1877. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



179 



Now Mr. Hoot. I wish to tell you of our first bad 

 luck. We liad three swarms come out at once and 

 unite. We found the queens, divided the l)ees, and 

 put them In three separate hives ; atter placing them 

 on the stand another swarm issued and one ol the 

 three attempted tot follow; we stopped the hive up 

 tight until that swarm was hived, i)erhaps aiiout 15 

 minutes. Three davs after we loolied at them and 

 they were all dead. The hive was (julte wet Inside. 

 We' never have raised a hive up from the bottom 

 board for a new swarm, but alter losing that one we 

 looked at Quinby'y book and he says it is very imixir- 

 /«)!< that new swarms should have an opening at the 

 bottom. In hiving a swarm my husband has always 

 used weak salt and water to sprinkle on the bees in a 

 line spray to diive them into the Live. Do you think 

 the salt and water killed them or did tliey smother ? 

 They did not make any comb. We do not attribute 

 that to bee-keeper's luck, we lay it to our own stupiil- 

 itv in not noticing what Qulnby said about ventilating 

 a hive. Mus. S. A. Philp. 



Clare, Clare Co., Mich., June 1st, 1877. 



We should prefer the water without salt, if 

 any be used, which is seldom necessary. They 

 smothered without any doubt, but it is by no 

 means necessary to have a hole in the bottom 

 board to prevent such a catastrophe. Your 

 "stupidity" was only in neglecting to examine 

 all the new swarms, and see if all was right 

 jnst as soon as you got through. Look to 

 your bees often during swarming time, and be 

 sure that new swarms have a large airy en- 

 trance. This we can give them with great fa- 

 cility with the Simplicity hives. Push the 

 hive forward so it projects at least 2 inches 

 over the bottom board. 



—> igi ^ — — 



VAKIOUS MATTERS. 



WE wish It understood that we write only for 

 those that know less about bee-keeping than 

 we do, and those that know more, ueed not 

 read our articles for they will have no use for such 

 nonsense. And Mr. Editor if all of your stocks are 

 like the 20 frame hive, you will not need any division 

 boards, or any articles either. But how about the 

 ones you had, that on the firsi of May had brood on 

 only two or three combs and but small patches .at 

 that? How do you think they would prosper in a 30 

 frame hive ? Then another ttiing we would like to 

 ask you. 



HOW MANY BEES IN A IHVB AT ONCE. 



How is It that you have been doubting that a queen 

 could produce 86,000 living bees at once when accord- 

 ing to your statement of your '20 frame hive you have 

 at least 15 frames 17?i)X9 's filled with brood on May 9th, 

 which would give llf.uoo every '21 days or (as the 

 worker bee lives 45 days) 2 1-7 times that, which would 

 be '244,000 living bees on the stage of action at once ? 

 Be careful friend Novice, or you will beat Adair tnd 

 Gallup out of sight on what a queen will do in one of 

 those New Idea hives. 



You ask how it is we York State folks have so many 

 weak stocks, &c. We can tell you just about as well 

 as j"ou told us the spring after you had such visions 

 of ijottles, cans, pails, barrels, and so on. lilled with 

 lior.ey, and came out with bees enough to decently fill 

 two or three hives. It was simply this— tliey died. 



MORTALITV IN YORK STATE. 



Onondaga, Cayuga, and Tompkins counties, seem 

 to have suffered most. Even our old veterans in bee 

 keeping could not keep them. One man that had 

 kept bees for the past 20 years, lost 118 from 130. An- 

 other who understands bees as well as any person in 

 this state and probably as well as any person in the 

 U. S., lost 150 out of 200, and the remaining 50 very 

 weak, while those that liad from 10 to 30 have but few 

 or none left. Stocks that were strong in numbers 

 March 15th. were all gone May 1st. To say that three- 

 fourths of all the bees in the above three counties are 

 dead would be placing it at a very mil<i estimate. We 

 have SO stocks left ot our 11.4 last fall, 5i) of which are 

 good fair stocks and the other 30 weak. 



Novice seems to think we have our hobbies, and 

 perhaps we have, but we can hardly see where they 

 are unless it is to m:ike bne-kee|ung a paying institu- 

 tion, for we have given in Gi.KANiNGS for the past 

 three years everything from a pimcrack down to a 

 whistle made of a pig's tail in the mutter of bee-kcep- 

 lug, and have only jiist commenced to give our expe- 



rience. Our hobby can not be division boards we are 

 sure, as wc only use them for weak swarms, and to 

 secure comb built true In frames, as one-half of our 

 stocks liavo never seen a division since they got their 

 combs built. 



THE OALI>Ur FKAME. 



Perhaps it may be our Gallup frame, and if so we 

 say amen to it, lor there is no frame in use that bees 

 can be built up with so <iuickly. and yet send large 

 numbers to the field as with "the Gallup frame. E. 

 Gallup proved tills to bee-keei)ers years ago and no 

 one has successfully coniradlcled it. It any one 

 doubts It let him give it an impartial trial and be con- 

 vinced. Again, In May No. of Gleanings we see 

 that we shall soon change our frame and liive (or rig- 

 ging) if we have not already done so. Now Mr. Edit- 

 or just as soon as we change our hive or frames you 

 anil the readers of Gi^eanings shall know it Iree of 

 charge, and until we tell you, remember we have the 

 same frame, hive and honey box. only keep bees for 

 the money there is in the business and shall only use 

 that style of frame and honey box that will give us 

 the most bees and honey. 



By the way, friend Root does not your talk in 

 Gleanings tend to lead beginners to" be lazy bee- 

 keepers ? You talk about its being such a job to take 

 out Doxes as soon as finished, and so much fussing to 

 build up a weak swarm, as if it were a dread to you to 

 touch a bee hive, &c., while a live bee man can hard- 

 ly keep his hands oft them even to eat his meals, it is 

 such fun to see tiiG little fellows work, and see how 

 fast be can build a swarm up. We venture the asser- 

 tion that if Novice had gone to work as enthusiastic- 

 ally on that '20 frame hive of bees, as he has in defense 

 of the comO fdn., he could have made twice the mon- 

 cv out of them he will now. G. M. Doolittle. 



'Borodino, N. Y., June 4th, 1877. 



Beg pardon friend D., but the 20 frame hive 

 had Adair frames, almost such a frame as your 

 Gallup. If I conveyed the idea that 15 frames 

 were full of brood alone, I was a little hasty. 

 Perhaps 15 of the frames contained brood in 

 half the number of cells ; this would give us 

 54,000 cells of brood, or over 2500 eggs in a 

 day for over 21 days. This is the best work 

 we have ever had from a queen, but as she 

 was a hybrid and the bees very cross, we made 

 three colonies of them and sold two of .them 

 for $14.00 before June 1st. 



I agree with you, that probably none of us 

 know why bees die in the spring. 



I did not mean that you should change your 

 Gallup frame, but only the plan of putting on 

 the honey boxes. I do not think the Gallup 

 frame is going to be liked generally as well as 

 the L., because the great mass of our bee-keep- 

 ers have decided in favor of the latter, and 

 vei'y few indeed are using the Gallup. In the 

 manufacture of supplies I have had a better 

 opportunity of learning this, than perhaps any 

 other person. There are without doubt more 

 Langstroth frames in use now, than all other 

 kinds together. Next to this, I should say 

 more American than all of the balance. There 

 are then about an equal number of the Gallup 

 and Qulnby. Within the past two years, great 

 numbers have changed to the Langstroth. 



We all know friend D., that your hobby is 

 to make bee-keeping a paying institution, and 

 we feel too, the debt we owe you. As far as 

 regards lifting out two sections at a time or 

 eif/hi, our friends are a great many of them 

 just now doing it, and shall we not let them 

 decide which way is cheapest ? Those who 

 have been educated to extracting, will have 

 no patience with sections, unless they can lift 

 them out just as quickly as the 8 or 10 lb. 

 combs for the extractor. I do not think they 

 will be "lazy." On the contrary, I would 

 have one man do all the work for — for — a 

 "great big" apiary. 



