1877. 



GLEANINGS IN ]?EE CULTURE. 



151 



Our cart is this very handiest arranKeftient wo have intro- 

 duced in our yard. It can be wheeled up to a hivo !\iid 

 serves as a seat to sit on while »-ou examine the hive, 

 meanwhile it carries all your tools, extra combs, etc. A 

 hive cm be placed on it instantly and wheeled to any 

 p-M-t of the yard. Wo i)ut on a cover and away wo travel 

 from hive to hive with our extractor and when we have a 

 load, wheel it directly into the bee house; as the floor of 

 the bee house is below the level of the yard, our track 

 tliat runs into the hiuse enables us to wheel our load di- 

 rectly over a barrel. 



By this plan of settina; hives in a circle I can pet more 

 hcea into a ^iven space than on any other, for every hive 

 faces a different point of compass, and the hives can be 

 placed closer together; besides, I paint the door-steps 

 different colors. 



.J. H. .Maktin, Hartford, N. Y., May 7th, 1877. 



Give US a photograph of it by all means. 



REPORT FROM JAMES ROIilTV. 



Also SOMETHING ON " TOTUEU SIDE " OF THE 

 CHAFF QUESTION. 



w 



IIRIEXD NOVICE:--! believe that bee-keepers, 

 or at least that portion of them who write for 



~«j and take the bee journals, have almost unani- 

 mously agreed to call May Ist their new year, here in 

 the .Vortli. and to regard it as tlie proper time in which 

 to take account ot stock, report losses, &C. In ac- 

 cordance with said agreement I now send in my re- 

 port for the past winter. 



Of the 153 swarms in my house apiary, and wintered 

 in my bee houses, I lost one of the weakest. They 

 starved, the last week in March, by clustering at the 

 south side of the hive away from their stores. In my 

 northern apiary I lost one queen. She was lost frorh 

 a colony in a hive having modern improvements— i, c, 

 chaff attachments— that was wintered on the summer 

 ■stand. The rest are in good condition, generally, 

 many stocks being very strong. In a hive having 

 glass on the sides and rear end, I noticed brood in the 

 outside combs over three weeks ago, and I have other 

 stocks that I think are stronger than that one. Do 

 you think there is much danger of such colonies 

 "dwindling?" If there is, I must have some "cush- 

 ions" sure. 



Xow, triend N., you asked my opinion of "chaff" 

 some time ago, and I will now give it. 

 ' There can be no doubt but that bees can be safely 

 wintered, if properly packed in it, lor we have testi- 

 mony of men whose word is unlmpeacliable, that they 

 have succeeded with it. But it is ecjuaUy certain that 

 they can be safely wintered without it, and, as I think, 

 with much less trouble. I am sure it took me more 

 th.an twice as long to prepare those I wintered on 

 their summer stands, as it would to have carried them 

 into a house, or cellar, and none ot' them are as strong 

 to d;iy as some of those that were housed. 



The double -walled chall packeil hives are, of course, 

 with the addition of a cushion on top, always readj' 

 for winter, so far as the hive is concerned; but tbey 

 cost nearly twice as much as a single hive and in ad- 

 dition are heavy and clumsy to handle. I have one 

 of them but it mast give better results than I antici- 

 pate or I will serve it as I did my double wiuih hives : 

 reconstruct it into a single one. 



My e.xperience the past winter has convinced me 

 more fully than ever of the advisability of doing all 

 necessary handling some time before bees are housed. 

 When I put the bees in my home apiary in their win- 

 ter ([uarters I left several colonies out, intending to 

 winter them on their summer stands, but the weather 

 turned so cold in a few days that I concluded to put 

 them all in ; thinking those I had out of doors at my 

 northern apiary wonld be sufficient to test out-door 

 wintering, for the present ac least. 



BISTIIREING BEES IN THE CELLAR. 



In rearranging the last lot for in-door wintering, 

 some were disturbed somewhat; now for the result. 

 In four weeks or less alter they were put in, three of 

 them became very uneasy and shortly afterwards I 

 was compelled to take them out and put them in my 

 house cellar, that thev might not disturb the rest. 

 Alter they had been in the cellar a short time I saw I 

 must do something with them or lose them. As it 

 was too cold to put them out to have a fly, I finally 

 made a light frame, covering the bottom and sides 

 with newspapers and the top with muskcto bar, I set 

 this in the kitchen and put them In it, one at a time, 

 and let them have a flv. and thim returned them to 

 the cellar. They all came through, two of them in 

 pretty fair condition, the other weak, but now cut of 



danger, as plenty of young bees are hatching out, and 

 that is the turning point. 



SI'UINO UWINULING AND ISUOOD KEAKING. 



Judging from your remarks in several of the last 

 niuubers of Gleanin<js, you seem to think that early 

 breeding causes, or at least aggravates, spring 'Iwind- 

 ling. Why bless you! friend N., that is just what 

 saves my bees. If 1 <',an only get bees enough to com- 

 mence breeding when they should, say early in Janu- 

 ary, I will risk their dwindling. What if the old bees 

 all die as soon ha spring opens, if there are plenty of 

 young ones to take their place. I would much rather 

 risk the labors of the hive to a gallon or peck of bees 

 two months and less olil, than to the same number six 

 months old the most ol whom will be b'St shortly after 

 they commence out- door labor. If you wish to see 

 how fast these old bees are lost, just give a stock that 

 has been queenless all winter, and consc(iuently has 

 none but old bees, a frame of eggs and unsealed brood 

 in April, and even if it is i)retty strong at tlie time, it 

 will soon dwindle down to a handful. liight here is 

 where the much talked of and dreaded spring dwind- 

 ling comes in ; old bees dying off and not enough 

 young ones hatching out to take their place. No one 

 ever saw a hive /«/? of young bees the first of March 

 dwindle down to nothing, while strong stocks con- 

 taining only old bees often do so. 



FASTENING BEES IN THE HIVES FOR CELLAR 

 WINTERING. 



Before putting my bees into winter quarters I put 

 mosquito bar over the portico and 1 think it paid, as it 

 permitted the bees to come out of their hives to carry 

 out the dead ones when so Inclined, yet, It prevented 

 their falling on the tloor and getting lost. And it is 

 much i>leasanter going into a room having a clean 

 fioor than into one having the floor covered with 

 dead bees. 



AFTER SWARMIMG, HOW TO PREVENT. 



As prevention of second swarms will soon be in or- 

 der, I hope those who have not already done so, will 

 try the plan I mentioned last September. I see 

 friends Kelly and Doolittle find it a failure with them. 

 With me, on the contrary, it has in every case pre- 

 vented second swarms. Mr. D's experience and mv 

 own are a little different in another respect. He says 

 that it is only the bees that are In the field that re- 

 turn to the old stand, &o. With me all, or vci'y nearly 

 all that have marked the old stand return to it, so 

 that scarcely a bee enters the old hive on the new 

 stand for several days, except the young bees that go 

 out to play, shortly alter noon. 



Introducing young fertile queens to prevent second 

 swarms was a complete failure with me last year, as 

 the last one introduced for that purpose led out a 

 sivarm August 18th, after the article in September No. 

 was written. 



West Lodi, Ohio, May 14th, 1877. 



Now friend B., we rely very niucli on you, 

 Doolittle, and several other staunch veterans 

 to warn us when we are getting into mischief, 

 and while we think of it, if there is one among 

 the whole wlio is entirely free from extrava- 

 gant hobbies, we guess you are the one ; but 

 you certainly are inexperienced in the dwind- 

 ling business or you would not speak as strong- 

 ly as you do, especially when you say that a 

 colony with young bees does not dwindle. In 

 our apiary we have repeatedly had a fair colo- 

 ny of young bees dwindle out in April, and we 

 have made excellent colonies of stocks that 

 had been queenless until nearly May. An ex- 

 periment now in progress will illustrate the 

 matter. In speaking of McConnell's discovery 

 last month, we stated that larvjc might be 

 capped over as soon as six days, but afterward 

 thought best to make a careful test of the mat- 

 ter. In the apiary was a colony that had a 

 very fair quantity of bees in March, and nearly 

 all young ; as they stood out all winter, they 

 commenced rearing brood in February., du- 

 ring warm weather. In April all the old bees 

 were gone, and by the 25th, the day we started 

 to make the experiment, nothing was left but 

 a few dozen bees to take care of brood in three 

 frames, the middle one containing bees just 



