1877 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



180 



fjRlEND NOVICE :— I shall have to plead guilty to 

 the charpe of inexreriencc in the dwindling biisi- 

 ness, as 1 have had but very little of it in my apia- 

 ry : although five of my nearest neighbors who keep bees, 

 and are living within from '20 rods to l,'-i miles, have lost 

 all they had during the last four seasons. Whether 

 the difference in the way in which my bees and theirs 

 have been wintered had anything to do with the differ- 

 ence in our losses, I can not of course tell, but I am in- 

 clined to think it had. All the dwindling 1 have had 

 since this subject has come up through the bee journals, 

 was one year ago last spring, and then it was jilainly trace- 

 able to the bees in the upper tier of hives getting out on 

 the floor, leaving too few bees i!i the hives to rear brood 

 as fast as they should, or to leaving some of them out of 

 doors during the cold weather in March, as I mentioned 

 in Gleanings one year ago. 



This spring, a neighbor living three miles south, has 

 lost all his bees by dwindling, although he thought they 

 were in good condition the first of April; and another, 

 living 1>2 miles north has lost about half of his in the 

 same way. So please don't say that we don't have dwind- 

 line in this section. 



Now 1 really did not say that a colony with young bees 

 does not dwindle, but that ji hive fv.ll of them does not do 

 so. There is a wide difference in the two expressions. A 

 colony may have some young bees in it, but not enough 

 to replace those that are lost, in which case it may 

 dwindle. 



What you would call a fair colony, I might call a weak 

 one ; but there is not much chance for misunderstanding 

 each other when we speak of a hive full. If the colony 

 you mention as having a fair quantity of bees in March, 

 had brood in only three frames April '20th, I strongly sus- 

 pect it was what I should have called a rather weak 

 swarm, as I want my bees to have brood in from four to 

 seven frames the first of March. If they are as strong as 

 I hey should be in the fall, have good queens and plenty 

 of honey, it is no trouble to have that amount of brocd or 

 even more ; and that without the aid of a greenhouse. 

 Why friend X. if I had such a colony and they would not 

 rear brood in Jan. without a hothouse to help them, I 

 would trade them off for a patent moth trap, and then 

 present the trap to a man that wanted me to give him 

 five dollars for telling me to use a piece of leather for a 

 honey board. 



'Tis true, ccilonies that commence breeding in January, 

 consume more honey than those that do not begm until 

 May ; but one of the first mentioned never dwindles, with 

 me, and is worth a half dozen of the latter for surplus 

 honey. The most honey I ever obtained from an old 

 stock was from one that swarmed May 1st. From the 

 old stock and increase I obtained •21() lbs. of box honey. 

 How much do you suppose I would have obtained if they 

 had not commenced bretding until May? I too, have 

 sometimes made good colonies of those that were queen- 

 less until nearly May, but they seldom .vield m.uch, if any 

 surplus that season, unless we have a good yield in the 

 fall, which is seldom the case here. 



Tell those who use Harbison frames for svirplus, to cut 

 the nctc'i for the strip that holds them together, exactlj' 

 i:i the middle of the end pieces, then they can have the 

 lops all tight, and if they wish to tier them up, all they 

 have to do is to turn two or three of the sections in the 

 lower tier upside down. 



In my article in June No. Gleanings, page 167, read 

 home apiary, instead of house apiary, and bee house in- 

 stead of bee houses ; and in that on page 167, instead of 

 swatm so poor, read season so poor. 



James Bolin, West Lodi, O., June KSth, 1877. 



We agree ver}' iiearly friend B., and if you 

 never have the dwindling to such an extent 

 that you can neither cure nor explain it, it 

 will be to us strong evidence that it is the 

 bee-keeper's fault. Perhaps you had better 

 talk with Doolittle. 



We have three boxes and a barrel of beesvraxj but 

 "nary" scrap of paper or writing tells whom they are 

 from. Letters are at hand saying they have sent us 

 wax and asking for goods and money, but my friends, 

 if you will be so thoughtless, you will have to take 

 the consequences of the delay. While hunting all 

 over and about the packages for some clue, even a 

 pencil mark, we often feel as if we could "s/iafre" the 

 shipper for havi.ig caused us so much trouble, while 

 one single scratch of a pencil would have saved it all. 



%md4 4 §mhh 



From Different Fields. 



LATE SWAKMS, &C. 



HAVE one In particular that I hived the 17th of 

 Sept. last, a natural Ewarm, which has given mo 

 three good large ewarms ; one the 4'.h of June, 

 one 15th, one 17th, and it is likely to give me the 

 fourth in a day or two. How high is that for late 

 swarms ? I will have to differ with some 



COXCEUNING DKONES. 



I allow my bees to rear all they wish until the swarm- 

 ing season is over, then kill them off. Bv so doing I 

 have never lost but one queen and have kept my bees 

 as pure as the lirst queen I bought. I would rather 

 feed one peck of drones two months than lose one 

 queen. Besides, the woods are full of black bees liere 

 and they would mix much more. VVm. & S. A. Philp. 

 Clare, Clare County, Mich., June 17, 1877. 



Although there is some truth in your posi- 

 tion, friend P., we think you go rather to an 

 extreme when you say you would rather feed 

 a peck of drones two months, than lose one 

 queen. They would perhaps need a dollar's 

 worth of honey, and an unfertile queen — how 

 is it, friends ? Is she fertile or unfertile, and 

 what is she worth? It may be worth our 

 while to "cipher out" just how maay drones 

 we can afford to furnish board and lodging, 

 while we are raising queens. If they do not 

 furnish enough naturally, just give us an or- 

 der, and we will give you a hive furnished en- 

 tirely with drone comb; a pair of rolls are 

 now being made, for drone fdn. You can then 

 set any queen you choose to supplying your 

 yard with drones. 



The following carries its moral with it. 



Enclosed find gl.50 for the Fan-mer^s Barn Book, ad- 

 vertised in your Dook list. 



Yours Respectfully. 



P. S.— I send this in common letter. You state in 

 Gleanings that letters containing small amounts of 

 money pass very safely through the mails. My ex- 

 perience has been quite difl'erent, having lost fully 

 one-half £ent in that way. C. W. 



Clifton, Tenn., June 13th, 1877. 



Nothing in the shape of a name could be 

 found either on the letter or envelope, except 

 the "C. W." We found on our mailing list a 

 name that we presume is the right one, but 

 had it not been for that, ^1.50 more would 

 have been lost. By the waj^ we have quite a 

 bundle of letters from unknown friends, and 

 as many of them contained money we presume 

 they too are complaining about the careless- 

 ness or dishonesty of some one. It really 

 makes one feel sad, to look over these letters 

 from some earnest hopeful worker and feel 

 that we are obliged to keep his money without 

 rendering him a single equivalent, just because 

 he forgot to sign his name. We have several 

 times written to the P. M. but it seldom does 

 any good. Sometimes we have neither town 

 nor state given, and last evening we received 

 a postal, without "ever a word on it at all, 

 at all." 



Send 10 lbs. yellow comb fdn. by ^'■Lif/hlning Ex- 

 press.'''' Six square feet to the pound, cells worker 

 size. Bees swarming, make no delay; can not xuait. 

 Bees w'orking on the last 10 lbs. you sent me as readi- 

 ly as on natural combs. 



White clover just commenced blossoming. Barber- 

 ry bushes plenty hero, been in bloom ten days. Bees 

 working on them. Don't know what they get. Tell 

 US what you know about them as honey producers. 



Jekemv Lake, North ICaston, Mass., June Gth, '77. 



Who will tell us ai>out barberry? 



