1877 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



251 



him lo make it good as best he can, or even 

 tell him his duty in the matter if you can do 

 it and still be friends. Be friends anyway, 

 whatever it may cost; you can really "fight" 

 for your property in a ft-iendly way, it' it must 

 be done, and you can save ever so much more 

 by the power of kindness than you can by 

 hard words or "clubs." I confess I am very 

 far from being e<tual to all emergencies of this 

 kind, but now and then I get a view of the 

 clear blue sky, of a frame of mind "away up 

 high," where we can do and say all that needs 

 to be done iu this world of ours, with not on- 

 ly a pleasant look, but with a kindly feeling in 

 our hearts for everybody. May the kind Fath- 

 er lead us all up higher, and help us to forgive 

 the debts of others, as we would have our owe 

 forgiven. 



%cm^ %dunin. 



>^^UR bees have done well on clover; we have 12 

 HI) bbls. lull, each holding 40 or more gallons, 

 ^^^^ which we are anxious to sell. I always consid- 

 er your "Honey Column" the most valuable part ot 

 <ii.EANiNGS asit tells us where we can sell our huney. 

 J. L. VVOLFENDON, Artams, Wis., Aug. 7. 



We kept up the honey column as long as 

 anybody would tell how much honey they had 

 for sale, and what price they wanted for it. 

 Even you have neglected to say what price 

 you are willing to take for your 2% tons of 

 hotey. 



'WIIVTK21 K;>iT«AlVCES, STRETCHING OF 



FDN., SHIIPFilMG AND SELLINO 



HONEV, Ac. 



SN March No., in an article headed "Our own apia- 

 ry," you say, "Perhaps a half dozen of our L. 

 , hives were left with no entrance blocks, and ev- 

 ery one of these showed an unusual quantity of dead 

 liees: we are well satisfied that the entrancee should 

 1)6 closed up small, tight and warm, lor winter, and 

 would favor a siD^le auger hole, a little above the 

 bottom board.^' Now, how large an auger hole would 

 you recommend? Prof. A. J. Cook says a strong col- 

 ony of bees need nearly as much air in winter as in 

 summer. If the hole is too small, would there not be 

 <^langer of suffocation i* 



Vou recommend sheets of fdn. to be cut so as to al- 

 low V inch space at the sides and % at bottom. I re- 

 ceived 7 sheets of you cut "Ihusly," the bees have 

 worked them out and most of them are filled with 

 brood, hut all are as pendent as a clock pendulum, be- 

 ing attached nowhere but at top. They have, how- 

 ver, lengthened so that they nearly "touch bottom 

 S)ar, but the spEce at each side i? now % inch or more, 

 lit would spem that what the sheet gained in depth it 

 lost in width. I would think from this, that the sheet 

 ought very nearly to fill the frame in width. 



In August No. you refer to shipping crates for box 

 honey, but do not say who will furnish them, nor give 

 cost of them. You can probably make them cheaper 

 and better than many of your readers, so let us know 

 about it. Do you have the cases returned when emp- 

 ty ? Do the section boxes sell at gross weight or 

 must the weight of each section be known and de- 

 Uuctetl when selling ? 



What is a tin separator as you use it ? Is it a piece 

 of tin set edgewise between each Irame of sections? 

 Sf 80, it seems to me that this arrangement would 

 isolate the bees too much for rapid work. 



D. B. Baker, RoUersville, O., Aug. <)th, l»77. 



If the entrance for summer is large, I would 

 not have the auger hole over ^4 inch for a win- 

 ter entrance. Friend Cook was speaking of 

 ventilation for bees in-doors, when he said they 

 needed nearly as much iu winter as iu sum- 

 mer, if I mistake not. fie has given the result 



elsewhere, of an experiment in which :i colony 

 out-doors had the entrance sealed up air tight, 

 by ice, yet they did not sutt'er. If you have a 

 porous covering over the cluster, such as chaff 

 or even a cloth ([uilt, you may close the en- 

 trance as tightly as you wish in cold weather. 

 Bees very seldom, if ever, smother when win- 

 tered out doors, but they often sufier from 

 having the dampness from their breath freeze 

 around or on them. 



Your sheets of fdn. behaved thus, probably, 

 because the wax was of hard and firm texture. 

 Where cut as you mention, it, iu a majority of 

 cases, just touches the sides and bottom bar 

 when finished, and your bees will eventually 

 All it out at the ends if we are not mistaken. 

 In deciding on the size for the sheets, we have 

 preferred to have them hang as a pendulum, 

 rather than have them touch and bulge. 



I carelessly omitted to say in my description 

 of the honey case, that we could furnish them, 

 glass, paint and all, for 50c each. The ex- 

 press companies return the cases without 

 charge to the shipper, so that there is no ne- 

 cessity for keeping a large number of them on 

 hand. Of course the section box is sold with 

 the honey ; no one ever objects to the very 

 thin light pine pieces of which they are made. 

 An engraving of the tin separators and the 

 way in which they are used, was given iu 

 our April supplement. We see little, if any, 

 dittVrence in the yield of honey, whether the 

 separators are used or not, and I have given 

 the matter a pretty thorough test, both this 

 year and last. If you wish to get a high price 

 for yoi:r honey, do not think of omitting the 

 separators. 



IMFORTIIVG QIEENS iROITE ITAIiY. 



WHAT TJIEY COST, HOW THEY LOOK, AND ALL 

 ABOUT 'em. 



OxN the Clh of June we sent $^2.oO to I). 

 \i Tremontani, and just 60 days afterward 

 ^^ received 15 queens, 14 of which were 

 alive. The express charges on them was 

 $24.o5. You will see that the queens cost us 

 in Italy about $2.10, from which it seems that 

 Tremontani charges more for dollar queens 

 than we do. If we undei-stand the matter, 

 these queens are simply young queens that 

 have just commenced to lay, without any re- 

 gard to stock. We would by no means find 

 fault with our friend Tremontani, for it must 

 be remembered that he has to prepare and 

 guarantee safe delivery of them all, across the 

 ocean. Ours were very carefully packed, with 

 three little frames of old thick honey ; in fact 

 they had honey enough to last them around 

 the world ; but for all this, many of the bees 

 were dead, and several of the hives contained 

 not a single live bee except the (|ueeu. The 

 entire expense of shipping was ^1.(54 each, so 

 the queens cost about $3.80. If we count out 

 the one dead one we may safely say |i4.00, and 

 I believe ours was a very fortunate shipment. 



The queens I think were a'.l young., for they 

 had very good wings, and flew freely as soon 

 as let out of the boxes. Several of them flew 

 while being introduced, and although I had 

 little fear of their not coming back, I assure 

 you it is rather trying to one's feelings, to see 



