1086 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15 



FEEDING BEES CORN BREAD AND SUGAR 

 SYRUP. 



Three years ago, and again this year, a 

 farmer fed his bees by baking cakes of 

 corn bread, splitting it, saturating it with 

 granulated-sugar syrup, and setting it out 

 50 yards from the apiary of 12 colonies. 

 They took it up, bread and all. It seems to 

 be a success. What do vou think of it ? 



Elk City, Kan. Dr. J. T. Blank. 



[At certain seasons of the year when nat- 

 ural pollen is not available, bees will take 

 meal in almost any form as a substitute for 

 pollen; but if the bees require feeding at all, 

 better not give them meal. Give them just 

 the clear syrup. The ordinary pollen that 

 nature supplies comes on soon enough to 

 take care of brood-rearing as early as is ad- 

 visable for the bees to breed. —Ed.] 



BROOD IN SECTIONS. 



I went to take a super off one of my 

 stands, and found that the bees had built 

 brood- combs, and had plenty of young bees 

 in the honey-boxes. Can you tell me the 

 cause ? There was not much honey in the 

 super. Can you tell us why there was not 

 much honey, and why they raised young 

 bees in the super ? Our hives have eight 

 frames in the lower part. C. H. Lane. 



Jobs, 0., July 17. 



[Ordinarily there will not be brood in sec- 

 tions unless the brood- nest apartment has no 

 empty cells in which the queen can lay. It 

 is a very difficult matter to get queens to lay 

 in sections, even when you try to force 

 them into them. If there were plenty of 

 egg-laying room in the brood-nest, and the 

 queen laid upstairs, I should be inclined to 

 credit it to a freak of that particular queen. 

 -Ed.] 



another hive-tool. 

 I send a sketch of a tool I use in my apia- 

 ry. A is a chisel for cleaning frames, J in. 

 wide; width at B, one inch, tapering to § 

 at heel marked C, while it is | at point of 

 pry, marked D. I have used this tool for 

 four years, and find it indispensable in the 



C/iisel- 



apiary for prying, scraping off bits of combs 

 and propolis, and also for light nailing, such 

 as one finds sometimes to do. I had it made 

 to order, of slab steel. The sketch shows 

 it edgewise. W. F. Chambliss. 



Enloe, Texas. 



sulphur cures paralysis but injures 

 brood. 

 In regard to an article in the July 15th 

 issue, stating that sulphur sprinkled on the 

 combs will cure bee paralysis, I will say I did 

 that last year and cured the paralysis, but 

 the sulphur killed the unsealed brood, and 



the bees would not clean out the cells. This 

 sulphur dust in the cells also killed the eggs 

 as fast as the queen laid them. I had to 

 change the combs to save the swarms. Only 

 one colony had it this spring. I brushed the 

 bees off the combs and sprinkled them with 

 sulphur, and then returned the combs. The 

 paralysis stopped. C. Stimson. 



Hally, Col., Aug. 6, 1905. 



[It is not recommended to sprinkle combs 

 containing brood with powdered sulphur. If 

 you will refer to the directions given by Mr. 

 0. 0. Poppleton, the author of this particu- 

 lar treatment, you will see that he distinct- 

 ly states that all combs containing brood 

 must be put into other hives; that there is 

 no danger in doing this, because the disease 

 is not carried through the brood. — Ed.] 



looking for queen-cells without open- 

 ing the hive. 



In your footnote to my article for July 15 

 you say that my plan contemplates the use 

 of a double-chamber or two-story hive with 

 a super on top. 



This was not my intention at all, unless 

 two shallow chambers were used as one hive 

 when it would apply. The illustration which 

 I sent with my article showed clearly that it 

 was to be used in connection with a single- 

 story hive, having one or more supers which 

 were to be fastened while the hive was tip- 

 ped back for examination. 



Not one hive in a hundred will have the 

 usual number of cells preparatory to swarm- 

 ing, so that some can not be seen while the 

 hive is tipped back, and the bees smoked up 

 in the combs. F. H. Cyrenius. 



Oswego, N. Y., July 19. 



[Fr. Greiner gave corroborative testimony 

 to the same effect, p. 965, Sept. 15th issue. 

 I stand corrected.— Ed.] 



is the colony queenle?s ? 



I see in the last journal that a queenless 

 colony will not carry in pollen. I have two 

 colonies that are strong, and that carry in 

 pollen; but they have no brood. Have they 

 a queen that is not yet fertile ? Will a 

 queenless colony having a fertile worker or 

 two accept a queen without balhng? 



Woodland, Cal. A. B. Griggs. 



[You are liable not to find brood in a colo- 

 ny after the main honey-flow is over. Your 

 bees may have been carrying in pollen, and 

 still the queen be in the hive just the same. 

 -Ed.] 



hives wrapped in paper for winter. 



In my article, page 913, I should have 

 said the hives wrapped in paper (to all ap- 

 pearances) wintered better than those 

 wrapped in oilcloth. They also had the ad- 

 vantage of dry-goods boxes turned over 

 them to protect the paper and also for the 

 purpose of a windbreak. M. A. Hudson. 



Greensburg, Ind. 



