42 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Jan. 19, 1899. 



Properly 'Reared Queens Give Best Results. — G. M. 



Doolittle says his queens now require a larger brood-nest 

 than they did before he began rearing them according to 

 the plans given in his book on " Scientific Queen-Rearing." 

 — Gleanings. 



His Honey Sells Itself.— S. F. Trego has been selling 

 IS pounds of nice heart"s-ease extracted honey for a dollar, 

 and now he does not need to seek for customers, with gran- 

 ulated sugar 16 pounds for a dollar — the honey just sells it- 

 self. — Gleanings. 



Sealed Brood as Bait.— In order to induce the bees to 

 commence promptly in the extracting-super, J. W. Rouse 

 puts in the super a frame or two of brood, and he says the 

 queen is less likely to go up_ if the brood is all sealed. — Pro- 

 gressive Bee-Keeper. 



A Use for Propolis is given in Revue Internationale as 

 a substitute for gum-lac in the manufacture of fire-works. 

 Gleanings thinks no one would want to take the job of 

 gathering 100 pounds of it at $5.00 a pound. Perhaps prop- 

 olis is not as plenty at Medina as at some other places. 



Morse=Hair Veils, or those having the face part of that 

 material, says F. L. Thompson, in Gleanings, are abovit 

 equal to cotton tulle veils for seeing through, with the ad- 

 vantage that they never gather in folds. He has one in 

 which the horse-hair part is still good after two seasons' use. 



Cost of Large Hives — C. P. Dadant, in comparing 

 large with small hives, gave the cost of the large ones as 

 about double as much as that of the small ones. In a later 

 number of Gleanings he reconsiders the question, and gets 

 figures from the A. I. Root Co., to the effect that the cost is 

 only 40 to SO percent more. 



Clipping Queens seems to be quite popular in Canada. 

 At the Ontario Convention nearly all seemed to be "clip- 

 pers." Editor Holtermann met the objection that dipt 

 queens are more promptly superseded by saying thatunclipt 

 queens are superseded without its being known. When a 

 dipt queen is superseded, it can easily be known.— Canadian 

 Bee Journal. 



To Preserve Combs Against Bee=Moths A. Delcour 



puts them in a close place and then puts in a piece of rag 

 saturated with essence of aspic. He prefers this to sulfur, 

 as it avoids the danger of fire, and also because the sulfur 

 does not aflfect the eggs, while the aspic either affects the 

 eggs or else remains to afi'ect the young larvae when they 

 hatch out.— L'Abeille. 



To Liquefy Honey — An item from Gleanings advising 

 to set glass packages of granulated honey in the oven of a 

 cook-stove is being copied by other journals, but without 

 adding the direction given i'n Gleanings to set the glass 

 vessels in shipping-cases. A glass tumbler raav be set on a 

 shingle in the oven all right, but if set directly on the hot 

 metal it will come to grief. 



Value of Queens.— In opposition to the views of Editor 

 Hutchinson, who says queens are the least expensive part 

 of a colony (making "that an argument in favor of small col- 

 onies), C. P. Dadant, in Gleanings, is emphatic in the as- 

 .sertion that in the spring the queens are the part of most 

 especial value. In the spring there is a lack of queens and 

 an overplus of empty hives and combs. 



Egg=Laying Depends on Kind of Honey Doolittle 



having made the statement that nine Gallup frames would 

 entertain the best queens to their fullest capacity as to egg- 

 laying, and Dr. Gallup having said that a queen of his oc- 

 cupied fully 24 frames, Dr. Miller askt Doolittle in Glean- 

 ings how he reconciled the two statements. Doolittle re- 

 plies that he was talking about colonies used for comb 

 honey, while Gallup was talking about extracted. He says : 



" There is something about extracted honey that causes 

 bees to feed a queen in such a way that she will give double 

 the eggs, if she has comb-room, that she will when no ex- 

 tracting is done." He says he gets no more brood in his 10- 

 frame Langstroth hives thai: he does in his 9-frame Gallup 

 hives (equivalent to 634 Langstroth frames.) 



Drouth and Honey Crops Qo Together in Texas. — The 



editor of the Southland Queen having reported that for lack 

 of rain he was feeding his bees, G. F. Davidson says he 

 thinks no one else is doing any feeding, and in an expe- 

 rience of 13 years he has had his best crops of honey when 

 it was extremely drv. altho getting good crops when rain 

 was plenty. No' rain fell from Aug. 20, 1886, to May 9, 1887, 

 and 1887 was the best honev-vear he ever knew. 



Burying Bees for Winter. — Jungclaus publishes, in 

 Leipzinger-Bztg., his experience therein. Nov. 14 he put 

 his bees in a hole dug seven feet deep, lined with boards, 

 covered with boards on timbers, then put roofing-paper over 

 this, then 16 inches of earth, and over the whole a covering 

 of roofing-paper weighted down with stones to prevent 

 blowing awaj'. After four months the bees came out in fine 

 condition, the average consumption having been 3)4 pounds. 



The Wedding-Flight of the Queen, says R. Wiesner, in 

 Deutsche Imker, is supposed to take place as a rule only 

 once, and at the most only five or six times, but he deter- 

 mined that in favorable weather, with plenty of drones, a 

 queen takes at least 10 such flights, at about 11 o'clock, each 

 fiight lasting only a few seconds, and at the longest only 10 

 minutes. In 189S a queen that returned to the hive with 

 signs of mating took three flights on the following day, and 

 did not begin to lay till the 8th day after the last flight. 



Large Hives are advocated in Southland Queen bj' L. 

 Stachelhausen. He says he has found by actual test that 

 they are more profitable. Especially in seasons with not 

 very good honey-flow, these strong colonies are sometimes 

 the only ones that yield any surplus. Even if two weak 

 colonies should store as much as one strong one, it takes 

 more time and labor throughout the year to take care of the 

 two weak ones. The two weak colonies will consume for 

 their own use a good deal more honey in the course of the 

 year than a single colony equal to their combined force. 



Prevention of Swarming.- Last season Mr. Doolittle 

 caged his queens in the out-apiary when the yield was on 

 and there were signs of swarming. Ten days later the 

 queen was removed and a young laying queen was put in 

 the same cage, the cage being left in the same position in 

 the hive. Enough candy was in the cage so the bees libera- 

 ted the queen in about two days. This prevented all swarm- 

 ing, and left the colony with a vigorovis queen for next 

 spring's breeding. Of course all queen-cells were cut at the 

 time the young queen was given. — Progressive Bee-Keeper. 



Getting Wax Out of Combs is done by Wm. McNally 

 after this manner : " Our wash-house boiler is of 25 gallons 

 capacity, and into this I put 10 gallons of rainwater and 

 three tablespoonfuls of vitriol ; I then procure a clean, old, 

 strong bag, like a very open sugar-bag : the combs are prest 

 hard into it to a size that will go inside the boiler ; it is then 

 firmly tied, and immerst in the boiler of water. As the 

 combs melt the wax oozes out and is ladled ofi^ the top and 

 poured into clean, cold water. The vitriol and the pouring 

 into cold water improves the color. A second melting of 

 the wax is necessary to put it into marketable shape. — Bee- 

 Keepers' Record. 



Death from Stings. — Geo. L. Vinal gives in Gleanings 

 a detailed account of the case of a horse that received many 

 stings on head, nose, ears, neck and body. The normal 

 pulse of a horse is 36 to 40 in a minute ; respiration, 10 to 12 : 

 temperature, 98 3-S. In 4S minutes the pulse was 60, respira- 

 tion 30, temperature 102. Urine highly brown color, with 

 frequent watery evacuation of the bowels. IS minutes later 

 pulse was 80, respiration 60, temperature 104, the horse 

 throwing himself down, jumping up, plunging and tugging 

 at his rope, and whinnying in a loud, shrill voice. 75 min- 

 utes later the symptoms began to abate, the breathing be- 

 coming heavy, the extremities showing paralysis, and four 

 hours after being stung he was no longer able to get up, 

 and seven hours after being stung he died. 



