1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



793 



effect of accumulated poison after being 

 stung- a g;-ood many times, or during the pe- 

 riod of a whole lifetime. The cases of fa- 

 ther Langstroth and the others are so few 

 as to make them less than one in ten thou- 

 sand — so rare, indeed, that they can scarce- 

 ly be taken account of. Still, as I said in 

 Glkaninos, it is well for one to err on the 

 safe side of having too few stings for fear 

 he may be the one in ten thousand. And, 

 besides, is there any thing to be gained, or 

 any possible advantage, in having one's 

 system inoculated with too much of the 

 poison? — Ed ] 



A MODIFICATION of the shaken-swarm 

 business that I tried this year seems to be 

 an improvement. When it comes time for 

 the first shaking, an excluder is placed 

 over a weak colony or nucleus, say No. 5, 

 and over this are put the shaken combs 

 from four colonies, of course making the 

 pile five stories high. If the lower story 

 contains only a nucleus, enough bees are 

 left on the shaken combs to secure the 

 brood against chilling. If the lower story 

 contains a fair colony, the bees are all 

 brus/ii'd from the combs. Of course, empty 

 combs were given to the shaken swarm. 

 Ten days or so later four more colonies are 

 shaken, and a pile is made over another 

 nucleus or weak colon}\ This time, how- 

 ever, instead of empty combs the shaken 

 colonies receive the combs of the four upper 

 stories of No. 5, every bee being brushed 

 clean from them. No. 5 is thus in fine con- 

 dition to receive sections, because it has all 

 the bees that have in ten daj's emerged 

 from the combs in those four stories. The 

 colonies last shaken will also be a good 

 deal better oflF than if they had received 

 empty combs, for they will have the bees 

 that hatch from the combs during the next 

 ten days. So far, however, as the queen is 

 concerned, they are the same as empty 

 combs; for as it takes her 21 days to make 

 the entire round of laying, in that time fill- 

 ing the whole brood-nest, she has half of it 

 already empty for her first ten da3's' lay- 

 ing, and at the end of that ten days the 

 other half will be emptj*. In actual prac- 

 tice I could see no dilTerence between giving 

 these combs half full of sealed brood and 

 giving empty combs, except, of course, the 

 greater strength of the shaken colonies. 

 (This seems to be a good plan, providing, 

 of course, that colonies shaken on to emptj' 

 combs will v/ajt' shaken — that is, not swarm 

 out again. It certainly enables one to util- 

 ize the capital (brood) to the best advan- 

 tage; but in our locality, in ten days the 

 honey season would be over. We had a 

 heavy tlow of honey, but it stopped square 

 off just as the bees were pretty well ad- 

 vanced in the supers. Cold rains came on, 

 putting an effectual quietus on our plans. 

 In this localit}', and particularly this sea- 

 son, the plan above outlined would not 

 work — that is, it would not enable us to use 

 the brood in producing honey after it had 

 hatched out. — Ed.] 





m^:''^ 



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Moth-balls at the entrances of hives are 

 recommended as a preventive of moths till 

 moth-proof bees can be introduced. 



M. S. Beverlin, of Colorado, says, " I 

 have come to the conclusion that a man can 

 not be up-to-date who does not take one or 

 more good bee-papers." 



Chief Chemist Wiley, of the U. S. De- 

 partment of Agriculture, is reported as say- 

 ing that he intends next year to plant on- 

 ions with potatoes. He thinks the tears 

 the onions will draw from the eyes of the 

 potatoes will irrigate them enough to make 

 them drouth- proof. Of course, that is 

 "scientific pleasantry," or wH'at Dr. Mil- 

 ler would label a "joke." 



BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 



In speaking of bee culture as an industry 

 in France, the following clipping is made 

 from the Westminster Gazette: 



Fruit culture and bee culture have both been rec- 

 ommended to the distressed British agriculturist; and 

 perhaps the advice has sometimes been superogatory. 

 It is permissible, however, the Illustrated Scieniijic 

 Neivs points out, to draw attention to the w^y in 

 vyhich the honey industry has advanced in France 

 during the last few years. In ten years the output of 

 honev has increased from 7.000,000 kilogrammes to 

 8,500,000 kilogrammes. The increase is due less to an 

 increase in the number of hives than to the greater 

 yield of each hive, which has now risen to about 500 

 grammes, or 11 lbs. a hive. What is more gratifying 

 (to the French producer) is that, owing to the scien- 

 tific methods of bee-farming, the yield each year has 

 become more constant and less affected by vicissi- 

 tudes. 



That comes in well with what i.s said 

 further about French apiculture. 

 It/ 



The Sussex Daily News says: 



A novel sight at the Hayward's Heath (Stis=ex) mar- 

 ket, a short time ago, was a swarm of bees which 

 came over like a cloud in the aftei noon aiil settled 

 on the wall at the Station Hotel, close to tl'e i>ase of 

 the bracket of one of the large outstanding lamps in 

 front of the building. A Mr. Ford essayed to take the 

 swarm in a box, but they escaped from this receptacle 

 and swarmed again on the wall finding an orifice 

 which led to beneath the floor of the sitting-room in 

 the hotel. In the evening Messrs Sands, Small, and 

 Jollv. took up a board or two of the flcor. and secured 

 aboiit half a bushtl of the bees. Yesterday there was 

 again a large number of them on he hotel wall, but 

 not in the swarming ma.ss which appeared on Tuesday. 



\l< 

 Concerning bees and their ways, the fol- 

 lowing is related in the Globe: 



\ curious place for swarming has been chosen by a 

 hive of bees at Arcot Hall, ntar Newcastle, the seat of 

 Mr. Howard Pease. The bees had swarmed up an 

 apple-tree, and the gardener, on going up a ladder to 

 examine, was startle. i by observing a green linnet fly 

 out of the middle of the swarm. Clostr investigation 

 revealed its nest with two eggs in, the queen-bee hav- 



