330 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Dec. 



ENAMELED CLOTH FOE COVEEING THE FHAME8. 



I have tried enameled cloth instead of duck for a cover- 

 ing to frames, and tind it far sujwrior to duck. You must 

 try it and report. Cut it full sizs of hive outside. It was 

 discovered by Mr. \Y. J. A.idrew-s, of Columbia, Tenn. 

 He uses enameled duck, but i tind the pi lin domestic en- 

 ameled will do, an i costs aooat IO3 per hive. I believe 

 plain brown domestic, coicei with linseed oil and rosin, 

 will be bitter. It shoald become dr> before use. I in- 

 tend to try it next seivjn. S. C. Dodg-e. 



Chattaaoo^i, Tenn., Aug. 3d, 1877. 



I have used the enameled cloth for several 

 months, aud it is a fact that the bees " let it 

 alone " seemiusrly, better than any substance 

 heretofore tried. Almost no propolis at all is 

 found on it, aud I can ima'^ine them saying, as 

 they look it over, " Well, this is about as 

 smooth and tight as we could make it if we 

 tried, so we think we will just let it be." The 

 quesiijn now comes, how is it going to answer 

 for winter? As it is impervious to water, I 

 havd some doubts ; but with a good chaff cush- 

 ion over it, it may not prove so disastrous after 

 all. At any rate, we are giving them a lest. 



I have 27 colonies of bees; began the season with 5. Our 

 fall honey here is so bitter that it cannot be used for any 

 purpose. It is from a yellow flower, known as bitter 

 weed, which made its appea •aac3 here about 18G}. taking 

 jjossession of all lanels .not under cultivation. Our milk, 

 in early summer, cannot be used. Dan. Nicholson. 



Terry, Miss.. Oct. 23d, 1877. 



I be?an last sprin; with 1 hive of so calletl, Italians. 

 They are hybrids, I suppose, as vhey have but two bands. 

 I now have five stocks and have taken 200 lbs. comb 

 honey from the parent coljiiy and its first swarm, which 

 was a natural one. The 01 hers are artificial, and have 

 yielded no surplus, but have a good .stock for winter. 

 Mrs. S. D. Thukhond. 



Dry Grove, Miss., Oct. 31st, 1877. 



You will have to put me in the list of " Blasted Hopes "' 

 this time. Following your directions (exactly as 1 did 3 

 weeks ago with success), af^er taking away the old queen, 

 1 put the cage with new one on top of the frames, under 

 the ducK. Twenty hours later, the queeii and all her 

 companions were deal in the cage. I cannot account for 

 it, unless they were smuhjred. Two hours after putting 

 her in, 1 took a peep at them to see what they were doing. 

 The hive seemed much disturbed and they were clinging 

 in a thick knot to the ca%-3. This knotting and the warm 

 day, I think will account for it. But wh it does Glban- 

 1SNG9 say? Lawrence Johnson. 



Holly Springs, Miss., Aug. 26 th, 1877. 



I confess, I can hardly understand why a 

 queen and bees should be found dead under 

 such circumstances. When the bees were 

 clinging tightly to the cage, I have always felt 

 that they were safe if they had plenty of food, 

 aud if you used the candy cage, they were cer- 

 tainly all ri2ht in that respect. Since using 

 flour in the candy, we have found that the bees 

 use the candy much more freely, both in tlie 

 slabs, and iu the cag^s ; and it may be that a 

 certain quantity of pollen is needed as well as 

 honey, to keep, even o'd bees, in perfect health. 



The candy used now for the cages, contains 

 'i-10 flour, and I believe not one loss has been 

 reported since it has been used. 



In July No. you say, " in selecting brood for queen rear- 

 ing, be sure you have no drone larva;, for the bees, by 

 gome strange perversion of instinct, will very often build 

 queen calls over them, rs^tiHitij always in nothing but 

 f- dead droneP Now, I balieve the idea of its " resulting 

 (I'.wa.ys in nothing bnt a dead drone" is accaoted by near- 

 ly all the leidinif apiarians, but. notwitiistanding, it has 

 been pr)sitively disproved by Add. Bair, an experienced 

 apiari 111 of this pi ico. He says that, from circumstances 

 occasionnly brought to his notice, he had been led to the 

 belief tliat drones did sometimes issue from queen cells, 

 and a circuiMstMuce of very recent date verified the fact. 

 He was raisinsr a (jueen, as he supposed, from choioe stock, 

 and when the date passed tor its appearance audit came 

 not, suspicion crept up jn him that its inmate was not a 



queen. He therefore resolved himself into a vigilance 

 committee, with a determination to see what would come 

 of it ; and when the d vte came tor a drone to issue, he was 

 extracting basswood honey, which gave him quite a favor- 

 able opportunity to guard his would be queen. He looked 

 to the cell every hour, and finally discovered a something, 

 gnawing its way out. He took the card in his hands, as- 

 sisted the inmate of the cell to make its exit, and lo ! a. 

 perfect drone. He thinks this will account for th3 oft 

 mysterious disappearance of a queen that has evidently 

 issued, but cannot be found— instead of a queen it was a. 

 drone. D. R Baker. 



Rollersville, O.. July 16th, 1877. 



This has been a very good honey season with most peo- 

 ple, but I nm a "bran new" hand, ,ind have had poorer 

 " luck." My bees would not work well in the upper story, 

 and I have iust found out that they stored too much honey 

 below, not leaving the queen space enouzh. 



T. W. LiPPINCOIT. 



Pana, Ills., Sept. 18th, 1877. 



Right here is where the beauty of the sec- 

 tions in frames comes in, friend L. Had you 

 hung some of these in the lower story, they 

 could not well have helped themselves, and 

 after they were well started, you could have 

 raised them above, bees and all. Yqu must 

 not let the bees cheat you in that way again, 

 even if you are a new hand. 



I wish, next yetr, to work my bees for increase, raising 

 my queens in two frame nuclei, and when they commence 

 layin,', buildino: them up with brood and bees from the 

 old colonies. If I have .an extractor, do you think I can 

 keep them from swarming without putting on an upper 

 story ? 



Only by taking away brood also, if the colo- 

 nies are strong. 



My nuclei shall start in full si/.ad Simolicities, as you 

 advise in the A B 0. Will it take as much time to work 

 them this way, as to rais-; como honey, let:i!ig some of 

 them swarm naturally, and ra.ising .queens to Italianize 

 them ? 



This ouestion, like many others, is given in 

 such a way that it is h irdly possible to give 

 au intelligible answer. I think it would, very 

 likely, take more labor to raise queens, than to 

 raise comb houi'y ; but we can only get the 

 honey when there is a plentiful yield, whereas 

 we can raise queens at any time when bees can 

 fly, even during a severe drouth. Of course 

 we should have to feed, but I think the queens 

 would more than pay all expenses. 



Have you had good success in s:^nding larva? for queen 

 rearing? and does it do to depend on it, sent by mail, for 

 rearing queens, if one has no imported queens ? 



To be sure we succeed, or larva; would not 

 be otr.ired, year after year, in our price lists. If 

 you comply with the conditions therein given, 

 there will be very few failures. 



How do transferred colonies comp.are with others, pro- 

 vided they were strong before transferring ? 



Subscriber, Bloomington, Ills., 



Colonies that are properly transferred are 

 just as g03d as they were before, of course. If 

 you leave out the drone brood, they are usual- 

 ly considerably better. 



We have not had an average season for honey this year; 

 ba-,swood was good, but short ; it lastf d only 10 days. I 

 got ')8 lbs, from ono of my best hives in i days, and from 

 some, took 200 during the season, from basswood, but no 

 honey aftor tho 2tth of July. I started with 00 stocks, tool 

 my honey from half, 2,im lbs. and increased to 133 with 

 the other half. I got them all in good shape for the fall 

 crop of hoivjy. The flowers blossomed and were visited by 

 the bees, but they came with light loads and seemed to 

 only make a lii'ing. Nearly ^ the new swarms about here 

 must starve this winter; there are few who will dve them 

 honey. LE^VI3 Kellst. 



Ionia, Mich., Oct. 29th, 1877. . 



