THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



271 



Entrances!; Brace Combs ; Introducing ; 



Economy In Labor : Blacks ; Seat 



Tool - Box ; Bee Paralysis Cured 



Throngli the Queen. 



O. W. DAYTON. 



n7HE bees have 

 x" gathered suffi- 

 cient honey for 

 household use 

 each day since last 

 January. From 

 Feb. 1st to July 1st 

 they were near 

 starvation, be- 

 cause it held out 

 foggy until ten 

 o'clock and then 

 was cloudy from 

 two o'clock until 

 night. But they lived on the daily gather, 

 then. One colony starved. ^ Those moved to 

 the sage belt got a light flow about the first 

 of May. I am located ten miles from the 

 sea shore. 



In using auger holes for entrances, if the 

 apiary is not surrounded by a tight board 

 fence, cold, windy weather might trouble. 

 Then if there is such a fence the bees may 

 get outside of it in the shade, and perish. 

 Here it is always warm, and seldom windy. 

 Some one thinks mice may enter. With J4 

 wide frame material this is possible as the 

 spaces are V inch or more. With material 

 one and one-sixteenth wide - and three- 

 elevenths spaces mice are practically exclu- 

 ded. With my kind of entrance there is 

 more or less accumulations on the bottom 

 boards distant from entrance. If we clean 

 the bottom boards it is as well to move more 

 or less but with nailed bottom boards it is 

 impossible to move any however great the 

 need. 



It appears that Mr. Doolittle's 13-inch- 

 long top bars of this material would have 

 no more brace combs than 18)^-inch-long 

 top bars of thick material, if as may be in- 

 ferred, sagging causes wide spaces and wide 

 spaces cause brace combs. Considering that 

 both lengths of top bars are of the same 

 width of material. 



Even that ten-day method of introducing 

 queens on page 25.5 would not work at the 

 beginning of or before the harvest here. I 

 kept queens caged 20 to ."JO days and they 

 were balled whenever released. After the 

 harvest, after the drones were killed, any 



plan worked. My plan was to cause the col- 

 onies to rear cells and then put in a cell of 

 my own selection. 



It is poor management where 175 pounds 

 of man spends his time turning extractors 

 or putting up sections when a 12-year-old 

 boy would do the same for $1.50 per week. 

 Let the man sit out in the apiary and study 

 how to improve his queens, and figure out 

 why it is that one colony stores four times 

 as much as another, why certain colonies 

 cluster out or refuse to enter the sections, 

 etc., etc. Allow him no newspapers but 

 plenty of bee books and journals and shade. 



Those colonies which were the gentlest and 

 and would allow any kind of rough hand- 

 ling without veil or smoke before the har- 

 vest are, since the harvest, as cross and mean 

 as yellow jackets. The purer the Italians 

 the worse the temper. The opposite is the 

 case with blacks and hybrids. October, 

 November and December seem to be of the 

 greatest dormancy in this climate (of the 

 bees.) 



For years it has been known that sugar 

 and water could be mixed by agitation but 

 the percolated article described by Dr. Beall 

 is a far more desirable material. Extractors 

 were invented to extract honey and presently 

 bee-keepers fell to extracting nectar. I 

 never could " go " water and sugar on flap- 

 jacks but that percolated syrup was ahead of 

 most honey. 



It is becoming apparent that hives should 

 be sized according to good and poor seasons 

 rather than poor and better localities. When 

 there only comes a six days' yield the bees 

 are better to be all gatherers rather than 

 divided into nurses and inside workers and 

 brood. Have surplus combs drawn before 

 hand. Then contract snfliciently and in a 

 manner that the bees will act at the first in- 

 ducement. The main thing is the forecast- 

 ing of the yield and not to expect too much. 

 Prepare to get a little and get it rather than 

 prepare for much and get nothing. 



Blacks have the name of capping their 

 honey whitest. I find some Italians which 

 cap honey whiter than any blacks. First, 

 they store whiter honey. Then they travel 

 over it less. Where blacks pile on much wax 

 it makes a dead white. The most beautiful 

 honey is gray and glistening. It seems im- 

 possible for some bees to cap white and with- 

 out plastering on propolis, causing the hon- 

 ey to sell for less price. Hence the need of 

 selection in breeding. 



