1598 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



was first-class; one-third second-class, and 

 the rest nothing more than nuclei. They 

 gave me over one ton of honey, part being 

 comb and part extracted. One colony gave 

 me 204 lbs. <^t comb honey, and another col- 

 ony 202 of extracted. I ran my weakest col- 

 onies for extracted. The comb-honey hive 

 gave 147 lbs. of white clover, and 57 of buck- 

 wheat. The one for extracted gave 120 lbs. 

 of white-clover and 82 of buckwheat honey. 

 I use the Danzenbaker hive and super, and 

 for comb honey or extracted there is not a 

 better hive on the market. I exhibited hon- 

 ey at our State fair in Trenton in 1905, and 

 took first prize on comb honey, but since 

 then I have not had the time to exhibit it. 



All colonies are heavy with honey, having 

 had a flow of honey from fall flowers since 

 I removed the supers. Levi K. Cole. 



Stanton, N. J., Sept. 28. 



more than one queen tolerated if the 

 bees are gentle. 



I would suggest that those who are not 

 able to keep two or more laying queens in a 

 hive without perforated zinc, as Mr. A ex- 

 ander does, should get gentle stock; then 

 they would be able to succeed. They will 

 also have better success in putting a weak 

 colony over a strong one in the spring, if 

 the bees are gentle. 



Hudson, S. D. Henning Anderson. 



PLURALITY OF QUEENS IN ONE HIVE; WHAT 

 ARE THE ADVANTAGES? 



We have been reading with the greatest in- 

 terest all that has been said on the plural- 

 queen question, or a large part of it, and will 

 venture a say on the subject. I am one of 

 those apiculturists who keep bees for what 

 there is in the business, as well as the pleas- 

 ux'e of being close to nature; therefore the 

 practical side of the question will naturally 

 appeal to me first, and this leads my mind to 

 a variety of questions, such as. Is this a nat- 

 ural condition of the colony of bees? Is the 

 apiarist paid for his trouble? Will five queens 

 give their keeper more money value in one 

 hive than they will in five separate hives, and 

 pay the trouble of raising and introduction 

 additional? 



We will notice, in the first place, that more 

 than one queen in a hive is an unnatural 

 state except a few days at the time of super- 

 sedure. 1 am a successful apiarist of over 20 

 years' standing and practice, and have nev- 

 er run across two queens being wintered in 

 the same hive, therefore I am skeptical on 

 the possibility of such a trick. Almost any 

 sort of trick can be worked on bees when 

 they are tumbling head over heels after hon- 

 ey during a big honey-flow, while, on the 

 other hand, with adverse conditions we are 

 often put to our wits' ends in trying to per- 

 suade them to accede to even their natural 

 domestic traits. Any first-class queen will 

 overflow a two-story ten-frame hive with 

 bees in due time if the combs are ready for 



eggs and she has plenty of nurses and food 

 for the larvas; therefore, where is the use in 

 fussing with a cupful of queens in one hive? 

 We are not especially pessimistic on this sub- 

 ject, but believe that some good results can 

 be had in the saving of hives, or, rather, 

 making each hive a sure producer of honey 

 by the introduction of a second queen. The 

 question then naturally arises, "Will the 

 apiarist get sufficient pay in dollars and cents 

 to justify such a procedure?" It costs a 

 neat little sum to produce 100 queens to dou- 

 ble the queens in 100 colonies of bees with 

 value of work added. If these queens are 

 given separate colonies of their own, the ben- 

 efit in dollars and cents to the apiarist will 

 be of great importance. 



T. P. Robinson. 

 Bartlett, Tex., Nov. 12. 



[We do not believe it practicable to have 

 more than two queens to a colony, and even 

 then they must be separated by perforated 

 zinc. We have had reports already from 

 some who claim that they are able to in- 

 crease the honey crop by the dual-queen 

 system, for the reason that it is easier to 

 raise two mediocre queens than it is one 

 high-class queen that you speak of. Then, 

 moreover, there is the advantage that if one 

 of the queens is lost the colony is not hope- 

 lessly stranded, provided the owner should 

 not discover the loss.— Ed.] 



HOW FAR A SWARM TRAVELS. 



On page 1070 you ask for data on how far 

 a swarm of bees will go. About 35 years 

 ago a man by the name of Girard found a 

 swarm of Italian bees hanging on a bush, 

 and sold them to Joseph C. Stewart, a bee- 

 keeper of this place. At that time there were 

 no Italians in Brown Co. ; but the year before, 

 a man by the name of Hart had imported 

 some Italians. He lived at Appleton, 25 

 miles away. It was decided by the bee-men 

 here that the swarm must have come from 

 Mr. Hart's. In later years I found a bee- 

 tree 8 miles from here, all circumstances 

 pointing directly to the fact that they had 

 left here. They were within a few rods of a 

 large buckwheat-fiela nearly ripe when I 

 found the tree. The first young bees were 

 just hatching when I cut the tree, and the 

 swarm left here 25 days before I cut the tree, 

 and they flew in a direct line to where I 

 found them. They were hybrids. 



West Depere, Wis. Paul Scheuring. 



HOW TO USE METAL COVERS WITHOUT DAN- 

 GER OF MELTING THE COMBS. 



In the March 15th issue, page 402, I notice 

 the caution against the use of metal covers 

 on account of the danger of melting the combs 

 in the hot sun. I am sure this is a very good 

 precaution. My covers are nearly all cover- 

 ed with galvanized iron, which I believe is 

 the cheapest cover in use. In very hot 

 weather I lift one end of the cover and place 

 under it a strip about an inch square. This 



