634 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



her bees are fully as yellow as were those of 

 her great-great-great grandmother. I usual- 

 ly have much difficulty in getting Italian 

 queens purely mated; but here I have had a 

 remarkable exception, for only one of the 

 six queens was impurely mated, and the ef- 

 fects of that mismating are practically lost. 

 The length of this article will not permit 

 me to enter into detail in depicting all that 

 these crosswise combs in this hive have taught 

 me of bee-life. I flatter myself that possibly, 

 aside from Mr. Arthur C. Miller, no other 

 living man may have seen what I have seen. 

 I would say here that Mr. Miller and I have 

 worked along similar lines entirely indepen- 

 dently, for we have known each other only 

 one brief year, and that Mr. Miller has at 



One~ofttie End 



rf/?tf spaces for gtasi 

 TopBar 



DETAIL OF THE DOUBLE-GLASS LATHAM HIVE, SHOW- 

 ING A FRAME OF LANGSTROTH DIMENSIONS. 



present a hive vastly superior to what I am 

 able to show here. Doubtless he will soon 

 show his hive and describe his methods in 

 his own paper, the American Bee-keeper. 

 Not to go into details, I will mention that 

 one can determine by this crosswise arrange- 

 men of combs, in observatory hives, how 

 the queen lays, how the nurse-bee feeds the 

 larva, how the larva spins its cocoon, etc.; 

 how the pollen-packer packs away the pol- 

 len, how the honey-storer (not gatherer) puts 

 away the honey, etc. 



As I have hinted before, one should make 

 use of these hives the year round; for to 

 study bee-life in only the height of the sea- 

 son, or even thi'ough the summer and early 

 autumn, is not enough. It is not difficult to 

 winter bees in these hives if proper precau- 

 tions are observed. If it seems desirable I 

 will, in a later article, go into detail regard- 

 ing the wintering of bees in observatory hives. 



The simplest way to place these hives in 

 the window is to raise the sash and firmly 

 fasten a board a few inches in width across 

 the bottom of the open window so that, when 

 the sash is lowered, it will rest on the upper 

 edge of the board. This board is then screw- 

 ed to the front of the hive, a hole in the board 

 being in juxtaposition with the hole in the 

 end of the hive. The entrance, a round hole 

 one inch in diameter, should be at the end 

 of the hive close to the bottom. 



One of the best ways to stock such a hive 

 is to shake out on the ground the queen and 

 several thousands of workers from a regular 



colony. Most of the old bees will return to 

 the hive, and then the young bees left and 

 the queen can be hived in the glass hive. 

 Keep the hive dark a few hours till bees be- 

 gin to build comb and are contentedly work- 

 ing. 



It is most desirable that some handy ar- 

 rangement be made for feeding such a colony, 

 for almost constant feeding is necessary to 

 keep the small colony in prosperous condi- 

 tion. In a good honey-flow it will more than 

 take care of itself; but a few weeks of scarcity 

 of nectar will bring it to the verge of starva- 

 tion. 



I keep the two hives shown in the pictures 

 going all the time. The older one is kept 

 unchanged so that I can study aging combs, 

 while the other is subjected to fre- 

 quent rebuilding of its comb. I 

 expect the coming summer to try 

 two moi'e hives which shall mark 

 a still further advance in opportu- 

 nity for further bee-study. 



The hive pictured with the single 

 comb shows what can be done out 

 of season. A new lot of bees were 

 put into this hive in September, 

 and they were compelled to build 

 their comb thus late in the fall. 

 Most of the comb was built in Oc- 

 tober, yet the colony is in fair 

 prospect of going through the win- 

 ter. 



Even though one does not win- 

 ter such an observatory colony he 

 ought to start one early enough 

 in the season to see it go through the swarm- 

 ing fever. Though the swarms from such 

 colonies are not perfectly normal, one will 

 still see much that is instructive and highly 

 interesting. After the swarm has left, the 

 rival queen-cells become centers of interest 

 for both bees and bee-keeper. One may 

 find, as I did one June, that the oldest vir- 

 gin is not always the first one to emerge, for 

 at that time the oldest was kept imprisoned 

 in her cell, and a younger sister allowed to 

 come out and go with a swarm. The action 

 of the virgin which is to become the ruling 

 queen of the hive will be watched with avid- 

 ity. 



An ingenious person will contrive innumer- 

 able experiments to put to the test with these 

 hives. No live bee-keeper should be without 

 one or more of these easily made and simple 

 hives. His education demands it. Many of 

 us must be satisfied to go without the Bige- 

 low Educational hive, the University, but all 

 of us can take the Common-school hive here 

 depicted, and possibly matriculate for a later 

 course in the IJniversity. 

 Norwich, Conn. 



Mr. George Rose, 50 Great Charlotte St., 

 Liverpool, England, advertises to furnish 1000 

 plants of heather for $7.50. Here is a chance 

 for some one in an elevated peaty district in 

 the mountains to naturalize this great honey- 

 producing plant. New Yorkers will please 

 notice. 



