82 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Ape. 



I lune .sold my croi) of cxtraoled honey, wliich was 

 ;ibout ;^00l) lbs. Could sell much moro if 1 had it. 



O. H. TowxsEMJ, HubtardstoM'n, Jlich., Mar. U, "70. 



I have M'intcivd most of my bees out doors this season. 

 Every colony, (of o^cr \-20) is alive yet. Some 40 in cellar, 

 seem to l)e in good condition. J. K. Ceane. 



Bridgeport, Vt., March 7th, l.s'O. 



MR. A. I. ROOT : -In Februai-y, about th. 10th I think, 

 I put rye flour into woo<leii feeders, and set tiiem upon 

 the frames inuncdiatcly over the cluster. A coffee sack 

 tilled with bay, was pressed down into the cap. I exam- 

 ined l.'i hives to-day, and find that seven have worked up- 

 on the llour, they take it clean as far as they go. They 

 have plenty of honey yet. I gave tliem loaf sugar to-day, 

 to jiet them a little you know. I have never had bees 

 work very much on rye floiu' out of doors. Any day that 

 is warm enough for them to work in the open air in the 

 spring, they can get pollen. The river overllovvs the bot- 

 loms, taking out the Irost so early that the willows arc 

 soon in bloom. Uon't tliink it pays to raise queens for a 

 dollar, and have to catch and mail them to boot. Bees 

 carried pollen splendidly .Saturday, JIarch llth, tumbling 

 over each other in tlieir hurry. Mrs. L. Hakrison. 



Peoria, 111., March i:5th, 1876. 



Are 3rou sure Mv<. It. that the i)ees used the 

 meal instead of simply tumbling it down on 

 the l)ottoin of the hive V We have tried it 

 many times but never succeeded. We think 

 raising queens for a dollar can be made to pay 

 quite well, especially if one has spare time that 

 can be devoted to such lousiness. While one is 

 learninfj, he must not expect very large wages, 

 and if we can have the needed out-door exer- 

 cise, and at the same time get even small pay, is 

 it not encouraging y 



As the section boxes must be made of stull' 

 free from knots, tlie lumber will cost about b'c 

 per foot. Athough our four saws do the work 

 nicely, they work rather slbwly — the stuff hav- 

 ing to be pushctl through several times to get 

 it clean and accurate. Our price at present, 

 will be at the rate o1 Oc per S(iuare foot for the 

 lumber ready to rip up. A square foot will 

 make about 25 boxes. 



We should be very glad indeed to be able to 

 turn the heads cf our readers toward all paths 

 of honest industry, but may God forbid that 

 our itifluence should ever turn them otherwise. 

 Alas, that our fond dreams of miles of perfect 

 worker comb for our own apiary and those of 

 our readers should have been thus rudely des- 

 troyed by inconvenient patents. 



1 have 10 stocks of bees which I am wintering in an out 

 door cellar, built up with logs, arched over and covered 

 with straw and dirt. The temperature in it has not va- 

 ried moro than 3° this winter. There has been no weath- 

 er in which bees could fly, since the 23d of Deccembcr; 

 the thermometer then stood only .'JS". At what/ tempera- 

 ture cm we, with safety, put bees out for a fly ? I had to 

 furnish one Lite swarm with stores, and don't think they 

 have a cell of pollen at the present time. It is too cold to 

 feed meal ; what shall I do ? T>. C4aednee. 



P. S.— The temperature in cellar has ranged from 40^ to 

 42°, is that right ? 



Car.son City, Mich., March 7th, 1870. 



If you can keep them quiet in their cellar, 

 don't put them out at all, even if they Jiavc no 

 pollen. If the weather is such that you can 

 keep them in until April, or later, we are in- 

 clined to think it all the better. 



"What is your charge for 50 feet of lumber cut into 

 lengths {■> inches) and grooved, ready for rii)i)ing into 

 honey section stuff ? I can have the same .shipped, at but 

 small cost with my regular spring order. The ripping I 

 want to do myself, on one of the foot-power saws. I win- 

 tered 108 out of 111 hives this season, a number being four 

 frame luiclei. For prudential rea.sons, doubled up (or 

 down rather) to about 100, aljout 90 of which I have now 

 breeding nicely. 



Jud ing by my own case, your last C4leanixgs has 

 turned the heads of your subscribers on "saws," while at 

 the same time it has dissipated the fond dreamings of 

 many of them at least, as to their ever becoming possess- 

 ors of tlie comb foundation machine. I know of no altern- 

 ative but letting you run off miles of it at 75 cts. 



J. S. WooDBUEX, Dickinson, Pa., March 10th, '70. 



I have two swarms of black bees in box hives ; ono ditto 

 in Quinby suspended ; and had one more that I Italianized 

 last fall ; though a nice healthy one, it actually starved 

 out since the middle of February, at which time, they 

 with the others were out for a fly. Of course I am sorry 

 now that I did not better look after them. 



I notice by your February No. that you now vote for 

 loaf sugar as a bee feed. Do you mean that they will .' tore 

 this in their cells in case we feed it in the fall for a win- 

 ter's supply? S. R. Leonard. 



Wallingford. Ct., :March 10th, "70. 



To be sure they will store the sugar in the 

 cells; and permit us to remark right here that 

 tliis question, like a hundred others could be 

 answered quicker tind easier by putting some 

 lumps of sugar over the cluster of your starv- 

 ing colonies, than by writing to your editor. 

 We have dozens who discuss and theorize over 

 a matter, whei'e we have one who will go right 

 to work and make practical experiments. You 

 probably had seen what we put in the Feb. No. 

 about sugar before your only Italian colony 

 starved, and yet friend L., you ask us to -'tel' 

 through Gf.K.VMNGs," etc. We are very sorry 

 to hear of such losses, and if it will afford auy 

 relief to tlie suffering ones, on the ground that 

 "misery loves compauy," we will say that the 

 past winter has been such that an unusual 

 amount of stores has been consumed, and tliose 

 wlio never lose by starvation, have been obliged 

 to admit that tlieir bees starved and nothing 

 else. Even bees that were put in the cellar 

 seem to have fared much the same. If we can 

 only learn a good lesson from it. it may not 

 prove a loss in the end ; one very important 

 fact to be learned is that because one hive will 

 winter safely on 10 lbs. of stores, it is really no 

 proof that others will. Colonies that seem 

 about the same in strength frequently consume 

 15 lbs. and then starve. There is danger, even 

 when this reaches you, and if you do not go 

 over them all, at once, tind see that each one 

 has an abundant surplus of lumps of sugar or 

 sealed stores of some kind, you do not deserve 

 to succeed If you arc going to choose us for 

 your teacher, ijct about feeding this minute. If 

 you use smoke, you can feed them sugar even 

 after dark ; just tumble the lumps right down 

 among them. Maple sugar does tip top if the 

 loaf lumps are not handy. There is very little 

 danger of their liaving too much when they 

 ate rearing brood rapidly. Now please don't 

 let any of your bees starve in April; if you are 

 ever so busy, you can attend to it iu the way 

 we have indicated. 



