1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



289 



Ag-ain, will pears grafted or budded on 

 seedling pears blight? A nurseryman told 

 me that they will not; and if not, why not 

 so bud or graft them, and let the pear-men 

 and bee-men live together in harmony by 

 this plan of propagating- pear-trees? I 

 have two seedling pears that I expect to ex- 

 periment on, and have quiie a lot of seeds 

 read}' for spring planting. 



The great Lincoln pear-tree (seedling) at 

 Lincoln, Ills., never blights; but trees 

 raised from buds and grafts from it do 

 blight. M. W. MuRPHEY. 



Cuba, Ills. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS IN GLEANINGS; 



FENCES FOR THE BUILDING-OUT OK 



BROOD-COMBS A SUCCESS; A KINK 



IN INTRODUCING. 



After reading your " General Subject- 

 matter of a Bee Journal," and your sugges- 

 tion as to suggestions and criticisms from 

 j'our readers, I went back to the beginning 

 of the issue, and read it all through care- 

 full}', and am now convinced that February 

 15th issue can not be improved upon. I 

 wonder if any of your readers are " smart" 

 enough to better it in any particular. I 

 sincerely hope that the editor will have the 

 compliment paid him that he so richly de- 

 serves — that of unanimous approval of the 

 editorial management of Gleanings If it 

 is in order to suggest one thing that would 

 enlarge its scope of usefulness I believe that 

 a " new- idea department " would be a good 

 thing. What I mean to say is, that there 

 are a great many good ideas known to in- 

 dividual bee-keepers — little discoveries that 

 each one has made, or that some have made 

 — that would be very valuable to others if 

 generally known, and that a department 

 in Gleanings soliciting such ideas would 

 bring out many little helpful things that 

 are not now thought worthy of " handing 

 around. " 



P^or instance, I have at times tried sepa- 

 rating brood-frames with the slatted section 

 fence in order to compel the bees to build 

 the combs straight, and it works like a 

 charm. I take out the fence when the combs 

 have been well drawn out. I wish I h-id 

 fence of brood-frame depth in sufrtcient 

 quantity to have all future brood-c<.mb 

 built by. 



I remember that, some months ago, some 

 beekeeper wrote of a good plan to introduce 

 queens that he had tried, which was to give 

 the queen (as an "escort") a number of 

 bees (too young to harm her) from the hive 

 to which she is to be introduced, thus com- 

 pelling her to take the scent of her futuie 

 home before being- introduced to it. I think 

 that was an extremely bright idea, saving 

 much time and many valuable queens. I 

 am always as hungry as the proverbial 

 bear for any thing that is better or quicker 

 or easier or cheaper, and I verily believe 

 that there are many valuable little " tricks" 

 known to individuals that might be brought 

 out by some means and do untold good. 



Pass around the little helpful things that 



.\<ai know, and that cost you little or noth- 

 ing, and see how much better you will feel 

 when you know that you have made the 

 burden lighter for your brother. 



Statesville, N. C. Jno. M. Gibbs. 



[It is perfectly feasible to use fences in 

 the building-out of brood-frames; but the 

 novice will be quite liable, if he uses only 

 starters of foundation, to get drone comb. 

 If there were a sufficient demand we would 

 be glad to have special fences made for the 

 purpose. 



A *' new-idea department" in Gleanings 

 would be a good thing; but you know the 

 old saw. " There is nothing new under the 

 sun." While it is indeed true that some of 

 the old things are new to others, yet if we 

 should put a method or plan that you deem 

 to be new into the new-idea department, 

 some old veteran might say that it was 

 "older than the hills." It would be better 

 to put these new ideas into the general col- 

 umn of Heads of Grain, where they may 

 prove to be new to some one, and then no 

 old crank can complain because some one 

 else has appropriated his ideas, or invented 

 some new old thing. — Ed.] 



NEW OR old combs, and THEIR RELATION 

 TO WINTER LOSSES. 



I wonder if many of us ever stopped to 

 think why it is that, in wintering outdoors, 

 some colonies will come through strong, 

 others be much weakened, and some die 

 outright, when there had been no apparent 

 difftrence in bees, stores, or protection. 

 After the blizz ird had left us, Feb. 23, I 

 examined my 55 colonies that were left on 

 their summer stands, and found, as I had 

 feared, that the losses were very heavy. 



The fact that struck me most forcibly 

 was that the bees in one row of hives con- 

 taining twelve strong colonies were all dead 

 but two, while other rows had not lost more 

 than one each. Tr.ese colonies in the ill- 

 fated row were all bees that were transfer- 

 red from box hives two years ago. As the 

 combs were a fai'-ly good lot, when I trans- 

 ferred them I followed the usual method, 

 f.'ettiug- from three to five good straight 

 combs, and filling out the remainder of the 

 hive with sheets of foundation. As I run 

 for extracted honey I use ten-frame Lang- 

 stroth hives, leaving the brood-chamber in 

 the fall without removing any honey or 

 combs, so that my bees usually have plenty 

 of stores. 



When I found so many dead colonies in 

 one row I began to try to find some reason 

 for such a queer result. I first took all the 

 hive-bodies with dead bees into the honey- 

 house, and began to examine the combs 

 and bees. There were 14 dead colonies in 

 all. Three of them had been weak, and 

 one had starved, the combs being empty. 

 Th*e others, including eight of the unhappy 

 ten, were strong in (dead) bees, had plenty 

 of honey, and had each a few cells of brood. 

 But the honey was in every case on one side 

 of the hive, and the cluster of bees on the 



