GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



Or Letters from Those "Wlio Have Made 

 Bee Culture a Failure. 



^"jip^ EAR GLEANINGS :— I have spent the day in read- 

 jF|J|) ing Gleanings for October. To say I am sick, 

 — would beafaint expresskn of my maladies, after 

 reading the favorable reports cf all bee-keepers all over 

 the Union, and then comparing my condition and ex- 

 jiericnce this year. Could I but tell you one half our 

 troubles in this vicinity you would at once condemn us all ; 

 I mean a vast lange of country, to t!ie list of Blasted 

 Hopes. But no, I have hopes in the future, though 1 may 

 have to import bees to commence with next spring. I 

 wrote yen in the fore jiart of the season in good spirits 

 and with great hopes of a pros])erous season, and now I 

 write you with blasted hopes and mined apiaries. 



I cannot see what our people iiave been guilty of that 

 we should be thus deprived of all the sweets of natures 

 nectar so bountifully bestowed upon the rest of the 

 world, yet it seems to be so and a^ it is the decree of pro- 

 vidence, we must not complain. To illustrate I will give 

 you a slight history of my home apiary and that will be a 

 fair illustration of three others I have in other parts of 

 the country. 



In June our bees were doing well, nearly all full and 

 all sealed honey and brood in the main hive and some 

 had commenced in the boxes. But alas ! Their work 

 was done, they commenced uncapping and consuming 

 their stores and by the last of July there was very little 

 sealed honey in the hives, breeding ceased and all were 

 idle. In August some commenced filling the empty comb 

 and some starved and left their hives ; some left the hive 

 after having returned several times, clustered on fruit 

 trees and died. Others forced other hives and were kill- 

 ed and none have now sealed honey at all. One of my 

 neighbors had ten stands in August, and in September 

 seven of them came to my apiary and were destroyed. I 

 examined the hives they left, not one drop of honey or 

 pollen was there. The latter part of September my own 

 bees began to leave their hives and enter others, and thus 

 many were destroyed. The 13th of October caps the cli- 

 max ; a lady asked me if I knew my bees were swarming, 

 behold the air was full of bees. Soon they selected a hive 

 and commenced entering. I closed the hive and they set- 

 tled on the top. I secured the queen, supposing they 

 would return to their hive, as the lady called to me that 

 there was another swarm out. They settled with the 

 first ; I soon found their queen and secured her. As I 

 caged the queens and returned to the bees another swarm 

 was settling with the two first. Their qiuen was soon 

 imprisoned by the bees and I caged her. On my return 

 to the bees another swarm of my own was issuing and 

 settling with the three. I soon secured the fourth queen, 

 and by the time I had her securely caged, behold, here 

 comes the fifth swarm, apparently from the woods. Now, 

 my friends, if any of you can, in the month of October, 

 pile up five swarms of bees, and secure and cage live queens 

 in fifteen minutes, you may take the horns. My bees re- 

 turned to their respective homes and I restored their 

 queens. The other two I gave a hive and both queens 

 witli some honey in comb. 



Now what could have caused this flurry with the bees ? 

 My own had honey, but very little sealed ; one of the oth- 

 ers came near half a mile, luuX the fifth one, I think, came 

 from the woods. I sujiiiose it was the prospect of starva- 

 tion. In nearly two hundred stands under my control, I 

 do not think there are ten that have ten pounds of honey 

 in the hive, and many that have not five ; some not three, 

 so you see I am a legally nominated candidate for blasted 

 hopes next spring, but I will not serve if I am elected. 



WINTEEING BEES BY BVRYING THEM. 



Some time since I i)iomised to give a sure process of 

 wintering bees on short allowance. In the fall of 187i I 



had S( ven stands of bees in box hives on a farm on which 

 I had a tenant who robbed them so cl)se he killed two of 

 them before frost. The others were alive and we found 

 on examination two had not over three pounds of honey 

 each, and the others not over eight. As I was giving di- 

 rections how to arrange things for the winter he said : 

 '•What shall I do with the bees? Bury them?" Said I, 

 •'Bury them as you Mould potatoes. Dig a pit two feet 

 deep, put the bottom board in the bottom, set the hives 

 in and fill around them with dry leaves or straw to the 

 surface of the ground, then shovel on the dirt un'.il you 

 are svire the frost can never reach them ; then lay up some 

 rails around so nothing can disturb them, and cover with 

 boards that the dirt may be kept dry ; make a shallow 

 drain to carry off the water, that it may not soak into the 

 pits, and your work is done until the middle of March. 

 Then resurrect them and set them in their respective 

 places." He followed my directions to the letter and I 

 never saw brighter bees in ray life than they were in the 

 spring, and they were far ahead of strong full colonies 

 that stood on their summer stands. I buried five stands 

 last winter, which did better than any in the vicinity. 



A. J. Savage. 

 Lakeville, Stoddard Co., Mo., Oct. 15, 1876. 



The picture is truly a most dishearteuing 

 one, but there is a sure and certain remedy, if 

 we can only have the courage to buy the 

 sugar. We usually have a dearth of honey in 

 our locality that brings about just such a 

 state of affairs, if something is not done to 

 Iceep brood rearing going, and to forestall 

 swarming out. The first colony we ever own- 

 ed, was one that starved out in August. The 

 remedy is to keep a barrel of cheap sugar in 

 some sheltered place, and let the bees work on 

 it whenever they will take notice of it, and 

 you can rest assured they will not go near it 

 whenever forage of any kind is to be had in 

 the fields. Our own barrel was unnoticed this 

 season after clover was fairly out, and they 

 did not go back to it until late in September. 

 Tip the barrel on its side, and when they grt 

 it worked over into hue dry sugar on the sur- 

 face, roll the barrel partly over, to give them 

 a fresh surface. It will give constant employ- 

 ment to all troublesome robber bees, will keep 

 any colony from starving, will prevent your 

 bees from ever going into the groceries for 

 sugar, or from swarming out, even if you for- 

 get and neglect them, and it is probably the 

 cheapest food that can be given in warm 

 weather. The thing for our friends to do now, 

 is buy sugar and get some confectioner to 

 make it into candy for him. The candy after 

 many experiments, seems to be rather prefer- 

 able to loaf sugar, yet it might be well to give 

 lump sugar a trial, where so mi;ch feeding is 

 to be done. Such seasons are liable to come 

 in any locality, and it would be well for us all 

 to be on the lookout for them. Buy the sugar 

 by all means, for your bees will in all proba- 

 bility pay it back next season in three or four 

 days. To carry them through will not exceed 

 $2"00 worth of candy on an average, even if 

 they are doubled up so as to be good strong 

 colonies. If buried or in a good strong cellar, 

 perhaps half the amount. 



We opine this burying will only answer in 

 dry sandy soils, for in our own clay soil, it is 

 almost impossible to keep sucli a pit from be- 

 ing damp and wet. Where successful, all 

 seem to agree that the amount of food con- 

 sumed, is very trifling. 



