1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



339 



the bees to rear brood in the winter time, 

 they being disposed to fill the brood-nest 

 with honey, and the queens being indis- 

 posed to laj'. Now, what 30U need down 

 there is Holy Land or Cyprian bees, either 

 pure or their hybrids. They will give you 

 all the brood you want, and will keep you 

 raising colonies of bees that will just roll 

 in the honey. A. I. R. seems to think that 

 the^- would be too hard to control in the way 

 of swarming. Not so. Mr. Root; they are 

 less inclined to swarm than Italians if you 

 will give the queens room and the bees room 

 to store their honey. Don't undertake to 

 use the same small hives with these strains 

 that you use with three-banders. If you 

 do, then they may be inclined to swarm. 

 They must have room; and if they can't get 

 it they will swarm — otherwise not. 



Our locality is one of long honey-flows, 

 and we have found that, if we use three- 

 banders, thej- may be all right for the first 

 flow; but that ends it with them: after that 

 they reduce the brood and allow the hive to 

 become clogged with honey. Extracting the 

 honey out of the brood-nest will do some 

 good, but not much; hence we have turned 

 to the more prolific races of bees, as they 

 give us more honey and less manipulations 

 and less watching for swarming when we 

 give them plenty of room. For all localities 

 having two or more flows or one long slow 

 flow. Holy Lands or C3'prians are decided- 

 ly the bees to keep. Introduce some of the 

 blood into that Cuban apiary, and you will 

 see things move along much more satisfac- 

 torily. 



GENERAL ARTICLES PREFERRED. 



I notice, Mr. Editor, that you call for ex- 

 pressions as to which part of Gleanings is 

 the most instructive — the general articles or 

 the departments, especially that of questions 

 and answers. For my part I prefer as much 

 of the general articles as possible, for I get 

 but little out of the questions and answers 

 department. True, there may be things 

 learned occasionally by j>erusing that de- 

 partment; but I think the time wasted in 

 reading is more than the kinks learned, and 

 for that reason I am in the habit of passing 

 that department with little or no notice, sel- 

 dom doing more than glancing at the head- 

 lines. I. of course, suppose that, for the 

 beginner, the department of questions and 

 answers is the most valuable, and that you 

 as editor will have to give us some of both. 

 I certainly appreciate your willingness to 

 give us what the majority of the subscribers 

 prefer, and you may record me as preferring 

 general articles. 



Floresville, Texas. 



[From a sanitary point of view it ma\' be 

 advisable to renew the combs every few 

 years providing foul brood or black brood 

 has ever been in the vicinity. In our own 

 case we found we never really got rid of 

 the disease until we had renewed all our 

 combs that had been used somewhere in the 

 apiary during the time we had foul brood 

 just before. It would be continually crop- 

 ping out. 



My earliest and first expjerience in bee- 

 keeping was with Cyprians and Holy 

 Lands, and I should readily suppose that, 

 where other races were disinclined to rear 

 brood, they would raise their full quota in 

 season and out of season, first, last, and 

 all the time. This quality in a warm cli- 

 mate, where the honey-flows are long, is a 

 good one ; but it is a very undesirable one 

 in northern localities where the season is 

 short, and where one wishes above all 

 things not to have all the winter stores 

 used up in useless brood- rearing when 

 there will be no subsequent honey- flows. 

 Even a dash of the Eastern blood in ordi- 

 nary Italian stock will greatly increase the 

 amount of brood. 



Yes, I can readily see why you generally 

 prefer general articles, for you are no nov- 

 ice, although, if I am correct, you are un- 

 der 25 by considerable. But do not make 

 the mistake of supposing that the depart- 

 ment of questions and i^nswers is designed 

 for beginners only. Over half of that de- 

 partment relates to discussions with the 

 veterans. If you skip it from the force of 

 habit you may fail to get some of the best 

 that is published in this journal. — Ed.] 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF Hn'FS IN A BEE- 

 YARD: THE GROUP PLAN OR INDI- 

 VIDUAL PLAN. 



Allow me to say that I consider your 

 footnotes one of the best features of Glean- 

 ings; and if it is not intruding up>on your 

 time too much I would ofter the following 

 footnote to your footnote: 



Where is the difference, where the econ- 

 omy in room and steps, to have your bees 

 in close-sitting grroups of five or ten feet 

 apart, or to have them scattered with two 

 feet between? I always imagined I had 

 mv' bees spaced as closely as possible and 

 have the necessary elbow room to work 

 among them. The reason why I want 

 from two to three feet between my colonies 

 is because, when working with my bees. I 

 always stand beside the hive, not behind; 

 besides. I like to have room for a new 

 swarm ;it may be the old one) beside every 

 colony. Then to have the rows eight or 

 more feet apart is to have a chance to set 

 the old colony ahead of the old stand, which 

 is very convenient when shaken off or back 

 of the same, as in cases of hiving on the 

 old stand. I practice both methods more 

 or less. Besides, when working in one 

 row the oi">erator does not stand so much in 

 the bee-line of the row next behind him as 

 when thev stand closer. 



