276 



GLEANINGS m BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



By to- day's mall I send you a specimen of two 

 winged fly tbat seems to like l)ee3 for a diet. I have 

 seen tUree of iliem witii lionsy bees, a friend saw one 

 witli a 'nimble bee. and I saw one with a grass hop- 

 per. Tney seem to snck the juic^ from them. 1 

 would like to Unjw its name. V. VV. Kee.sev. 



Shirland, Ills., Aug. 22d, 1877. 



The fl/ referred to is the AsUus Miswuriensis, the 

 same mentioned on page ^9 oi -Manual of the Apia- 

 ry." These Hies are very strong, llerce and voracious. 

 I once saw one of an allied species attack and whip a 

 liger beetle, both of which I then took with my net, 

 and have them framed in our College museum just as 

 I took them. I know of n j way to tight them success- 

 fully. 1 d ubt if they wid ever be numerous enough 

 to do serious harm, and besides, they do much good 

 in killing insect enemies which will serve as a partial 

 offset to their evil work. A. J. Cook. 



Lansing, Mich., Aug. 8th, 1877. 



If you wish your bees to ba sure to die, du- 

 ring the coming winter, I know o' no better 

 way than to do'as this fellow does. He siys : 



" ' I'm sitting sadly on the strand that stretches to 

 the water's brink, and as the day slips slowly by, 1 

 idly fold mv hands an t think.' Wnilst he is sitting 

 on the strand with idly folded hands, his family at 

 home mav be suflfering for the necessaries of life. He 

 should skirmish around, before the dav slips slowly 

 by, and secure a job at digging a cellar." 



WINTERING IN THE SOUTH. 



I see in Gleanings, page 204, that you say the bees 

 in the. Southern States die in winter the same way as 

 In the North. I think you might have added— when 

 bees requiri winteriag'in cellars or houses ; as I nev- 

 er knew a colo.iy of bees to perish or dwindle down 

 to nothing in this latitude, and all the bees here are 

 left on their summer stand, without any protection 

 whatever, just as tliev stood all summer. 



Paul L. ViALLON,"Bayou Goula, La., Aug. 28, '77. 



. I did not mean to say they always dwindled, 

 for they do not even here ; but reports have 

 been given in our back No's, of much the same 

 malady in winter and spring, that we have 

 had in the Northern States. Of late, we too, 

 have been much less troubled with it. 



Our fall crop of honev bids fair to be the largest for 

 many years. I attribute it to a stock law recently 

 passedin this county. I noticed many flowers bios 

 soming that were formerly kept doivn bv cattle roam- 

 ing at large. A. X. Illinski. 



St. Clare, Ills., Aug. 30th, 1877. 

 Bse-keepers are certainly not the only peo- 

 ple who will b3 benefitted by having the 

 cattle kept in proper enclosures. 



SMOTIIEKI.SG I$EES. 



A few days ago, in taking off an upper story I start- 

 ed some combs, and robbing set in; I closed the en- 

 trance with wire cloth, but it became stopped up 

 solid. On opening the hive at night I found the 

 combs melted down in a heap and bees all dead 

 (smothered) except about one quart which were most- 

 ly on the outside of the hives. If I had known the 

 jjassage was stopped inside the wires I could have 

 saved thara. They were so hot I could hardly hold 

 my hand inside the hive. A brimstone match could 

 not have done it more effectively. 1 have now got 

 ventilation on the brain and do not think I shall be 

 caught aiain in that way. N. A. Pkuduen. 



Ann Arbor, Mich., Aug. 22d, 1877. 



Be not too hasty on ventilation ; there seems 

 to be something a little obscure about the 

 matter. I too have had colonies melted down 

 in a short time, where the entrance was cov- 

 ered with wire cloth, but have repeatedly 

 closed the hive tight with sawdust for several 

 days, without doing any injury. In the house 

 apiary, I also close the entrances wii:h a wad 

 of paper without any bad results, but if wire 

 cloth were used the bees would pack them- 

 selves so closely against it as to become first 

 wet, and then hot, and finally suftbcated. In 



shipping bees, we are in danger of having the 

 same trouble, unless we have a large surface 

 of wire cloth ; and I have, during the very 

 warmest weather, covered not only the whole 

 top of the hive with wire cloth, but the bot- 

 tom also. When I adopted the latter precau- 

 tion, they always went safely. 



HONEY IN JAKS AND VASES, AND EMBOSSING IN 

 HONEV COMB. 



Please inform me if bees will build honey in glas» 

 jarfi, or if there is any process known by which to 

 make them do so ? Henky Vaks. 



Richmond, Texas, Sept. 6lh, 1877. 



You can easily induce them to store in glass 

 jars, vases, globes, fruit cans or any thing else, 

 almost, by fastening bits of comb, or what is 

 still better, fdn., just where you wish the combs 

 to be. Tnere is however a difiiculty, because 

 the combs are liable to break loose and slip 

 down, on account of the unequal expansion of 

 glass and wax. The remedy consists in ma- 

 king a frame of wood or paste board, to hold 

 the combs, supported from the bottom. Yoa 

 can then have the va?e so as to lift off from the 

 whole wax structure. Those who are curious, 

 can have very fanciful combs built in these 

 vases. Friend Boardman of Huron, O., has 

 just sent us a section of honey having a cross 

 on one side and a diamond on the other, em- 

 bossed in the sealed honey comb. This was 

 probably produced by taking advantage of the 

 propensity of the bees to bulge out their combs 

 where an opening presents itself, as we have 

 all noticed they at times do, by bulging one 

 comb into an opening in the one next it. Now, 

 if we should set a board next the honey in a 

 section while it was being built, with the fig- 

 ure of a cross cut in it, we wou'.d have a bulged 

 cross in the comb when it was built. To suc- 

 ceed in this, we should only experiment when 

 honey is coming in rapidly, or by rapid feeding. 

 We once had several fine glass vases filled with 

 honey by simply cementing bits of comb to 

 their tops ; but the bees disliked the glasses on 

 account of the slipping they experienced in 

 trying to climb up it, and they swarmed out 

 twice before finishing their task. 



The queen ordered is received and introduced safe- 

 ly. She looked to me as though not fertile, but I 

 hope she is all right. A. O. VVashbukn. 



Bloomington, Ills., Sept. 8th, 1877. 



The same remark has been made so many 

 times, I think it best to state that a queen, 

 after a long trip in a cage, does look precisely 

 like a virgin queen ; but that she will regain 

 her accustomed size after being for a few days 

 in a populous colony. Queens in small nuclei, 

 almost always get small, sooner or later, but 

 after having plenty of bees given them, they 

 get large and long. 



We are entirely out of surplus queens. Have been 

 hard pu'ihcd all the season to keep up with orders. 

 Bees )iavc been working nicely on buckwheat, and 

 ai-o now gathering freelv from the large smart weed 

 and other fall bloom. Can't say yet, how many colo- 

 nits we will winter. Have now SiS, but still orders 

 come in. J. M. BuooKS & Co. 



EUzabethtown, Ind., Sept. 6th, 1877. 



B.'es in this part of the country wintered very 

 poorly last winter ; some persons lost their entire 

 stock, others half or more. I lost none. I packed 

 mine in dry corn husks (i inches thick and never saw 

 bees winter so well. Some colonies gave IKi lbs. hon- 

 ey this season, besides doubling th:,- entire number. 



J. B. Fekguson, Jennie's Creek, W. Va., Aug. 31. 



