1876 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



227 



DEPOSITORY OF 



Or Letters from Tbose Who Have Made 

 Bee Culture n. Failure. 



sf^jEES have done but little this season. My hundred 

 jgQa) ) colonies all came through the winter safely. Have 

 li wl but few swarms. Have only increased seven 

 and extracted 2400 lbs. Honey all of a dark color, haven't 

 extracted a pound cf liiin honey. Taking the season 

 through up to this time, I have never seen a worse honey 

 season. E. Coble. 



Cornersville, Tenn., July 31st, 187(3. 



I have kept bees in movable comb hives for nearly 

 six years, with good success, excepting the past year 

 a report of which I give below. 



Late in November, (winter 1S75-G), I buried seven 

 stocks in a pit, and packed four in wheat chaff. Left 

 them until the middle of April. Two of those in the 

 pit surviveil, one of those in the chafl' "dwindled," 

 and one starved. Some of those in the pit starved. 

 These bees had been fed late (Oct.) with brown sugar 

 (out of doors) and syrup ; the sugar being wet caused 

 a great uproar among the bees, and some lighting for 

 the treasure. I think this activity after brood-rearing 

 had ceased, may have been the cause of their dwind- 

 ling. Having united two stocks, I began the season 

 with only two. These have never swarmed nor gath- 

 ered any surplus. During June I bought six good 

 sized hybrid swarms lor 314,00, and gave them hives 

 full of comb; these have only gathered enough for 

 winter, though they have plenty of brood and are in 

 good condition. I have one of your extractors but 

 have not used it this season. To take advantage of 

 the best yield in this locality we must have strong 

 stocks by the first of June, white and red clover bein 

 the main dependence. I. M. Kaukfman. 



Belleville, Pa., August 21st, "(1. 



4)€le^'^ ami §um^§ 



MR. Gano and mj^self paid friend J. S. Hill, a visit 

 a few days since. He is criticizing your foun- 



' dation and wonders what you are aiming at— 



whether to enlarge the woi'kers— or reduce, size of 

 drones. He says worker comb is 5 to the inch, drone 4, 

 yours, m. G. Tompkins, Gin,, O., Aug. 19th, '76. 



[If friend Hill finds anything that is not right in 

 practice we should be glad to hear of it, but if he is 

 theorizing before trying the Idn., we fear we can not 

 help him. The first machine made, the one now used 

 by Pcrrine, made 5 cells to the inch, but in practice 

 we preferred the sizo made by Long, 4>^ to the inch, 

 and our present machir.e makes that size. The bees 

 will roar worker brood in cither, and the latter is cer- 

 tainly preferable for the honey boxes. We have 

 plenty of reports from both.] 



In pnlilisbing a part of my last letter, when ordering 

 some extractors you place me in evidence, and the con- 

 sequence is that I am receivina; letters and postal cards 

 form every part of th3 country enquiring the names of 

 bee- keepers in Italy who send queens to the U. S. I have 

 rec'dth?S5th p:stal this morning. I have answered to 

 about om dozen, but as I h ive no time, having other bus- 

 iness than Apicultvu'e to attend to, not depending on bees 

 for my living, though it is very remimerativo yet many 

 think diiTerently, I will comply with j-our request or 



rather with my offer, and give the names of a few of the 

 bee- keepers in Ualy who have sent Italian queens to this 

 country, and hope that all those sending for queens v.'ill 

 be as successful as I have been. 



Louis Saetori, Milan, Italy. 



D. Tremontani, Porta Galliera, Bologna, Ital^\ . 



JosEPE FiORiNi, Monselice, Italy. 



AuGUSTE MoNA, Bellinzoiia, Canton Tessin, Suisse, 



Mr, Tremontani and Mr. Mona are the only ones that I 

 know who will guarantee safe arrivals of queens. Mr. 

 Sartori in answer to some inquiries, states that he .ships 

 queens to America every 15 days with the best success : 

 but he did not state to me if he would guarantee safe ari- 

 val of queens. He gives me his price as §2.00 in gold for 

 each queen. Mr. Tremontani asks the following prices, 

 according to season : in July and August Sl.50 in gold, in 

 September and October, $1.20 gold, ready packed for the 

 U. S. Mr. Mona's prices are about the same. Each box 

 the queen is sent in is about (3 inches square and weighs 

 about 10 ounces. The best way of getting queens is 

 by theEuroiiean Express, which has agents in every city. 



The honey season was not very good with me this 

 spring but I anticij)ate a good fall. 



Paul L. Viallon, Bayou Goula, La. 



The comb fdn. in tin came to hand yesterday, found 

 them all sound and straight. Put in some last evening and 

 found them half celled out this morning, but am convinc- 

 ed that they should not come more than two-thirds dowTi 

 on the fi-ame as they will wave out and bulge. 



J. R. Pkatt, Manchester, N. Y. Aug, 19th, 187i3, 



[But they will not wave or bulge, friend P., if we leave 

 only >4 of an inch at the sides and bottom. In this res- 

 spect we have had better results with the yellow, than 

 with any white wax we can buy, and we find it an easy 

 matter to have entire frames without a single cell of 

 drone comb.] 



I Vi^ill tell you what my three swarms of bees have done. 

 I wintered them in a house and they .commenced swarm- 

 ing June 11th ; July Gth, had increased to 13 swarms, but; 

 think they swarmed too much for their own good. I use a 

 hive of my own make, holding 16 closed top frames. I 

 use division board according to their strength and 6 hon- 

 ey boxes on top frames. Size of frame 11 K in. by 12,'-^. 

 My first swarms have filled their hives and are at work in 

 boxes. I have been to one of my neighbor's this A. M. and 

 taken about 250 lbs. from boxes on top of straw lined box 

 hives. Some of it had been on for 2 or 3 years. 



S. B. Trumbull, Hudson, Mich. Aug. 21st, 1876. 



My bees will not work in the boxes I obtained from 

 you. I put them on a hive whi 3h was very strong and full 

 of sealed honey. They were on a week and had done noth- 

 ing and I thought I would force them by feeding ; I have 

 fed them honey enough it seems to me, to of itself fill the 

 boxes, still ths boxes are ignored. When boxes were 

 first put on, a few ran up into them, but since then I have 

 not seen a bee enter them. I shall try them a little long- 

 er and if they do not work I will take the extractor or cut 

 comb from the frames. W. C. Geiek. 



Lamar, Mo. Aug. 7th, 1870. 



[Just bec.xuse you usad neither fdn. nor guide combs 

 we suppose. We hardly think one in ten of our colonies 

 would give us comb honey under the same circumstances.] 



I received two nice Italian queens from J. M. C. T;iylor. 

 but lost them in introduction. So that has upset the 

 notion in my head of Itali inizing my bees. I am conti- 

 dent that queens are very seldom safely introduced ; 

 that the majority of the bee-keepers sacrifice five or six 

 before they succeed in introducing a single queen. Per- 

 haps you will say there must have been a queen in my 

 hive that I failed to kill, but I am sure there was not 



