666 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



the bees in that colony have no means of 

 rearing- another' queen, so are hopelessly 

 queenless from then on. The most com- 

 mon cause for bees becoming thus hopeless- 

 ly queenless is when, after swarming-, the 

 young queen flies out to meet the drone, she 

 becomes lost by entering the wrong hive; or 

 being caught by birds, or otherwise she 

 fails to return. All brood was sealed at 

 about the time this queen emerged from the 

 cell, so that, with her loss, there is no 

 chance for that colony to live unless the 

 apiarist finds it out in time and comes to the 

 rescue. And from my own experience, and 

 the testimony of scores of others, more colo- 

 nies become hopelessly queenless in this 

 way than by all others combined. Now do 

 you think that colonies having thus lost 

 their queen were destroyed by worms?" 



"It would not look that way." 



'* Certainly they were not. The colony 

 was destroyed by the loss of the queen at 

 mating time, and the moths came in as an 

 effect. Thus we see that to talk of worms 

 destroying colonies of bees is fallacious." 



" Well, how are we to know in the mat- 

 ter of the loss of a queen?" 



" If we have an eye to business we shall 

 see from outside observation that something 

 is wrong vC^ith the colony long before the 

 moths can take possession of the combs, 

 even if we do no general manipulation of 

 hives; and as soon as we see that something 

 is wrong with any colony it is our business 

 as bee-keepers to open the hive and find 

 out what that wrong is, in time to save the 

 colony. ' ' 



" If you found a colony that had lost its 

 queen at this time of the year, or at any 

 other, so it was hopelessly queenless, what 

 would you do?" 



" The finding of any colony without brood 

 in any form, during the spring and sum- 

 mer months, gives assurance that said colo- 

 ny is hopelessly queenless. But this is not 

 always the case, as they may be tolerating 

 an old worn-out queen, or, what is more 

 frequently the case, a virgin queen, which, 

 through crippled wings, or some other de- 

 fect, is unable to fly out to meet the drones. 

 In this way a colony may be hopeless, but 

 not queenless — hopeless, as we know, but 

 it does not so appear to them, and therefore 

 they will love and cherish this apology for 

 a queen till all die of old age, not even ac- 

 cepting a good queen given them by the 

 apiarist." 



" Is there no way of finding out whether 

 they have such an apology for a queen or 

 not?" 



"Yes, usually. This is done by giving 

 the suspected colony a frame of brood in 

 which there are eggs and young larvas. If 

 they have no queen of any kind they will 

 nearly always go to constructing queen- 

 cells on this brood; and when they do this 

 you may be very positive that they were 

 hopeless as well as queenless, and that 

 they will accept any queen you give them. 

 And should j'ou not have a queen to give 

 them at once, this frame of brood will help 



them to hold out till you can give them a 

 queen; and it is always the proper thing to 

 do, on finding any colony without brood in 

 any shape in the hive." 



" I must be going now. I wish to thank 

 you for what you have told me, for I shall 

 have little fear of the worms after this." 



WHITE CLOVER IN WISCONSIN. 



I HAVE been making a flying trip up 

 through Eastern Wisconsin. White clover, 

 I think I never saw so much of it in my life. 

 The fields are covered with it in great 

 white masses in the pastures and along the 

 roadsides. Basswoods were blooming well. 

 The bee-keepers of Wisconsin should be 

 " in clover" this year. 



SWEET CLOVER. 



There seems to be a great abundance of 

 sweet clover this year — more so than usual. 

 It is spreading in our locality to such an 

 extent that our local residents— people who 

 never travel much, but who ought to know 

 better — are telling how "A. I. Root once 

 scattered this clover all over the county for 

 his bees." It does no good to refute this 

 nonsense, for they won't believe it; but the 

 fact that sweet clover is spreading all over 

 the United States goes to show that there 

 must have been a good many A. I. Roots 

 scattering seed or else the whole story is a 

 hoax, as it certainly is. 



the honey season in eastern OREGON 

 AND WASHINGTON. 



The following report, for the reason giv- 

 en, came too late for our previous issue, but 

 we are glad to put it before our readers at 

 this time: 



Inquiries for condition of honey crop, which we 

 made on receipt of your request, did not reach us in 

 time for your July 15th issue. We have just received 

 word from Eastern Oregon and Washington. It is a 

 little early to make any kind of estimate of what the 

 honey crop will be in Eastern Washington, but prob- 

 ably below the average. In Eastern Oregon the 

 weather has been damp, with high winds; and as it is 

 now .so late in the season, dry weather is to be ex- 

 pected, so that the general opinion of bee-men in that 

 section is that the crop will not be more than half the 

 average. However, as we said before, this section, or 

 the whole Pacific Northwest, has no honey to offer 

 on the market, as they do not produce one-half the 

 amount consumed. Portland Seed Co. 



Portland, Oregon, July 16. 



ANSWERING QUESTIONS. 



Since I have increased the Heads of 

 Grain department — that is, inserting more 

 questions and answers, my volume of cor- 

 respondence has increased enormously. I 



