218 



GLEAJq^INGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



the Italians is very good from fruit and clover; that 

 of the i^'y black colonies is most excellent with 5 

 acres of Alsikc clover; the 50 colonies have only 

 fruit bloom. Now, from the Italians, I have not 

 taken one drop of honey; but frcin the ¥5 black col- 

 onies in the Alsike clover region, I have taken :J5 lbs. 

 to the colony. From the 50 swarms among the fruit 

 trees, I have also taken nothing, and the success of 

 the season depends upon the summer and fall pas- 

 turage. I can say farther, that G black colonies, at 

 the Italian apiary, swarmed 'S weeks sooner than the 

 Italians. The Italians were as strong, when they 

 went into winter quarters, as the blacks, but the 

 latter dwindled none, while the former dwindled 

 fully 10 percent. Now, friend Root, I will not pass 

 sentence until fall, but these premises seem to 

 squint at the superiority of the blacks. 



My plan of getting good Italian queens, to com- 

 pletely Italianize the apiary, is to select i or 5 of the 

 best and purest colonies, and permit them to swarm 

 the second time. The day before swaraiing you 

 can detect 3 or more queens piping; when they 

 swarm, a superfluity of queens issue; when I hive 

 the swarm, I capture and cage all the queens but 

 one (the bees would kill these, of course), and if pi- 

 ping is still heard in the old hive, I open it and cage 

 all the queens found except one. In this way, I 

 have secured 3 and 4 beautiful, well developed 

 queens, from one of these second swarms,— much 

 tiner specimens than I can raise in nuclei, and 

 raised more in accordance with nature. These I in- 

 troduce immediately to other colonies. 



Please tell me, in next Gleanings, what becomes 

 of the coloring matter of pollen, when fed to young 

 bees. The paste in the cells is as white as milk. 

 May not the drones till other offices, in bee economy, 

 than that of fertilizing the queen? 



Geo. B. Petebs. 



Council Bend, Ark., May 25th, I8T8. 



Onr friend has written before somewliat 

 to the same effect, lAit I have assured him 

 that he would, sooner or later, decide strong- 

 ly in favor of the Italians, as have all the 

 rest who, at lirst, took the same position, he 

 is now inclined to take. The one failing of 

 spring dwindling, I believe, is generally 

 conceded to be more prevalent among the 

 Italians than among the blacks. 



BOTANY OF HONEY PLANTS. 



^fj^ROF. M. J. BEAL:— I send you a bunch of flow- 

 J?(p^ ers and leaves from a shrub or bush that grows 

 ^=^ on the cliffs near my house, on which tlie bees 

 are working more actively, I believe, than on the 

 apple bloom, which is open at the same time. 1 

 would like to know the name of the plant. Please 

 answer through Gleanings. M. E. Pakkeh. 



Somerset, Ky., April 16th, 18T8. 



This is Bladder-nut, Staplnilca trifulia. It is a 

 clean, handsome shrub, growing on moist soil, from 

 Canada south to Tennessee and Carolina. It is 

 quite common in central Michigan. I have often 

 observed that bees are fond of it, as they are of 

 our maples, which belong to the same family of 

 plants. W. J. Beal, Lansing, Mich. 



CHOOSING A HOMK BEFORE: 

 S^VAKMING. 



ing around for some time, had gone back into the 

 hive. On examination, next morning, I found they 

 had swarmed for certain and left the "digins", al- 

 though there was a hive, full of nice, clean comb, 

 ■within six feet of theirs, that had been there all 

 winter. The same queen swarmed 18 days before 

 any other, last spring, and tried to run off then, but 

 I brought her down to the fence about ten i-ods from 

 her hive, by the aid r.f a mirror and a bright sun, 

 and it was the only swarm I had that filled ten 

 frames with comb last year. I forgot to say that 

 they left 15 queen cells, 6 of which were capped. 

 These cells I cut out and made nuclei. The first cell 

 batched on the 8th of May, and the last one was not 

 sealed over until that day. C. T. Smith. 



O'Fallon, 111,, May 21st, 1878. 



I am pretty certain they do not always se- 

 lect a home before swarming, friend S., but 

 do they not as a general rule'? and can we 

 not manage to entice a large part of the 

 swarms that come outV The swarms you 

 mention, seem to have been unfortunate in 

 selecting a location, and who knows but 

 that they would have eagerly taken posses- 

 sion of a convenient hive, had it been locat- 

 ed near that brush heap or crab apple tree. 

 You say you have had one swarm come out, 

 and hive themselves in a hive in the apiary; 

 does not this look encouragingV If they did 

 pass by a hive that was tilled with empty 

 combs, was it not because it was not as se- 

 cluded as they would jjrefer to have a liome 

 by choice? It seems the instances are quite 

 frequent, where bees have chosen brush 

 heaps, limbs of trees, or unsafe cavities be- 

 tween fence rails and the like, for taking up 

 their abodes ; now can Ave not furnish them 

 something better than tliese, where they will 

 be pretty sure to find themV 



FAIRS AND THFIR ATTARDS. 



ALSO A AVORD ABOUT CONVENTIONS. 



H' HAVE positive proof that bees do not always 

 select a home before running off, and also that 

 — I a hive in the apiary will not prevent their ab- 

 sconding, though I orco had a swarm go into a hive 

 that the bees had staiMd out of, some two months 

 before. 



The first bees I ever owned, were found on a crab 

 tree, some 25 years ago. They had settled on the 

 fork of a limb, and had two combs about fi inches 

 long, by 4 inches wide at the base. I hived them, 

 iuid carri'd them home, a distaiu-c of over one-half 

 a mile. -■ 1 they went to work innnediately and did 

 well. '. ., V) years after, my son found a swarm in a 

 pile of bxTish; they had also built some comb. 

 They were both late and small swarms, probably 

 second or third swarms. 



On Apr. 30th, I was away from home, and when I 

 returned, my wife said that No. 1.5, Simplicitv hive, 

 had swai med between 8 and o'clock, and after tly- 



fHE state fair committee, I think, did me an in- 

 justice, in their award of premiums for the 

 — . greatest yield of honey from one hive of bees, 

 and on this point, 1 would like to have your con- 

 struction, as if you were a judge. Entry No. 2tt9 

 reads thus: i'Greatest yield of honey from one 

 swarm of bees, with statement of arrangement, pro- 

 tection against moth, &c.; 5 lbs. of the honey to be 

 exhibited and quantity duly certified to. Premium 

 SlO.Oli." 



It has always been held, since the progi-essive rec- 

 ord in bee-keeping came in, that the bee-keeper is 

 entitled to the credit of whatever he could make 

 out of one swarm of bees, in the waj' of surplus 

 honey, whether it was done by artificially dividing 

 them, so as to increase the working stock, or by al- 

 lowing them to swarm naturally. That does net 

 matter, provided the products are from the start of 

 one swarm, and produced in one season. 



Salem, N. C. W. F. Shultz. 



This point, like a great many others, 

 needs to be plainly specified, in the award 

 before hand, and I would suggest to county 

 and state fairs, the propriety of liaving all 

 these matters fixed as plainly as may be. 

 now. before their premium lists are printed. 

 With all the care they can take, to have 

 these things plainly specified, there Avill still 

 be room left for different constructions, and 

 misunderstandings. To the progi-essive bee- 

 keei)er, it does seem many times a little fun- 

 ny, to say the least, the way things are done 

 at fairs. At our OAvn county fair, last seas- 

 on, tlie premiums on honey, both first and 

 second, Avere aAvarded to veiy inferior boxes 

 of honey, and no premium at all Avas given 

 on a case of 1 lb. sections, tliat Avere the ad- 

 miration of almost every body present. The 



