180 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



SOMETIiINQ AnOV'S' MIVES. 



^p^^EAR GLEANINGS :— Many that now take your 

 jLyJ Journal are beginners in real bee-culture, and it 

 seems a liardsiiip to refer them tor information 

 ti> iho back numbers of a journal that is not stereotyp- 

 ed, and whose Vol. Ill at least, is exhausted. For the 

 aid of soQic Tvho have written me, and others who I 

 presume are similarly situated I will give a few prac- 

 tical directions which I do not expect to bo of any 

 beueiit to llie experienced, nor perhaps the specialist 

 ia bee-culture. 



To select swarms before purchasing ia the spring. 

 Those are best with como two years old that is 

 mostly worker comb ; that cast a swarm last year ; 

 that have plenty of brood and bees in from five to 

 seven spaces, and honey to last till June. Say 10 lbs. 

 m the fall, as above, but not less than 30 lbs. honey 

 and a queen of the present season's hatching, and 

 seven to ten spaces of bees. 



In sv/armiug time,— not less than 12 quarts of bees 

 from a hive whose combs are old. 



To move a swarm, hive in a box with at least a doz- 

 en inch holes in sides, and top covered with wire 

 cloth or perforated tin, two cross sticks, and bottom 

 covered with cloth, opriukle with cold sweetened 

 water once in sis hours and keep shaded ; they maj^ 

 be moved any distance in hot weather. 



The hive to use : First of all the frame should be 

 Langstroth, tin cornered if you can ofl'ord it, if not 

 and you can make a good nailed frame, irse that. But 

 rio one can afford to use a poorly constructed frame. 

 Make a comb guide of bees-«vax thus. Cut strips f by 

 one inch straight edged, as long as the inside of your 

 iVame. Melt your bees- wax just enough to run freely, 

 %fet your straight edge with a cloth or sponge and 

 place it on the under side of your top bar, the edge 

 exactly in the centre, holding the frame bottom up- 

 ward inclined slightly from the perpendicular and 

 horizontal. With a spoon pour wax iu upper corner 

 letting it run down and cool in the angle made by 

 your straight edge and top bar, remove the straight 

 edge carefully, and if well done you have a clear 

 sharp bees-wax comb guide. I saw 50 combs built on 

 sucli a guide last season as straight as boards. 



Decide how many swarms you wish to keep arid 

 bend all the energies of jour bees to building straight 

 worker comb sufficient to allow (if you use the ex- 

 tractor) 20 frames to a colony. Good drone comb is 

 not valueless for store combs in upper story, but is 

 worse than valueless below. 



1 would advise a two story hive of | in. boards, 

 built v.-ith stationary bottom board below and the up- 

 per story without bottom, for either box or extracted 

 honey. Eoxes to be set on J sq. strips laid across 

 Irames, upper story to be furnished with tin rabbets 

 the same as lower story, cap to fit on either story 

 (with a bevel) like a trunk lid, upper story to be 

 shallow esiough to let tipper frames hang f in. from 

 lower ones and lower story deep enough to allow a J 

 in. rabbet for convenience in tucking the quilt that 1 

 would alwaj'B use instead of honey board. Make 

 quilt of anything warm, lined next the bees with 

 heaviest domestic. When lifting ofi" upper story fill- 

 ed v.-ith frames set on a board on which is nailed a 

 hoop one inch wide same size as hive. Make the 

 lower story thus, and nail the bottom board well. I 

 have no controversy with those who use mova- 

 ble bottoms. I have tried them to my satisfaction, 

 any one can toil upon trial which they like best. A 

 man that uses thcra and don't get mad I commend as 

 an example of praicncc. Some other time I may tell ' 



you how I manage after I get my bees and combs 

 ready for action. R. L. Joineu. 



Wyoming, V,'i?. June Ibtli, 187(>. 



From Tompkins, (Mich.) Patriot, of June l.'ith. 

 MS?.. TSJ'iVrJiLEY'S AIPaAKT, 



srg^AVJNG leisure a few days since, 

 Jljjii^ desire to learn something about 1 



curiosity and a 

 bees prompted 

 us to visit the apiary of J. H. Townley, of Tomp- 

 kins, or, as he is sometimes called, '-Ijee Townley," 

 he having made bee culture a study for the past twen- 

 ty-five years ; hence the name. We found Mr. Town- 

 ley busily engaged with his little workers. Wo stated 

 the object of our visit and we were kindly received 

 by our host ; he said lie was always willing to tell 

 what little he knew about bee culture. His apiary 

 makes one think of a little fairy viDage with the 

 houses about four or five feet apart. The air 

 seciiis alive ^v^th bees, and yet everything is harmoni- 

 ous, each worker finding his own hive as readily as 

 though it possessed the intelligence of a human. His 

 stock is mostly pure Italians. He claims that they 

 are stronger, better workers, and less liable to rob 

 each other than our common black bee, also they 

 were sure death to millers. He said ho would pay five 

 dollars apiece for each miller that could be found in 

 his entire stock of one hundred stands. Mr. Townley 

 sells very little honey iu the comb ; he claims that he 

 can aflord to sell the strained honey for about one- 

 third the price of honey in the comb. He uses A. I. 

 Root's Honey Extractor, which is quite a novel ma- 

 chine (and is considered the best in the market) and 

 yet the process is very simple : The cards of comb are 

 put into a frame, (which stands in a lax-ge tin can) and 

 revolved rapidly around a few times and the centrifu- 

 gal force throws the honey out of the cells. An expe- 

 rienced man will extract one thousand pounds per 

 day in the busy season, although seven and eight 

 hundred pounds is consiilered a good day's work .The 

 bus}- season had not begun, but we saw enough to 

 satisfy our curiosity. Mr. T. handles his bees with as 

 little fear as we would a common house fiy. To pre- 

 vent his bees from swarming and leaving him he clips 

 one of the queen bee's wings and when the swarm 

 comes out of the hive she drops on the ground ; he 

 then places her in the new hive with some brood 

 comb, puts the new hive where the old one stood, and 

 in a short time the swarm come back, find their 

 queen in their new home, and go to work without anj' 

 farther trouble. We were surprised to learn that 

 workers were so short lived. He said they would not 

 live over eight wsjeks in the busy season but would 

 wear themselves out with actual labor and die, while 

 the queen would live from two to six years, and part 

 of the time lay two' thousand eggs per day. Dui-ing 

 the basswood season (which is in July and lasts ten 

 or twelve days), last season Mr. T. kept a minute of 

 the amount of honey that one of his swarms made, 

 weighing the hive evcrj' night. The total amount for 

 the ten days was one hundred and thirteen pounds. 

 The most made in one day was seventeen pounds, 

 part of two days during the time it rained. The bees 

 had to go on an average two miles to gather the honey 

 and now at the low price of fifteen cents per pound 

 this one stand paid .sixteen dollars and niaety-flve 

 cents in ten days; and v/e should consider by this that 

 bees were a paying investment. Mr. T. says his stands 

 will pay him on an average fifteen dollars per year.- 

 We learned a great deal about bees but space will not. 

 permit us to give all the particulars. Suffice it for the 

 present to say that our host had us test all of his dif- 

 ferent kinds of hone." (basswood, white clover, buck- 

 wheat, etc.,) oi last year's gathering. Fakcv. 



