336 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



HONEY DEW, H«NEY FKOM COTTON, 

 TRANSFERRING, &c. 



r» TRANSFERRED my colony to the Simplicity hive, 

 « I purchased an Italian queen ot Nellis, and succes- 

 iki fully introduced her. They gave me no swarms 

 and no surplus honcv last year. This spring, I pro- 

 cured another black colony, reared a pure queen 

 which was, in due time, purely impregnated. From 

 these two colonies I liave increased my stock to six, 

 and have taken lO'i lbs, of extracted honey. Three ot 

 my queens are purely impregnated, two produce evi- 

 dent hvDTid workers, and ol a third I am in doubt. 

 Aner.t this colony; I note that the larger proportion of 

 the workers are \^e\\ marked; of the rest, most have 

 the downy bands, hut are destitute of the bright yel- 

 low zone, around the anterior part of the abdomen. 

 Are they hybrids? TYes] 



From the middle of April to the early days of June 

 the leaves of our forest trees were loaded with honey 

 dew. which gave abundant supplies to the bees. The 

 honey therefrom is dark colored, but pleasant to the 

 palate. The most beautiful honey in this section, is 

 gathered from the cotton blossoms; and it is as sweet 

 to the taste as it is pleasant to the eye. Our fall crop 

 of honey forsge is very abundant. I send you, en- 

 closf d, a specimen of a weed which grows by the acre 

 in this region, and is verv rich in the eaccharine. It 

 commences blooming in the early part of Augusi, and 

 lasts till irost. Will you kindly give your reaueis its 

 botanical name ? lEupatwium Ageratoides.'] 



I have tried the comb fdn. an'i have found it to be a 

 complete success, both for brood and for surplus hoi> - 

 ey. I have discarded gloves, but I, nevertheless, with 

 due deference to your good self, think thty perve a 

 valuable purpose in giving the necessary contidence 

 to a beginner. The veil, I have never acquire d the 

 necessary fortitude to throw aside. I use the Quinby 

 smoker, and like it. In transferring, I have found an 

 excellent way to attach the combs to the frames, is to 

 sew them in by an overstitch, with a common baling 

 needle, threaded with darning cotton. The bees will 

 Boon complete the attachment and remove the thread. 



I regard over-swarming as the great difficulty to be 

 contended with in the South, as wintering is with 

 yon. My own iittlc apiary is just recovering Irom an 

 attack of the swarming lever. Two colonies bade me 

 along farewell, al)out a week ago. I finally checked 

 their vagrant instincts by the transposition of colo- 

 nics with each other. M. W. Chapman. 



Mayhew Station, Miss., Sept. 10th, '77. 



$<k^ and imm§. 



How many lbs. of extracted honey make a gallon':' 



Henet Kellee. 



Wrightsville, Pa., Nov. 10th, 1877. 



[About 11, usually. Very thin honey may not weigh 

 over 10, and extra thick, sometimes comes up to nearly l2. 

 If it does not weigh more than 10, there is some danger of 

 its souring.] 



The past season was not a good one, with us. I got 

 nearly 2,000 lbs, of honey, about one third in section 

 boxes, the remainder extracted. Two hives gave me over 

 100 lbs. each in section boxes, and it was the nicest honey 

 1 have ever seen. I gave the fdn. a good trial, and I don't 

 see how I can keep bees successfully without it "'any 

 more." AiFEED McMains. 



Chariton, la., Nov. 5th, 1877. 



The following was clipped from the Utica Weekly 

 Observer. 



LARGE TIELD OF HONEY. 



The report of the yield of honey the present sea- 

 son from the apiary of Capt. Ileiherington, ot Cherry 

 Valley, almost exceeds belief. It is reported that he 

 has 3,000 colonies of bees, and that they have averaged 

 Jrom 15 to 50 lbs. each, making a grand total of from 

 135,000 to 150,000 lbs. of Jioney, as the crop for one sea- 

 son. At 22 cts. per lb., an income of §28,000 to §33,000 

 will be realized therefrom. To us these statements 

 seem extravagant. This large crop, it is said, has 

 been sold to one house in New York. 



Fifty lbs. per colony may seem extravagant to the 

 Observer lolks, but it is not very to our readers, al- 

 though there are perhaps very few among us who 

 could take charge of 3,000 and do even so well as that. 



A word here on the question of comb filn. I am 

 more than pleased with it, especially when used in 

 the brood chamber. I prefer it to frames of comb that 

 have been kept over one season. The bees preier 

 building out the cells to cleansing old comb, and in 

 the working season, it aflfords them just enough comb 

 building to keep them prosperous. I propose, next 

 season, to gradually substitute Idn. for all, except the 

 very best of the Irames of comb In my hives, and, by 

 this means, to avoid raising so many drones. 



I have been using the suspended Quinby frame until 

 the last season, when I substituted the L... irame lor 

 it, and am now satisfied. Am now j>reraring my bt es 

 Jor winter by surrounding them with chaflf cuthiont; 

 last winter I packed the entire hive in chaff, losing 

 but one hive, and that proved to be queenless. 



Wm. M. Cake. 



Fostoria, Ohio. Oct. 23d, 1877. 



NOT A BLASTED "HOPER." 



The last you heard from me was for placing me under 

 "Blasted Hopes" in the April No. of Gleanings. This 

 time, it is to let you know that we are still in the bee 

 business. We started last spring with about 80 stands, 

 some of which were taken on shares and others rented, 

 paying 10 lbs. of honey per year for the use of a hive, as 

 long as we keep it. We have, at present, 100 stands. We 

 have taken 2.777 lbs. of honey, 246 lbs. of which was ex- 

 tracted, and the rest comb honey. Our comb honey is all 

 on fdn. of our own manufacture ; have used about 75 lbs. 

 of wax for that purpose. Our surphis has all been taken 

 without going into the body of more than a dozen hives. 

 Take 13 of your best filled L. frames and place them in 

 one hive, then lift at it and you will have some idea of 

 what some cf our hives are; you \iill find it is "fast sorne- 

 where at the bottom." 1 never saw cur bees go into win- 

 ter quarters stronger than they are this fall, and if they 



die this winter, wel! they will just have to die. 



Chas. W. Laffeett. 



Martinsville, Ills., Nov. 12th, 1877. 



TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS AND ■ . 



1 let the first queen sent, out of the cage after 36 

 hours, and the bees said "ztep !" "zeep!" and gath- 

 ered in a knot around htr. I lilted out the Irame and 

 lidding it in one hand, 1 picked off the v>liole knot in 

 the other, but while trying to separate the bees frcm 

 the queen, they all dropped on the ground, and that 

 was the last I ever saw of that quten, tboiifih 1 looLed 

 th6 ground over for a long time, and so did the bees 

 that dropped with her. A fe^/ days alter, I attempted 

 to look the hive over, but was driven away, it Leing 

 about the close of the honey yield. A few days alter 

 that, I give them a good smoking aLd looked every 

 Irame over. I did not see the queen but found both 

 larva? and eggs. I closed the hive and waited results. 

 I put on 2 boxes with glass ends and 21 days after I let 

 the queen loose I began to waich lor young bees in the 

 boxeb ; for 6 days, I watched hours each day seeing no 

 Italians, and Lad come to the conclusion that the 

 queen did not get back into the hive, but that there 

 was a native queen other than the one I destroyed. 

 But on the '2Slh day, when I was not h oldrg lor them, 

 out came a lot ot yoimg Italians lot a "fly," and 1 was 

 as tickled .IS a boy with a new tcp, lor after all my 

 blunders the had got into the hive and the bees had 

 accepted her. II. Scran ton. 



Plummer's Landing, Ky., Aug. 10th, '77. 



OBITUARY. 



ST is with sad feeling, that I write to inform you of the 

 fate of one of your subscribers. John Van Liew, aged 

 , about tiO years, and a practical bee keeper, was found 



about }i mile (in a wood) from home, on Sunday morn- 

 ing, witii the contents of a double barreled shot gun in 

 his breast, and his skull knocked in with the but of the 

 gun. He was returning from town, on foot, to his home, 

 and several persons heard the two reports of the gun about 

 10 o'clock, Saturday night. No one is suspected, and no 

 reason is assigned for the act, at present. 



H. H. Brown. 

 Light Street, Pa., Sept. 10th, 1877. 

 Friend V., has long been one of our subscrib- 

 ers, and it is with much pain we read the 

 facts given above. Not only for bis untimely 

 fate, but that such things do occur, now and 

 then, among a civilized and enlightened people. 

 Are we not in great need of more Christianity 

 and civilization V "Well may we hesitate and 

 ponder. 



