214 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Jfly 



and I am willing to i)ay my part of it. if you 

 Avill tell me what it is. It is a fact that 

 should be well understood, that bees can be 

 revived by warmth and a little warm, dilut- 

 ed honey." after they have all ceased to move. 

 I have known whole swarms to be resuscitat- 

 ed, after they were all on the bottom of the 

 hive. and. to all apitearanee. "dead as door 

 nails." Xever be satistied by thinking they 

 will get through, but try to have a generous 

 surplus in the hive, all the time ; it will pay 

 better than money in the bank. One fact 

 lias come to our notice of late, in shipping 

 bees ; they often consmne an incredible 

 amount of lioney in transit. I presume this 

 is because they hll themselves when alarmed, 

 and. by some means, consume it unnatu- 

 rally. We will try and provide for this in 

 future shipments. 



WHERE TO HANfi THE FIRST FliAME, 



ETC. 



BSMI HE goods you sent two weeks ag-o hare at last 

 Jsll come. They were nicely packed and came in 

 *=kj excellent condition. But. do you know, I was 

 dunce enough to suppose the frames were coming- 

 all ready for the hive I I had been wondering- how 

 you would do it, but hnd g-ot the idea that, with 

 your ability to do wonders, you mtijht perform a 

 miracle. How do you suppose I am ever to g-et 

 them tog:ether? Didn't I tell you I was n numbskull, 

 and no carpenter? well, I meant to. "What is that 

 little iron anvil for? While I am working: over one 

 corner of the frame the rest go all awry. Come up 

 to dinner and teach me how. I saw something in 

 Gleanings about putting- frames together once, 

 but did not read it, I Ticver thouglit I would have to 

 make frames. We thought you asked a great price 

 for your extractor, and so got one made. Opinions 

 are changed; you ask none too much. 



I don't expect you to answer this, or even read it; 

 but 1 wanted to write it, so that you might know, if 

 you wished to, that the goods are satisf.'ictorj'. 



M. L. Makkham. 

 PljTnouth, Mich., June 3d, 1878. 



P. S.— That screw driver is the handiest article I 

 ha^ e in my apiary, except a sort of easel 1 have for 

 hanging filled frames directly over an open hive, 

 when I want to study them. 



There now ! I have ever so many times 

 thouglit it would be '"awful handy," to have 

 some place to put the first frame after we 

 get it out of the hive, so that we can slide 

 the rest apart, and then examine them qui- 

 etly and at our ease. I. generally, stand it 

 on end near, or leaning against the hive ; 

 and, to do this, I have to be very careful not 

 to i)inch the bees that are always hanging to 

 the lower corners, or at least should be 

 there, on any frame taken from a good col- 

 ony. If I set it too slanting, a tender comb 

 is liable to fall out, or bend out of shape, 

 and if I do not set it slanting enougli, it 

 falls over, or the ^\ ind upsets it ; this, if it 

 does not break the comb, kills the bees, and 

 possibly the (|ueen. and if there is any one 

 thing that I think is iiiexcusiibly •"mean", it 

 is to open a liive w iicre the ))ees are all ([uiet 

 and well behaved, and then to pinch or 

 mash the poor fellows, when they have al- 

 lowed you to tear open their home, and to 

 lift their little selves about in all sorts of 

 awkw'-d ways, without a single bit of pro- 

 test, i have thought of having some nails 

 on the Iron; of the hive, but they Avould be 

 in the way; if they were put on the grape 

 vine trellis, they would soon beoverrun with 

 foliage, and it woi! Id be some trouble to fix 

 them for every hive. Will our friend (who 



I guess is a woman, by lier quaint humor, 

 although she does not say so) please tell us 

 more about the easel. I should be most 

 happy to come up to dinner, but the fact is 

 I am only allowed 15 minutes for dinner, 

 and '2i minutes more to kiss and talk to the 

 new baby. We will put the frames all to- 

 gether for the same price, if you can afford 

 to pay the high rates charged for shipping- 

 such "very bulky packages. If you follow 

 the directions in the price list, it is a very 

 simple matter to put them together. 



FRIEND ROOF'S FI^AN OF FREVENTIIVCJ 

 STTARrrJINO. 



^JjEVERAL of your readers have asked for a 

 jj^j) more explicit explanation of our management 

 ii^' of natural swarms; we, therefore, ask for space 

 again. Frsf , one wing of all our queens is dipped. 

 We hive the first swarm that issues, on the old 

 stnnd, setting the old hive on a new stand several 

 rods iiway, if convenient, and destroy all queen 

 cells at once. It is then ready for thenext swarm 

 any time within a week. We do not always find it 

 necessary to destroy the queen cells, for the old 

 queen sometimes saves us the trouble. Out of 100 

 swarms handled last season, as above, not over 13 or 

 15 offered to swarm again. 



You stated in March Gleanings that Roop could 

 furnish queens and bees at any time. We wrote 

 you correcting the mistake at once, but did not see 

 it in Gleanings. Bad weather has delayed our op- 

 erations fearfully, but we want to say here, that we 

 will satisfy all tliose that have given us their or- 

 ders, if it takes all the bees we have got. Have pa- 

 tience is all we ask. 



The queen I got of you is splendid; better than I 

 ever thought imported queens were. 



Hiram Roop. 



Carson City, Mich., May 20th, 1878. 



I think the success of this plan would de- 

 pend much on the season, and the yield of 

 honey. If these were very good, I think the 

 bees would, sometimes, swarm over and 

 over again. 



BEES CAN C05JNT. 



A VALUABLE ITEM. 



fi RECEIVED the smoker and comb fdn., in good 

 shape. That smoker is "away up"; the bees 

 _. ' fairly "get down on their knees before it." 



I accidentally learned, a few days ag-o, that bees 

 can count. I had a row of hives arranged thus, 



C3 C3 C3 C3 O C3 CD 



13 3 4 5 6 7 



No 2. alone having bees in it; I rearranged them 

 thus, 



C3 C5 O C3 O CD C^ 



3 1 3 4 5 C 7 



leaving No. 2 in the same place, in fact, not disturb- 

 ing it at all. Now. it was just fun to see the bees 

 coming- from the fields, and going into hive No. 1, 

 which was then second in the row; when they found 

 it empty, they were the most excited lot of bees you 

 ever saw, marching around with their loads of pollen 

 and honey, and no jilace to put it. You see, they 

 had counted instead of taking a bee line home, iind 

 they thought they knew that their hive M-as 2nd in 

 the row. From this, 1 judge that hives could be 

 moved several feet, and the bees would not notice 

 it, if only we keep 11h> relative position of things 

 the same. After all, p('rha])s bees are guided more 

 like human beings than we think, and less by that 

 bee line, instinct. T. L. Riggs. 



Portland, Oregon, May 28th, 1878. 



Tlie matter you mention, is one I have 

 often ol)served. and the i)ropensity of bees 

 to mark especially, the end of the row of 

 hives, was what led me to have the house 

 apiary so that only 3 hives Avere on a side ; 

 one iii the centre, and those at each side, 

 next to one of the corners of the building. 



