the 

 manipulating of your colonies, so far as pos- 

 sible, at this time. In cool weather there 

 will be no robbing, as the bees will not fly; 

 so, taking it all in all, I do not think you 

 need to do any outdoor feeding. 



While your plan of putting two Mason 

 fruit- jars at a time on a grooved board, 

 one containing a very weak syrup and the 

 other a very strong one, is quite ingenious, 

 yet there will be no particular trouble when 

 the bees have exhausted all the syrup unless 

 you wish to work the hives just about this 

 time. For an apiary so small, probably two 

 or three Mason jars with perforated caps 

 would be sufficient to keep the bees busy for 

 a day or two longer. An inverted can with 

 perforations is far better than the grooved- 

 board plan. These cans should be elevated 

 to quite a height, as mentioned in the edito- 

 rial department, last issue, page 955, where 

 this subject is discussed more at length.— 

 Ed.] 



STANDING frames; A CLOTHESPIN USED TO 

 INDICATE THE CONDITION OF A COLONY. 



In commenting on my standing frames, p. 

 482, you say, in the footnotes, that the trou- 

 ble is that frames of this kind would have a 

 tendency to topple over against their neigh- 

 bors because there would be nothing to hold 

 them together when one is pulled out. I 

 wonder if you tried long enough to get used 

 to them. If the hive is level, and you have 

 wide bottom-bars, they will not topple over 

 unless there should be some that are heavy 

 with honey on one side near the top while 

 the other side is light of honey. Such 

 frames, when used, should be moved around 



