1877. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



207 



ing, if giving them plenty of room will not 

 stop them, you had better let them swarm. 

 We have have had two cases this season in 

 which the bees went back and went to work 

 most industriously, by giving them an entire 

 new ^-t of section boxes with fdu. starters. 

 They swarmed out just because they had fin- 

 ished their first set before we were aware of it. 

 We forbear giving the name of the friend who 

 sends out this circular because we think it is 

 more through ignorance and carelessness, than 

 any wish to mislead. Non-swarraers, queen 

 yards and all, are as yet, all impracticable. 



VATENT HIVES, &C. 



I have 8 colonies of the common bees In the com- 

 mon box hives. I commenced six jears ago with 

 one colony In an old log gum. The llrst year they 

 did not swarm. Since that time I have had 18 swarms. 

 They have generally done well until last year. Last 

 year was a very poor honey season and I lost six col- 

 onies of my bees during the winter. I have.no way 

 of getting into the hives to see how m3^ bees are do- 

 ing, and of course am unable to correct a^y tiling 

 that may be wrong with them. I have mad^- up my 

 mind to make a change in my hives, and hope that I 

 will be able to gather such information from Glean- 

 ings as will enable me to correct any errors that I 

 may have on the bubject of bee culture. 



I see you are down on all patented bee hives, but 

 recommend the Langstroth frame for everybody. 

 The Langstroth hive is thought by everybody here to 

 be patented. I know of but three or four per- 

 sons in this section of the country that use them, and 

 they paid <e/i dollars for a hive and a farm right to 

 make and use them. I have not the money to 

 spare In that way. I think by procuring a Simplicity 

 hive or some other approved hive for a pattern to 

 work by I can make my own hives cheaper than 1 can 

 procure them in any other wav. 



N. F. BuKNETT, Pikeville, Tenn., June 29th, '77. 



Over and over again, we get letters like the 

 above, telling how money has been paid for 

 rights to both the Langstroth and American 

 hive, even though both have been for years 

 past, public property. Will this business nev- 

 er cease, of giving honest hard earnings, to 

 traveling vagabonds, and thus paying them a 

 premium for their dishonest practices? In 

 our own county, and almost in our own town, 

 a man has been selling rights to the farmers 

 for a hive under a new name, that is only a 

 copy of the exploded Kidder hive. These 

 farmers admit that none of the successful bee- 

 keepers all around us use such hives, or in 

 fact use anything patented, in the shape of 

 hives, but yet they are persuaded that this one, 

 is a great invention, and notwithstanding the 

 fact that they are told over and over and over 

 again that the hive is utterly impracticable by 

 our modern honey raisers who are fully versed 

 and up to the times in all new improvements, 

 they choose rather to be guided by the specu- 

 lator who has a right to sell. 



I have sometimes thought that it was be- 

 cause farmers get lonesome, and want some 

 one to talk with, that induces them to keep 

 investing money where past experience shows 

 no one ever got any back according to repre- 

 sentations. These men are so very kind and 

 sociable, so very pleasant, and so much inter- 

 ested in all that pertains to farm life, it really 

 is a pleasure to talk with them. Well talk 

 and visit with them if you wish my friends, 

 but be very sure you do not let them get hold 

 of any of your money, in any shape or manner ; 

 do not even take one of their hives as a gift, 

 for the damage resulting from bringing an odd 

 sized frame into your apiary, is often far great- 



er than the value of the money you pay them. 

 If you think their judgment is better than 

 mine, go and ask some one near you who mar- 

 kets honey by the ton ; patent right venders, 

 always giv.i these men a wide berth. They 

 get their money from those who have none or 

 only a few bees, and often from those who 

 have purchased all the patent hives that have 

 come along, and even then have not succeeded. 



ITALIAN BEES, BOX HONEY, Ac. 



1^ CORRESPONDENT writes us thus:- "I have 

 yi^*^ kept the Italians for four years an. I they have 

 ^i^— J made no surplus honey for me while the black 

 bees stored lots of honey in the surplus boxes. I even 

 fill the boxes with comb and they will not work In 

 them, but lay about the hive In cliisters." Our friend 

 does not inform uh how many bees he keeps, theretbre 

 we are unable to decide just what course we would 

 pursue with them. If he has 1« or more stocks that 

 act in this way it is something we know nothing 

 about ; but If a single colony it would not be very 

 strange. 



One important point in the construction of a hive 

 for box honey with Italian bees ."hould not be over- 

 looked, und that is, the brood chamber should not be 

 too large. If our friend has a brood chamber of from 

 2000 to 3000 cubic inches wc should not wonder at the 

 actions ol his Italians, for Italian bees are prone to 

 store honey in the brood chamber in preference to 

 the boxes If the queen does not have it occupied with 

 i)rood when the honey season commences', and if thev 

 have room to store 30 or 40 pounds in brood chamber 

 they will very likely not go into boxes at all, but keep 

 crowding the queen until the bees get lew in number, 

 and ai the end of the honey season we shall And there 

 is scarcely any brood and but few bees, but a hive full 

 of honey ; while if we had removed all combs that the 

 queen would not occupy with brood at the commence- 

 ment of the honey season, puttiiig boxes in their 

 place, we should have had a fair return of surplus. If 

 btcs refuse to work in boxes which they sometimes 

 do, there are various methods of getting them to go to 

 work. We will give two or three which are usually 

 successful. If a box, bees and all Is taken from a hive 

 that are at work in boxes, and set on the hive that 

 are loth to enter the boxes it will usually Incite them 

 to work also. If this does not work, fit a piece of 

 comb with small larva; Into one or two boxes and they 

 will generally commence work in the rest. If this 

 does not answer drum or shake from the Irames the 

 larger part ol the bees and the queen and put them In 

 a box or hive, and when they get to building comb 

 finely put them back and we never knew them to fail 

 to work, going right to the boxes and building comb 

 in short order. In drumming out the bees do not 

 drive too close, as bees enough must be left to protect 

 the brood. That Italians were interior to black bees 

 for box honey, if properly managed, we never could 

 see, even In a good season, and In a poor one they will 

 certainly show their superiority. 



In 187'/ (the poorest season we have ever had) while 

 our black bees were actually starving, our Italians 

 were making a small gain irom red clover, and at the 

 end of the season the report stood as follows: from 

 pure Italians 60 lbs. surplus box honey, from hybrids 

 30 lbs., from blacks nothlncr and no honey in the hives ; 

 and the pure Italians furnished enough besidej the 

 surplus stored In boxes to cariy the blacks through 

 the winter. G. M. Doolittle. 



P. S.— The nice white comb that the drummed out 

 colony build while In the box, should be placed In the 

 boxes for starters for there Is no greater Incentive to 

 bees to commence work than new white comb. 



Borodino, N. Y., July 10th, 1877. G. M. D. 



Toads do eat bees, and they arc not at all particu- 

 lar whose bees they eat either. Wc have given our 

 minister a hive of gentle Italians ; they arc in a lawn 

 hive, and it looks about as pretty under the spreading 

 branches of a small evergreen, as almost anything 

 you ever saw In the shape of a bee hive ; and yet sad 

 to tell, his toadshlp sits right In front of the hive and 

 gobbles the bees up as they come in laden with the 

 clover honey that is nceilcd to put the finishing touch- 

 es on the tilled section frames. 



