1876 



GLEA.NINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



115 



I sold Mr. Perrine our machine for just the 

 price advertised, selling him the wax 

 at cost, and turnina: the whole business into 

 his hands ; yet have been a good deal blamed 

 for the course then taken. Should I pay no 

 respect to the Wagner patent that I then "con- 

 sidered valid V I am now having another ma- 

 chine made as Mr. P. makes no progress as yet 

 towards tilling orders even at his prices ; ours 

 will be 75c. and .$1.00 as before, but I beg no 

 one will send in money until we announce be- 

 ing ready to fill orders. If after tlie macliiue 

 is done, our laws will sustain Mr. Perrine, you 

 and I will have to submit until his patent runs 

 out ; we can do it pleasantly if obliged to can 

 we not? Now while I shall receive the appro- 

 val of most of you in this I shall be severely 

 censured by others having dift'erent interests 

 at stake, as it is with the type; you dont all 

 "see" alike. Let your postals talk out plainly 

 but not unkindly. 



OUK OWN APIARY. 



^IpjlIIS 28th day of May tiads us with (!0 live 

 i|j colonies of the 90 we had in the fall. 

 What made them die? We don't know, unless 

 it was, as Jiingliam says, a dispensation of 

 providence, perhaps to keep us Irom getting 

 proud and arrogant as we might if we could 

 winter them all; as our neighbor Shane does. 

 Isn't it aggravating ? Why just think of it, he 

 has wintered 131 colonies and never lost one. 

 How did he do it ? Says he did nothing except 

 to have plenty of bees, and a great pFenty of 

 stores. If we are correct, he fed many of them 

 on the honey he had extracted ; so we can't 

 claim that it was even sugar syrup. Reports 

 are also favorable from almost all points of the 

 compass ; and we are trying to rejoice in the 

 prosperity of others, even if we are a little be- 

 hind. Just listen to the following: 



I housed in my cellar laso October, the -iSth, 1S75, 150 

 stocks of bees, where they remained until April lOih, 1876, 

 when I jfot them out on summer stands. All were alive 

 and I never saw bees in better condition. Found 7 queens 

 missing but the stocks arc too slron,;; to unite, other hives 

 are full of Ijees wiihout them. The tcmperauu-e of cellar 

 ranirod from IG'^ to 52"^ ; never belaw during the winter . 

 Did you ever have stocks of bees that tilled every space 

 between th^ cjmbs from top to bottom of hive in cool 

 wcftther at this time of year, or ten days after placing 

 them on summer stands ? Nearly 100 of my stock.'? are in 

 that condition. What does it mean ? They are surely 

 crowded and will swarm on the Ih-st appearance of fruit 

 bloom, if there is any honey to be gathered. 



HiK.'iu Roor, Carson City, Mich., April 20th, "70. 



We think it means they had honey and poll- 

 en enough in ihtir combs to ivar brood in your 

 warm cellar without starving. 



Perhaps the best coluny we have, is the one 

 in the Quinby hive that was packed on all sides 

 and over head with chatt', a In Townly. Tliey 

 were so srrong they would most probably 

 have winteretl well any v.'here, for we tried to 

 get them to work in the boxes and failed ; con- 

 sequently they had every thing full of nice seal- 

 ed clover honey. Now we never s-aw a hive 

 having too much stores, notwithstanding all 

 that has been said about it ; we have trifd the 

 effect of too little and know ju^^t what it does. 

 noAv we propose trying what the effect of t(jo 



mucli will be. Our next best colony, is the one 

 in the hoop hive ; and they have been steadily 

 increasing in numbers since Feb. Tiiird best, 

 colony with imported ((uetn in house apiary 

 on north side. Cannot see that it makes any 

 diflerence whether stocks are on north or south 

 side. I should be glad to add that the several 

 dollar's worth of oil that has been used keep- 

 ing the house apiary wanned for the past 

 month, has been of some sort of benefit to the 

 j brood, but really the bees outside that have 

 I taken their chances, are just about as well off. 

 t To test the matter still more thoroughly we 

 I made .some candy containing aijuantity of rye 

 I flour, but although the bees ate it slowly meal 

 i and alJ, we cannot see that it has hastened 

 I brood very much after all. Small c!ustir> 

 out-door -i kept on three frames with a division 

 board, have done equally well, and a shar]) 

 j frost .seems to have no etiect on them. Some 

 I very fair colonies were lost by the dwindling, 

 I and in some cases it has sadly depopulated 

 j some of our heaviest; the only remedy we can 

 I see, is bees enough to stand this; but how this 

 may always be secured, is more than we can 

 tell. Mr. Blakeslee, who has never before lost 

 in this way, has this spring lost a considerable 

 number; and although want of care has very 

 much to do with the whole matter, we are in- 

 clined to think it a malady that is found in 

 some apiaries and not in others, and even in 

 .some hives in the same apiary. As the reports 

 of its ravages are much less this year than for 

 several seasons, we may hope it has passed it.- 

 worse stage. The disposition of good stocks 

 to swarm out, we think may be attributed tj 

 the same cause. 



JUST BEFORE OOINC; TO PRE.SS. 



ON N the Sihof this month. 1 went to feed my bees, (foui- 

 j) stands) with rye meat, as usual w-ilh me every 

 mornina-, and to my sm'prise, found one of the tin 

 cans, in which I put the meal, nearly half full of water, 

 which had frozen solid, and in it were several beef-, frozen 

 in the solid cike of ice. [ took the ice out and laid it in 

 the sun, where I left it for about an hour, at the end of 

 which time I went to the spot and found one of the bees 

 that were frozen, just moving its legs in the water that 

 had thawad from the ice, (I know it was one of the same 

 bees), and hr a' out anotlier hour it was strong enough to 

 fly away, and I saw no more of it. 



Will bees live oa rye meal or othur flour if they can get 

 no honey? CiiAS. Desxey, Salt Lake City, Utah. 



Verv true, but had you left them thus more 

 than 4S hoars they would have been dead, or 

 il thay hi I '^i^\\ exp)-<jl to a 7, 'ro freeze f)r 

 one hour, we think you would Jiave failed in 

 your experiment. If such were not the case 

 we would have a tine time freezing our bees up 

 about Nov., and thawing ihera.out again in 

 the spring, without wasting any money for 

 honey or sugar meanwhile. We think all 

 these cases are only a kind of suspendid ani- 

 mation, and that the insects will starve unless 

 warmed up and fed at least every day. Ants 

 have a faculty not possessed by bjes, of endu- 

 ring zero freezes for months at a time, and this 

 fact has given rise to the idea that bees could 

 be thus kept without food. Pollen or meal 

 will enable bee-i to m ikc their stores go mucli 

 farther, Init will not alone sustain life. 



