1877 



GLEA>TINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



319 



verj' readily here, I thought 1 would "go for" box 

 honey. My boxes hold ID and 20 lbs, having % inch 

 Dine bottoms, anil glass fronts. They were placed di- 

 roctly above the frames, no boney board intervening. 

 They commencvid work in these at cnce, but ihcir 

 )>rogrec8 was slow. 1 lookcit at their boxes ofien, but 

 (lid not op-'n th.; body rf the hive, for about two 

 months. Noticing your a(lvice in S.;;)t., No., 

 that this month whs a good lime to see that stocks 

 were in good condition for winter, I went to work and 

 to my astonishment, fnind tlie body of the hive literal- 

 ly full of hon-y. I opened one hive that had not a 

 particle of ro>m fir bi-oodl The cai'ls of comb were 

 built down to the bottom bar ot the frames, full of 

 honey, every coll capped over, and about; 15 lbs, In 

 ooxes above, n.it full/' Other hives had from 2 to 4 

 square inches of inferior looking brood at the lower 

 p:;rt of the fr.imi^ I put the extractor to work at once, 

 of conise. Will these bees, so late In the season, raise 

 broo I enougli to keep up the strcngtii of the colony, 

 (luring the winter? or what shall I do with theuiP 

 1{''^3 are still gathering some honey, at, this date. If 

 I get my b-e^ through the winter, I tblnlc 1 shall 

 adop: the Simplicity iiivc, with small section frames, 

 lor surplus honey, A. C. Washburn. 



Bioomlngton, ills., Sept., 13th, 1877. 



Ill oar expenraeat3 with scctioa boxes, we 

 have been led to believe the bees would iuvari- 

 ably make room for the queen, if they had a 

 Convenient place to put the honey. You do 

 not say what frame you use, but I cannot help 

 thinking such would not have been the case, 

 had you u^ed the shallow L. frame that v/e do. 

 If you wish the bees to start promptly in the 

 boxes they must be brought near the centre of 

 the brood ue?t, and I know of no better way of 

 doing this, than with the shallow frame. Bees 

 can be made to rear brood through Sept. and 

 Oct., but they will have to be fed regularly to 

 have them do it. But after all, the most im- 

 portinS thnig is, to know at all times, just ex- 

 actly what is going on inside the hive; unless 

 you attend to this, all that books and journals 

 caa aid you, will be of little avail. 



WISTEilING BEES I.S HAY, AVD TOO MUCH HO.VEV. 



I begin b3i-koeoin!? when 14 years of aae, in 1871, 

 havlna; found a wild swarm on a leafy siumi). Wo pvic 

 them In an L., hive, took a bee paper, and Italianized 

 the noxt year. la the fall of 74, havlnsc bourht some, 

 we had 18 stocks of hybrids In trame hives 12x13x20 in- 

 side, which we prepared for winter, as follows. We 

 l)aiic a bouse tt. hiijh and wide, by IS ft. long. Late 

 in Oct. we put a row of hives along each side of the 

 house, 6 In. aiiart, with 4 la, bctv/een them ar,d the 

 weath 31% leaving , a small passage- way through. We 

 then filled the space in front of, and between tlie hives. 

 ^vltu dry prairie hay, and crammed Lho house tnll of 

 hay up to the roof. We were absent, all winter, and 

 on returning in March, not a live bee remained. The 

 winter was very severe; the colonies were of average 

 strentith, and left honey in the hives. Wo have since 

 wintered bees as before, in a collar, with good success. 



In your remarks you say " double up until all are 

 strong colonle?. Now crov.d the bees on to 6 or 7 

 combs,— tuck them up snugly, and feed until these 6 

 comb.5 are bulged with sealed honey &c." Now arc 

 you sure bees will winter well with no empty comb 

 on which to cluster? I have been taught dlfl'erently, 

 though not by experience. Bees have done well this 

 year, and are In good condition for winter. 



Oliver Foster. 



Mt. Vernon, Iowa., Oct. 29th, 1877. 



Your bees were in very large hives, and 

 your nice dry hay was so far away from them 

 that it did them harm rather than good, for it 

 deprived them entirely of the sun's rays, which 

 they would have had on their summer stands. 

 "Were you, some frosty night, to put the bed 

 clothes over the top of the bed posts instead 

 of close to your body, you would be in much 

 the same predicament that your bees were. 

 My directions were given for the first of Oct., 

 and if the bees were put on, even solid combs, 

 at that time (although I did not quite mean 



that), they would have plenty of empty cells 

 to cluster in, by the first of Dec. I have, many 

 times, seen the combs too full for brood rear- 

 ing, but I have never seen too much honey at 

 the approach of winter, when there were plenty 

 of b' es. If you lake u look at your bees in one 

 of these large hives during a frosty morning, 

 you will fiud them gathered into a space so 

 small that you would, a': first, say they were 

 all gone. Now if you make the colony large, 

 and the hive small, you will finally have them 

 right against the top, bottom and sides, and in 

 this coiidliion they will have a warm room all 

 wintei-; so warm, in facl, that they can be seen 

 sta;nliii;c in the doorway almost all winter 

 long.; and this is the very condition in which 

 we find our bees in the chaflf hives. The walls 

 and floor being of very thin lumber, are easily 

 warmed through, and kept warm all winter. 



REPOKT FKO.TI MECHIGAN. 



DRONES, FDN., SEPARATORS, &C. 



j^ S the hurry of the season is now over, and the 

 yWS^ bees ail nleely stored away in their chaft" boxes, 

 -^^-^ we will tell you what we have been doing the 

 I>.".sC8c.t.-<on. First, then, our season has not been ex- 

 tra, notwiihstaiitling llowers were never more abun- 

 dant; but. during the entire month of June, the nights 

 were very cold and but a small amount of clover hon- 

 ey was gathered. We had, in spring, 74 No. 1 colonies 

 and 71 uf them sent out lirst swarms. Not a second 

 sw. inn issued; all surplus queen cells were cut out 

 the S;h day irom issue of the lirst swarm. We had, 

 all told, 'Jti first swarms, but Increased only 33. using 

 the bees lor gathering honey. Our entire crop wa8 

 only 4000 lbs., all clover; no fall honey. 



As we have no basswood, our season for surplus 

 clo^eil about the l.^ith or 20th of July ; but enough was 

 g.ithered from p:olden rod to amply supply all stocks 

 for winter, and as we still hold that 35 pounds is safer 

 than 25 to last from flowers to flowers, we have kept 

 that amount In each hive. One liundred and two col- 

 onies are ))ackcd away in 350 bushels of wheat chaflf. 

 "Chaff Is on the rise." 



Our last article v/as on the Drone, or " How many 

 do we need in an apiary of 100 colonies ?" Well, In 

 April and May last, we built all of our 74 colonies up 

 with perfect worker combs, with the exception of 4 

 stocks ; each of these 4, had a piece of drone comb 

 about 4 inches square. We were told, last spring, that 

 we should lose a great many young queens, but we 

 lost only 4, Now I am not going to tell you how much 

 lioacy it takei to raise and keep a large batch of 

 drones, but every practical bee-keeper knows that 

 hives Infested with large numbers of drones store lit- 

 tle or no suri)lus; and If we reverse the order of 

 things, and raise workers in their stead, it will soon 

 be seen. But pi-obably you, Mr. Gleanings, will ar- 

 gue that there is now no use of bothering about drone 

 comb. The remedy Is fdn., and all worker In brood 

 chamber. Well, this is all very nice, and no doubt 

 will radically cure the great evil, but my dear Mr. 

 Novice, do you not know that at the present price of 

 fdn. It would require quite a large cash outlay to be- 

 gin the season and then have to risk the bees gather- 

 ing honey enough to pay for It ? We highly prize fdn. 

 for starters in our surplus boxes and sections, but 

 think it too costly for the brood chamber. It may be 

 that the bumi> of caution Is rather prominent on our 

 head; time will prove It. 



We are reall," glad to see our Bro. Doolittle roll in 

 such big fl;;ures. But O dear ! when Novice tells us 

 that his location Is nothing extra— Well we think 

 about as Pat did abou tthe potatoes in Ireland ; he said 

 It was'ut nuich of a country for potatoes, but they did 

 raise some "awful big" ones. Please ask him whether 

 he uses Fi,indcr's Bee Charm or not. 



Our honey was nearly all in your sections and all 

 soldat2"e. We used no 8ei)arators, and have but a 

 small amount but what could be sent to market In our 

 cases for retailing, and I am sanguine tliat It can be 

 remedied by filling sections with fdn. Instead of start- 

 ers, as the trouble comes from the bees building up- 

 ward from the bottom. Instead of downward from 

 the top. J. BUTLEK. 



Jackson, Mich., Oct. 10th, 1877. 



