1877 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



73 



O'l 'UmiUf 



From Different Melds. 



•" /tT . 



I'UKEZINCJ IJKKS. 



fiiijI^HiAD you or any of our Noi'thui'u friends been down 

 vrfv. hereon the niorniim- of the 3d of January jou 

 *^- — ' •jvoukl liave 11iout,'lit "Sunny South" tlio wrong 

 name for this locality, hi this neighborjiood tbo mercury 

 fell to 20' below zero, which wa,s the coldest your humble 

 <-orrespondent ever experienced, and J hoi)e nevci- to see 

 it that cold again, I stood it very well, but warmer 

 wenther suits ute better. I guess you had better put this 

 article under the head of Blasted Hopes, for if mine are 

 not entirely blasted, they are "blasted" nigh it. 



1 had about a dozen colonies frozen out by the extreme 

 Cold weather, and since the warm weather has set in I 

 li mi some of my strongest colonies .almost depopulated. 

 1 have an opinion that some kind of disease is among 

 them, for in the center of some of my best hives the 

 <'ombs are packed with dead bees. I will have to do a 

 great deal of doubling up this spflng, and I have no idea 

 that I will have more than 25 good colonies to commence 

 the season with. Last season was a poor one for honey. 

 All told I only got a fraction over 2000 pounds. Too much 

 s-ain during the honey season. I hope to do better this 

 > esr if I can only keep my bees from dying. 



1 can endorse all you have said about Barnes' Foot Pow- 

 or Saws. I used one the last season and was perfectly 

 satisfied with it. Every one who has a quantity of hives 

 to make should have one of these saws. 



J, F. MoKTGOMEET, Lincoln, Tenn. Feb. .3d, 1877. 

 Ouess you better have some chaft', had you 

 not friend M. ? We agree that there is some- 

 thing strange about the way bees at times die 

 ill the wiuter. With 6 combs oi sealed stores 

 iind chaff cushions, ours seem to stand 20 de- 

 grees below, without any loss. Were not your 

 hives so opeu, that the bees starved even with 

 honey in the other end of their combs ? Crowd 

 them iutosmall space,and pack them with chalf. 



MOVING HIVES CLOSE TOGETHEK FOR OUT-DOOlt 

 WINTEKING. 



have my bees put in winter quarters in a large 

 1)0X, the hives were put about as close together as 

 they would set, thcQ took lumber and made a box 

 that would cover them and packed them with cut 

 straw all around the hives ; made a chute for them to 

 come out and in at, .'ust when they please. To the 

 outside I set little blocks up to make the entrances 

 sliow by themselves. Now What 1 want to kn iw most 

 is, will they be apt to rob one another any more in 

 the spring, than if they were farther apart ? I am 

 using N. C. Mitchell's hives for one, and have another 

 the size of the frame of wiiich, 5s in,'.; xl.'i.lj inches, in- 

 rtiife measurement. Just commenced last jear ; am I 

 on the right road? I have them all Italianized. I got 

 the most of my queens from J. H. Nellis & Bro., (§1,00 

 <iueens) and tliey are good. W. A. D. 



Metamora, O., Feb. Tth, 1877. 

 So far as the straw packing is concerned, 

 YOU are probably all right, but when your bees 

 rome to fly, a great many will likely be lost, 

 by going to their old locality, and if robbing 

 should get agoing, you will likely have trouble 

 ■I'nough. As we have had a very long cold 

 spoil, perhaps they will all take the points of 

 thtir new location, but if you design moving 

 them back in the spriLig, you will encounter 

 a fresh trouble, and we really know of no way 



but to move the box away, and spread the 

 hives apart, a little every day, after they get 

 to work. It is very unwise, to move bees 

 about in the same yard, for they often go back 

 to their old home, even after being conlincd 

 several weeks ; it is better to make a box for 

 each on their usual stand, or put them in a 

 house or cellar, and then carry them back ev- 

 ery time you give them a fly. If you paid 

 Mitchell or anybody else for a right to the 

 hive, you did a very foolish thing in this day 

 of Bee Journals in abundance. 



UNITING COLONIES IN 3IAV. 



If a person has 100 stocks ol bees in May and wishes 

 to reduce them to 50 by uniting, what is his best meth- 

 od to pursue ? riease answer in the March No. The 

 bees are In frame hives. D. W. Fletcher. 



Lansingville, N. Y., Feb. 5th, 1877. 



Move the colonies to be united close togeth- 

 er by moving them about a foot a day, every 

 day they are flying, then lift the combs, bees 

 brood and and all, into one hive, and -take the 

 other away ; you can omit the moving, if you 

 are willing to waste a great part of your flying 

 bees. If you thus unite two strong stocks, 

 you will not only lose your queens, 

 but will most likely have them divide them- 

 selves by swarming, in a very few days, unless 

 you keep a very sharp lookout. The only bee- 

 keeper who ever recommended uniting bees in 

 May, that we remember, was our friend Mc- 

 Fatridge, as given on page 49, Vol. III. He 

 by this means succeeded in getting nearly 200 

 lbs. honey to the colony with the extractor, 

 which is probably almost the only means by 

 which troublesome swarming might be pre- 

 vented. 



CLOSED TOP SECTIONS AND RAISING CHAFF. 



In relation to section boxes with closed tops I have 

 used such for first sets and sometimes have used them 

 doubled or tiered up by simply putting in two or three 

 bottom side up in the lower sets, the bottom bars be- 

 ing narrow, this leaves a space for the bees to pass 

 through when reversed. If chaff is to be the order of 

 the day I have a species of oats that will yield three 

 times more chaff than the c&mmon kind, the grain is 

 good but yields light with us. J. H. Martin. 



Hartford, N. Y., Jan. 31st, 1877. 



HOW MANY STOCKS CAN BE KEPT IN ONE LOCALITY. 



How many swarms of bees can a person keep in one 

 place and have them do well '? What is the experience 

 of long-time bee-keepers on this subject ? 



M. Weight, Middleville, Mich. Dec. 20th, 1876. 



A few years ago it was thought 50 were as 

 many as it were well to keep in one place, but 

 within the past few years we have many suc- 

 cessful apiarists who keep as many as 100 or 

 more, and there are those who keep even 200 

 in one locality, and get fair yields on an aver- 

 age. Perhaps it would be well to give your 

 locality a pretty good test at 50, and then try 

 a greater number, a few at a time ; if you can 

 make 100 colonies average 50 lbs. to the hive, 

 it will pay you to keep that number, for the 

 expense is very much less where you have 

 them all under your immediate supervision 

 than where you have them in difiercnt apia- 

 ries a mile or two apart. It should be remem- 

 bered that some localities will support 200 

 colonies, much better than others would 50. 



