1877 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



12o 



mcr qnilt and cover over it. The ijronnd and 

 sawdust, with the warmth from a heavy colo- 

 ny of bees in heav^' old combs, seemed to have 

 kept oat the frost almost entirely, for scarcely 

 a dead bee was found in the hive. The ob- 



jection to such a plan, is that the hive would 

 very soon rot, from the eft\'cts of the damp 

 ground and sawdust, even should it always 

 succeed as well. We have thoujrht of placinaj 

 tin next the ground, but, it would be expensive. 



THE ABC OF BEE CULTURE. 



A. 



ACS-E or SZSZIB. It may be rather dif- 

 ficull to decide liow long a worker bee would 

 live if kept from Avenring itself out by the 

 active labors of the field ; six months cer- 

 tainly, and perhaps a year, but the average 

 life during the summer time is not over 

 three months, and perhaps during the height 

 of the clover bloom not over six or eight 

 weeks. The matter is easily determined, by 

 introducing an Italian queen into a hive of 

 black bees at different periods of the year. 

 If done in May or June, we shall have all 

 Italians in the fall, and if we note when the 

 last black bees hatch out and the time when 

 no black bees are to be found in the colony, 

 we shall have a pretty accurate idea of the 

 age of the blacks. The Italians, will per- 

 haps hold out under the same circumstances, 

 a half longer. If we introduce the Italian 

 queen in September, we sh.ill find black 

 bees in the hive until the month of May 

 following— they may disapi)ear a little ear- 

 lier, or may be found some later, depending 

 upon the time they commence to rear brood 

 largely. The bees will live considerably 

 longer if no brood is reared, as has been sev- 

 eral times demonstrated in the case of strong 

 queenless colonies. It is also pretty well 

 established that black bees Avill live longer 

 in the spring than Italians ; probably be- 

 cause the latter are more inclined to push 

 out into the fields Avhen the weather is too 

 cool for them to do so with safaty ; they sel- 

 dom do this however, unless a large amount 

 of brood is on hand, and they are suffering 

 for pollen or Avater. 



During the summer months, the life of 

 the worker bee is probably cut short by the 

 Avearing out of its Avings and Ave may at the 

 close of a A\'arm day find hundreds of these 

 heavily laden ragged winged veterans ma- 

 king their way into the hiA-es sloAA^ly and 

 painfully, compared Avith the nimble and 

 perfect Avinged young bees. If Ave examine 

 the ground around the apiary at nightfall, 

 Ave may see numbers of these hopping about 

 on the ground, evidently recognizing their 

 OAvn inability to be of any farther use to the 

 community. We have repeatedly picked 



them up, and placed them in the entrnnce, 

 but they usually seem only bent on crawling 

 and hopping off out of the Avay, where they 

 can die Avithout hindering the teeming ri- 

 sing generation. 



AGE OF DRONES. 



It is someAA'hat difficult to decide upon the 

 age of drones because the poor fellows are 

 so often hustled out of the way for the sim- 

 ple reason that they are no longer wanted ; 

 but Ave may be safe in assiuuing it some- 

 thing less than the age of a Avorker. If kept 

 constantly in a queenless hive, they might 

 live for tlu'ee or four months perhaps. 



AGE OF THE QUEEN. 



As the queen does little or no out-door 

 work, and is seldom killed by violence as 

 are the drones, we might expect her to live 

 to a good old age, and this she does, despite 

 her arduous, oviparious duties. Some queens 

 die, seemingly of old age the second season, 

 but generally they live until the second or 

 third, and we have had them to lay A'ery 

 Avell, even during the fourth year. They 

 are seldom ])rofitable after the third year, 

 and usually the Italians will have a young 

 queen "helping her mother''' in her egg lay- 

 ing duties before she becomes unprofitable. 

 If a very large amount of brood is found in 

 a hiA'^e, two queens will often be fotmd, 

 busily employed, and this point should be 

 remembered Avhile seeking to introduce val- 

 uable queens. 



ALSZKZ! CLOVER. This is a cross 

 betAveen the Avhite, and the red cloA^er, and 

 Avhile it furnishes full as much honey as the 

 red, the petals are so short, that the bees 

 find no difficulty in reaching it. The culti- 

 vation is so much like that of the red clover, 

 that AA'hat applies to the one, AA'ill do for the 

 other; as the seed of the alsike is much 

 smaller, a" less quantity is required. The 

 general rule, is four pounds to the acre. As 

 it blossoms only the second year, or A^ery 

 sparingly the first Avith ordinary cultivation, 

 it may be soAAm almost any time, and in fact 

 it is often sovn'u on Avheat on the snow in 

 March; in this way, A\-e can see just hoAv 

 evenly Ave are getting it on the ground. Al- 

 though alsike Avill produce some honey with 



