1877 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



2G1 



and the bees are kept in for two or three days, 

 few, if any, will go back to the old stand. If 

 the hives stood within 6 feet of each other, they 

 will all get back without any trouble any way, 

 for they will hear the call of their comrades 

 who have discovered the new order of things. 

 Sometimes you cau take two colonies whilt 

 flying, and put them together without trouble, 

 by making the lost bees call their comrades. 

 Actual practice and acquaintance with the 

 habits of bees will alone, enable you to do this, 

 and if you have not that knowledge, you must 

 get it by experience. Get a couple of colonies 

 that you do not value much, and practice on 

 them. As I have said all along, beware of rob- 

 bers, or you will speedily make two colonies 

 into none at all, instead of into one. 



WHAT TO DO WITH TUE QUEENS 



If one of the colonies to be united, has been 

 several days queenless, all the better, for a 

 queenless colony will often give up its locality 

 and accept a new one by simply shaking them 

 in front of a hive containing a laying queen. 

 From a hive containing neither queen nor 

 brood, I have induced the whole lot to desert, 

 and go over to a neighboring colony, by simply 

 shaking a part of the bees in front of it. 

 These were so overjoyed at finding a laying 

 queen, that they called all their comrades to 

 the new home, and all hands set to work and 

 carried every drop of honey to the hive with 

 the fertile queen. By taking advantage of 

 this disposition we can often make short work 

 of uniting. If you are in a hurry, or do not 

 care for the queens, you can unite without 

 paying any attention to them, and one will be 

 killed ; but, as even a hybrid queen is now 

 worth 50c., I do not think it pays to kill them. 

 Remove the poorest one and keep her safely 

 caged, until you are sure the other is well re- 

 ceived by all the bees. If she is killed, as is 

 sometimes the case, you have the other to re- 

 place her. Where stocks are several rods apart, 

 they are often moved a couple of feet a day 

 while the bees are flying briskly, until they are 

 side by side, and then united as we have di- 

 rected. This is so much trouble, that I much 

 prefer waiting for cold weather. If your bees 

 are in box hives, I should say your first job on 

 hand, was to transfer them. If you have sev- 

 eral kinds of hives in your apiary, you are 

 about as badly off", and the remedy is to throw 

 away all but one. My friends, those of you 

 who are buying every patent hive that comes 

 along, and putting your bees into them, little 

 know how much trouble and bother you are 

 making yourselves for the years to come. 



In conclusion, I would advise defei'ring the 

 uniting of your bees until we have several cold 

 rainy days, in Oct., for instance, on which bees 

 will not fly. Then proceed as directed. If you 

 have followed the advice I have given, you 

 will have little uniting to do, except with the 

 queen rearing nuclei ; and with these, you have 

 only to take the hives away, and set the frames 

 in the hive below, when you are done with 

 them. If the hive below is a strong one, as it 

 should of course be, just set the frames from the 

 nucleus into the upper story, until all the brood 

 has hatched. If you wish to make a colony of 

 the various nuclei, collect them during a cold 

 day, and put them all into one hive. If you 

 have bees from 3 or 4, they will unite better 



than if they came from only two hives, and you 

 will seldom see a bee go back to his old home. 

 A beginner should beware of having many weak 

 colonies in the fall, to be united. It is much 

 safer, to have them all strong and ready for 

 winter, long before winter comes. 



ITALIANS, AND I.ONO COLD WINTERS. 



^ H AVK 1200 lbs. honey, three-fourths of It box, this 

 mi summer from 30 hives of bees. Very dry. No 

 ^ rain worth having since June. 



Have a thumb half paralyzed for a month past, the 

 result of t'vo of the "UphtnlnK tlirust " stings of the 

 hybrids. Has any one else had a similnr experience ? 

 The thumb Is now improving. This is a lillle dis- 

 couraging alter a dozen years linndllng bees of all 

 kinds. Would almost as soon attempt to run an api- 

 ary of black hornets, as an ajilaiy of hylnlds ; and yet 

 they are very line workers. But the best yield of hon- 

 ey 1 ever had from one hive, was '20U lbs. extracted 

 from one of the purest, brightest, gentle^.t llaliaus I 

 ever owneci. I don't want any more hybrids. 



Hadn't you better go a llule slow in rec<immending 

 Italians, for our climate, with its loiu/ winters ? 



The natural habitat of the Italian is a far milder 

 climate than this, where they can lly every mouth in 

 the year, and shutting them up 5 or 6 months of the 

 year is quite a different tiling. 



I have spent much money upon Italian queens, and 

 have had borae beautiful Italians, over which I was 

 quite enthusiastic, and of course, I have had all 

 grades of vicious hybrids. 



If I lived a few hundreii miles south of this, I would 

 keep noiliing but pure Italians, but here, I now keep 

 rone but blacks. I had good Italian queens, most of 

 them from AUani Grimm, but I never, I think, suc- 

 ceed in keeping an Italian queen and swarm through 

 two winters, while I lost most of them the Urst winder. 

 This, when the blacks beside them were going 

 through about as usual. Finally I unwillingly gave 

 thom up. My neighbors, who tried Italianizing, had 

 a similar exp'erience and all gave them up. 



The most extensive and successful of Minnesota 

 apiarists lost '.200 swarms of them in one winter, and 

 was forced to the unwelcome conclusion that they 

 would not stand our winters nearly so well as the 

 natives " to the manor born." Perhaps I should say 

 that I always winter in cellar. 



J. W. MuKKAY, Excelsior, Minn. 



Your position in regard to the wintering of 

 Italians, is certainly one peculiar to your.self, 

 friend M., or at least to a very few bee-keepers. 

 The matter is one that was frequently brought 

 up a few years ago, but scores of reports 

 through our Journals soon decided that black 

 bees died just the same as the Italians. The 

 yield of honey you mention, from a colony of 

 pure Italians, is enough better than what the 

 blacks do, to pay for buying new stock every 

 year, if we could do no better. If I am cor- 

 rectly informed, many of your Minnesota api- 

 arists gave up bees entirely, both blacks and 

 Italians, after their extensive losses. If such 

 was not the case, why do we hear no more of 

 their large yields that used to make such sen- 

 sations ? It is true the Italians are natives of 

 a warmer climate, but for that matter so are 

 all bees, if I am correctly informed. I do not 

 think extensive experiments will show the 

 Italians any less hardy, but it is very likely 

 true that black bees will be less afl'ected with 

 dwindling, because they are less liable to go 

 out of the hives during unseasonable weather 

 in the spring. By using hives that are not ea- 

 sily warmed through by every transient bit of 

 sunshine in the early spring, I think we shall 

 avoid the dwindling in a great measure. Will 

 our friends in Minnesota who have both kinds 

 of bees, please state whether the impression is 

 general, that the Italians have been in any way 

 more affected by the recent wintering maladies 

 than the common bees? 



