1877 



GLE^VNINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



263 



mence brood rearing largely in the spring. 

 We are very glad indeed to hear you succeeded 

 so well with your Barnes' saws, but at the 

 risk of losing some customers, will add that 

 every one does not. Like other things, there 

 are a few who And fault with them. 



DOOIilTTliS'S REPORT. 



^njpSuEAR GLEANINGS:— We have had one of the 

 *J ID best scaaons for honey since 1870, an<i we have 

 ^sfT left no stone unturned, that in our judgement, 

 would give us one pound moro of honey. By turning 

 to page 179, present Vol., it will be seen that we had 

 80 stocks the first of June. 50 of which were good fair 

 stocks, and 30 weak. About the I'ith of June we de- 

 cided that we could work but 67 of said stocks to any 

 purpose for honey ; so we broke the remaining 1;5 

 very weak onet up into 30 nuclei for queen rearing. 

 We also decided to work two exclusively for extract- 

 ed honey, and the remaining 05 were run for box 

 honey. June 18th, white clover began to yield honey 

 and our bees commenced work in boxes soon after. 

 Basswood opened July 14th and lasted till the '28th, 

 which with teasel yielded abundantly. Aug. 2d the 

 flowers failed to secrete honey entirely, and wc could 

 only work at bees night and morning, on account of 

 robbers. Aug. 16th, buckwheat came into blossom 

 and lasted till Aug. 28th, when our honey season 

 closed for 1877. The result of our season's work is as 

 follows. 



Box honey, white 8761 lbs. 



" dark 1523 " 



Extracted 893 " 



Total 11177 lbs. 



Our average yield of box honey from the 65 old 



stocks in spring", was 158 pounds per stock. Average 

 yield from the two extracted swarms 446 pounds. Av- 

 erage yield from 67 stocks in spring, of both box and 

 extracted, \G^% pounds. 



We have at date 152 stocks in fine condition for win- 

 ter. Our bees did not swarm as much as usual this 

 year, thus proving what we have always claimed, 

 that Italian bees were not as liable to swarm in a 

 good yield of honey as when there was but little to be 

 had. We would be satistled to give the av.^rage > ield 

 per colony of an apiary, as we always have before, 

 were it not that we find ou page 122, present Vol., that 

 the "merits" of a hive are to be tested by the number 

 of pounds produced by a single colony. Therefore we 

 will give the number of pounds produced by a few 

 colonies which we kept a record of. 



Our best extracted swarm gave 566 pounds. The 

 largest yield from it was given from July 21st to 24th, 

 being 66 lbs., or 22 lbs. per day. This stock was the 

 production of one queen it being helped in no way, 

 from any other colony. We kept record of only three 

 stocks in spring, worked for box honey, but had sev- 

 eral others that did nearly or quite as well, which we 

 kept no record of. From our best stock, we obtained 

 3u91bs. ; from another 3U1, from the third 286, making 

 896 lbs. of box honey produced by three stocks in 

 spring. Each of these stocks gave us one new swarm 

 which made a part of said honey, but we think the 

 yield would have been greater if they had not 

 swarmed. We gave one of these stocks from 12 to 18 

 boxes filled with fdn., otherwise they built ihelr 

 combs frjm starters such as wc usually use, as we 

 have explained in back numbers of Gleanings. 



On page 135, Vol. II, we said, " We have come to 

 this conclusion In regard to profit in bee-keeping, 

 and consider it perfectly safe— that each old stock in 

 the spring, that has a quart of bees, will make 80 lbs. 

 of box honey if the season is good. If they swarm the 

 two will make that, and if they do not, they certainly 

 will. One man can with ease tend one hundred 

 stocks worked for box honey. Now, allowing every 

 other season a poor one, so that the bees do nothing, 

 we still have two tons of honey for each year. Twen- 

 ty-five cents is the lowest price for nice box hi'ney, so 

 we will have §1000 each year as an income." Al- 

 though honey, at the present time, will not bring 25c 

 per lb., we have no reason to believe that a ijracticed 

 apiarist would realize less than SlOOO per year from 

 100 stocks. In fact we have cleared, free of all ex- 

 pense, 16000 within the last five years with but about 

 one-half that number. 



In conclusion we would say, as we said on page 30, 

 present Vol., "Bee-keeping only pays when our pets 

 are properly cared for, and if any one can not spend 

 the required amount of time on them, he had better 



keep out of the business, for sooner or later, he will 

 turn away from it in disgust." 



G. M. DOOLITTLK. 



Borodino, N. Y., Sept. I2ih, 1877. 



The above is one of the best reports we have 

 ever had from an apiary of the size mentioned ; 

 the good season may have had something to 

 do with it, but not all, for Mr. Doollttle makes 

 a good report every year; and we doubt if we 

 have a bee-keeper in our land, who makes as 

 good a yield year after year, from the number 

 of colonies kept. 



Several have remarked that he loses largely 

 in wintering, and has many weak colonies 

 every spring. Friend D., you say you have 

 153 stocks in fine condition for winter; now 

 before we put you clear at the head of the class, 

 we want you to bring those 152 through to 

 next May, without losinff a single colony. Quite 

 a number have recently wintered large apiaries 

 without losing any, and you can do the same 

 il you only set about it. Our neighbor Shaw 

 of Chatham used to be the most unsuccessful 

 at wintering, of any bee-keeper in our county, 

 but he wintered nearly or quite a hundred col- 

 onies last winter without losing a single one, 

 or even having a weak one. During a visit we 

 have just paid his apiaries, he declared it was 

 all owing to the right kind of care, and noth- 

 ing else. They were shut up in small space, 

 and packed in chafif. 



By the way, as the 566 lbs. of extracted honey 

 from one hive is something unusual, but one 

 greater yield being on record, if I am correc t, 

 may we ask for full particulars of theway in 

 which the stock was managed? How often 

 the extracting was done, &c. 



^ ■•■ 



IMPORTED QUEENS. 



^ A3I much pleased that you are importing queens, 

 lli but mu^t protest against your mode of selling 

 ^ them. Too little attention has been paid to im- 

 proving our stock; and if a man buys an interior im- 

 ported queen, his name is at first just as good as the 

 one who has one very superior. 1 see no reason why 

 they should not be graded like any other stock; then 

 the man or men, who buy the best, will get the worth 

 of their money, and the public will knovv where to 

 look for superior queens.* I am determined to have 

 no in and in breeding and shall want an imported 

 queen in the spring. But as I have had a beauly to 

 work from this year, and have given the best of bat- 

 Isfaclion. it I should get an inferior one for next year, 

 you would soon have me in your " Humbug and 

 Swindle" column. When I get ready to buy I shall 

 fix my standard as to quality, and the one 1 buy of can 

 fix price. I have young stocks (artificial) working la 

 sections nicely, while some old ones, with twice as 

 many bees, are doing nothing. Both Italians, but the 

 young one has a queen raised from the Imported 

 mother. They work just that way every time, and 

 how they ivill defend themselves against robbers. 



H. P. Sayles, Hartford, Wis., Sept. 7, 1877. 



I agree with you exactly, friend S., but most 

 bee-keepers prefer to do their own grading and 

 testing. Out of a lot of 20 queens, one or two 

 would without doubt prove superior. If I sell 

 none but the best, what shall I do with the in- 

 ferior, and what shall I charge for the supe- 

 rior y It takes a long while to test a queen 

 for queen rearing, and some time as well as 

 care and observation to test her bees as honey 

 gatherers. One that I had pronounced all 

 right in all these respects, my customer might 

 not find up to his expectations, and one that I 

 had pronounced poor, might prove equal to 

 any. In view of all this, is it not better to let 

 each, one do his own testing as we do with the 



