1883 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



757 



MOVING BEES SHORT DISTANCES, 



I have 17 hives of bees, and I want to move them 

 about 40 or 50 ft. from where they now stand, to a 

 better place. When and how should I do it to the 

 best advantage, to prevent bees returning to their 

 present stands? I winter on summer stands. 



Hannibal, O., Nov. 26, 1883. M. Ludtman. 



Friend L., you will have to use consider- 

 able care in moving bees the short distance 

 you mention. If you can arrange to have 

 them kept in their hives by cold weather 

 two or three weeks, you can move them with- 

 out trouble ; but if a warm day should occur, 

 so there would not be more than three or 

 four days between'the time they took their 

 flight from their old location and their next 

 flight from their new location, they would go 

 back so as to lose a great many. For our lo- 

 cality here in Ohio, I would say, fix your 

 stands all in readiness in their new location 

 before the ground freezes up ; then wait till 

 the middle of the winter, and some day when 

 the temperature is somewhere about 40*^, lift 

 them from their old stand, and set them on 

 their new one so quietly that hardly a bee 

 will buzz. It would be well to make some 

 provision several days before you move them, 

 to prevent any of the hives from being frozen 

 fast to their old stands ; for if you raise the 

 hives up with a snap, the bees would be like- 

 ly to be roused up, and rush to get out. If 

 the first flight, then, after being moved, is 

 after they have got perfectly settled and 

 quiet, they will be apt to take points in their 

 new locations, and few, if any, return to their 

 old one, provided the interval as mentioned 

 above has been as much as three or four 

 weeks ; if a couple of months, it would be 

 still better, of course. You will notice that 

 some colonies are much more apt to go back 

 to an old location than others. 



importance of system in bee culture. 



Friend Root :— We are strangers to each other, 

 but I feel as though I should like to get acquainted, 

 and tell you my experience. I have had bees for the 

 last fifteen years in the old box hives, till the winter 

 of 1881, when they all died for me, and I think it was 

 the best thing that happened me in all that time, as 

 regards bee-keeping, lor they never did me any 

 good. I would save those that had honey enough, 

 and try to winter them, and kill the rest, and get 

 but very little honey; and generally those 1 would 

 try to winter would nearly all die. 



When I lost all my bees in 1881, 1 came to the con- 

 clusion that it was for want of system; and so I 

 purchased two swarms. One was an Italian colony, 

 and the other the common blacks. They were both 

 very late swarms, with no foundation for either 

 brood or surplus, and yet they gathered 51 lbs. of 

 surplus comb honey in section boxes, and had an 

 abundance of honey in the brood-frames for winter- 

 ing purposes; and, not knowing how to prepare 

 them for winter, I just gave them all ten of the 

 brood-frames, with no cushions or packing, and left 

 them on their summer stands all winter, and they 

 came through all right. So you see I had two col- 

 onies last spring to start with. Well, I sent for A B 

 C book, 5 lbs. of fdn., and about 250 section boxes; 

 and during rainy days I would make hives and put 

 foundation in frames, and had every thing in read- 

 iness, and all seemed prosperous till, alas! in May 



the worms got in the black colony, and were about 

 to demolish it; but after I had given your ABC 

 a careful perusal I went to work and transferred 

 them by cleaning off all their brood-frames and put- 

 ting them in a nice new clean hive. They acceepted 

 their new home, and worked finely; and on the 11th 

 of June it gave a large swarm; and on the 19th an- 

 other, and on the 23d another fair swarm. My Ital- 

 ians gave a swarm on the last day of May and on the 

 7th day of June; and on the 10th day of July my first 

 Italians that I hived on the last day of May gave a 

 nice large swarm. So you see my two colonies have 

 increased to 8, and gave me 230 lbs. of surplus honey 

 in section boxes. I am satisfied, if I had had more 

 fdn., and could have prevented after-swarming, ac- 

 cording to instructions in A B C book, I could have 

 got twice as much honey. But I have fed my late 

 swarms, so 1 think they are all in good condition for 

 winter. I have furnished all my hives with Hill's de- 

 vice for covering frames, and have them all packed 

 with chaff cushions. James Huston. 



Yanlue, Ohio, Nov. 22, 1883. 



A substitute for wax or solder for sealing 



UP THE JONES HONEY-PAILS. 



We tried the waxed strings; and, after getting out 

 of patience, thought we would try our label sticker 

 — te-nex-ine — a very adhesive compound, we think 

 ahead of glue or cement. With one of your 5-cent 

 brushes, paint the inner edge of the cover so as to 

 get the sticker where the cover and pail meet; press 

 down firmly, then put a few drops in the groove, 

 and tip the pail so it will run around the groove just 

 where the wax string goes, and the job is done, and, 

 as.soon.as dry, are ready for shipment, and in one- 

 fourth the time, and lessthan one-tenth the expense, 

 and it looks nicer, and no fussing to warm over a 

 stove. I think it can be purchased at $2.00 per gal- 

 lon; 35 cts. per pint bottles. F . H. Cyhenius. 



Scriba, N. Y., Oct. 24, 18&3. 



As soon as we received the above Jetter 

 from friend C, we sent at once to the_man- 

 ufacturers of te-nex-ine, and have now given 

 it a pretty thorough trial. This cement 

 hardens in a little while, and still looks, aft- 

 er it has hardened, exactly like.a liquid, or 

 clear glass ; in fact, you are surprised to find 

 it is hard upon touching the surface of it; 

 and when thoroughly set it seemsl^about. as 

 hard as glass, or clear horn would perhaps 

 express it better. I do not see but that it is 

 good for cementing almost any thing thatjs 

 broken. It seems wonderfully adhesive, as 

 well as strong. We can furnish it at the 

 price friend 0. quotes, or we can give you a 

 pretty good-sized bottle with brush, for only 

 a dime. Of course, it is not mailable. It 

 seems to me it is going to be a great acquisi- 

 tion, for the handsome appearance of every 

 thing mended with it is another recommend- 

 ation. We have not yet tested it for ship- 

 ping honey, but it will doubtless soon be test- 

 ed. Many thanks to friend C. for calling our 

 attention to it. 



Friend Boot.— Quite a number of friends have no- 

 tified me that they failed to see their names in the 

 list of new members at our convention in Toronto. 

 Tell them, please, that I am too busy now to look 

 the matter up; but that I shall do so before the is- 

 sue of your next number. Chas. F. Muth. 



Cincinnati, Nov. 22, 1883. 



