170 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



Basswood bloom opened on the 12th and continued 

 about two weeks, when there was a lull for a few 

 days, and then came the greatest flood of honey I 

 ever saw. This was from honey-dew and fall flowers, 

 lasting till Sept. 13, when the season closed. So you 

 see my crop was all stored in about sixty days. We 

 had made preparations for taking mostly comb hon- 

 ey; but when the rush came we were obliged to run 

 the extractor constantly, to give room for the 

 queens, as the bees would fill cells with honey that 

 had eggs and larvjB in them. I expect to hear of 

 widespread disaster where the extractor was not 

 used, as they have gone into winter with principally 

 ail old bees; and already the reports of losses begin 

 to come. One man reports 6 swarms all dead — all 

 he had; another has lost 7, and several others have 

 lost heavily. 



I have so far lost but one swarm, and that one we 

 had extracted from late, and their stores were too 

 much scattered in the hive. I put 12 swarms in cel- 

 lar, 38 on summer stands, and covered with snow for 

 80 days. It has been pleasant for several days, and 

 the bees have had a good time, and are now in good 

 trim for the storms of spring. Wm. C. Humphrey. 



Redfleld, la., March 3, 1883. 



CYPRIAN AND HOLY-IiAND BESS. 



HOW THEY DO FOR ME. 



f"N the summer or fall of 1881 1 bought of H. Alley 

 two Cyprian queens, both tested. They bred 



' up in the fall to good strong colonies, and for 

 Some reason or other both colonies superseded their 

 ■queens and raised young queens. The young queens 

 mated with Italian drones, there being no others in 

 my apiary. I could not distinguish Cyps from the 

 Italians. I looked for them to be crosser than the 

 Italians, but was happily disappointed. I could see 

 no difference as to their honey-gathering qualities, 

 doing just as well as my Italians. If any difference 

 In color, the Cyps are the yellower. 



In the fall of 1881 I bought of H. B. Harrington a 

 tested Holy-Land queen. He wrote me that she was 

 a very fine one. In a short time she had her hive 

 full of brood. I was fortunate enough to rear two 

 queens the same fall from the Harrington queen, 

 the young queens mating with Italian drones. So 

 in the summer of 1882 I had a fair chance to test 

 these colonies with my Italians. In the spring they 

 bred up so fast that I concluded to rear a number of 

 half-blf>od Holy-Land queens. The old stock of the 

 Harrington queen is cross, if you undertake to han- 

 dle them with smoke. I had built them up to four 

 brood-chambers on top of each other by using fdn. 

 as fast as the bees and queen could use it; and, 

 wonderful to report, in a short time the four cham- 

 bers were full from top to bottom. I intended to 

 use the extractor, thinking that they could be han- 

 dled with smoke, like my Italians; but the more I 

 smoked them the more they would boil out of the 

 top of the hive. I made out to take some two gal- 

 lons of honey from them, or about 23 lbs. I then 

 concluded that they were too cross to be run for ex- 

 tracted honey, and so I divided them up into four 

 colonies, making the queenless ones raise queens, 

 which they did. 



I had no trouble with fertile workers. With care 

 the old stock can be handled without smoke or pro- 

 tection, without danger of being stung. The half- 



bloods are no croSser than Italians, and are great 

 honey-gatherers, as good, or better, than my best 

 Italian colonies. In fact, they look and act like Ital- 

 ians. The Harrington queen's stock are more gray- 

 ish, rather smaller, quicker in going out. and slow 

 in nearing the hive. Any one can tell the Holy-Land 

 bees from the half-bloods and Italians. 



I am much pleased with the cross of the Holy- 

 Land and Italian bees, and will establish or start an 

 apiary of them away from my home apiary, to keep 

 from further crossing with my Italians. 



Leonidas Carson. 



Frederick, Ohio, March 20, 1883. 



DO QUEENIiESS COLONIES KILL THEIR 

 DRONES ? 



ALSO AN EXCELLENT MORAL ON THE IMPORTANCE 

 OF FEEDING THROUGH A BAD SEASON. 



•JNDER the above heading Mr. J. E. Pond, Jr., in 

 your Nov. No., 1883, page 560, says: " Did you 

 ever know a queenless colony to kill off its 

 drones before accepting a new queen?" and de- 

 scribes a case of that kind that happened in his own 

 apiary. You, friend Root, in answer say you " never 

 noticed a case of the kind," leaving it to be inferred 

 that such a state of things is rather unusual. 



Now, my experience during the past season is 

 similar to that of friend Pond's, and goes far to prove 

 that queenless colonies may often kill off drones. 

 In the spring of 1883 I had 26 colonies, and I never 

 saw bees stronger, or in better shape, than they 

 were in April last. The spring proved very cold, 

 and the season consequently was backward, and my 

 bees diminished in numbers rather than increased 

 as they ought, and not till June did they begin to 

 gain at all. They gained but slowly during the white- 

 clover bloom, but did not store a single pound of 

 surplus. The basswood season came and went with- 

 out knowledge on my part, so far as any yield of 

 honey was concerned. After basswood, comes our 

 usual season of dearth; and my bees were left with 

 hardly stores enough to give them a bare subsist- 

 ence. Not a colony of the 26 even made prepara- 

 tions for swarming, except raising a few drones, 

 and not a queen-cell was built by any of them ex- 

 cept when the bees took it into their heads to super- 

 sede a queen, which quite a number did do without 

 any apparent cause, the superseded queens being 

 extra good ones, young and proliflc. 



The bees in the whole apiary seemed perfectly de- 

 moralized, and utterly disheartened. Killing off 

 drones was the order of the day, and looked as 

 though they were trying to make a pastime of it. 

 Queenless colonies were fully as much disposed to 

 kill their drones as any of them; and if you, friend 

 Root, had been there at that time, I could have 

 shown you a dozen queenless artificial swarms just 

 made by dividing, that were as busily engaged in 

 killing drones as those that had queens. Two col- 

 onies that had superseded their queens, and had 

 queen-cells capped, were just as crazy as the rest, 

 and I was compelled to feed regularly in order to 

 stop the slaughter, and succeeded in so doing only 

 after feeding several days, as the bees had nothing 

 else to do (there being no nectar in the fields) to 

 amuse themselves, they occupied their time In cut- 

 ting fdn. out of frames, and holes through the quilts, 

 and it was with great difficulty that I finally induced 



