1878. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



305 



«:-ame out June 15th, which has 36 sections all rK?arly 

 ■ready to take off; we think that is doing quite well 

 here. The rest of my bees do not work in the boxes 

 sit all; do you know what is the reason? and how 

 will I make them work? They have •g'ot more than 

 onovigh to winter on, and now have just commenced 

 to work on buckwheat. They will work on it about 

 a month and then be done for this year. 



Wm. G. Van Houten. 

 Deckertown, N. J., Aug-. 6th, 1878. 



It seems, fi-om the above, that I am not 

 the only person who has been conij)lained of 

 tor being behind with ordei's this season, 

 and for the excessive freights that have 

 been cliarged. I do not know that the Sim- 

 plicity hive will give any better results gen- 

 erally, but as it weighs less tlian half as 

 much, while it contains the same amount of 

 loom inside, besides being less complicated ] 

 to handle, I can but think it more desirable. I 



You can make the stocks which you men- ! 

 tion, work in the sections, by hanging a j 

 frame of them in the lower story, or by I 

 raising a brood comb or two into tlie upper ; 

 story ; the former plan wonld be best so late j 

 in the season as buckwheat time. I 



about two weeks from the last swarming-, I trans- 

 ferred the old colony. There was no brood in any 

 form, and I found no queen; but it contained a large 

 number of bees, and a heavy stock of honov. Is not 

 this peculiar? 



Not very peculiar; with natural swaiining, 

 it is a rather frequent occurrence for the last 

 queen to swarm out too, or to get lost. 



MOVING BEES. 



Will any harm result if I remove my bees, when 

 winter sets in. from their summer stands to a more 

 protected place in my yard, and do it all at once? 



Dixon, 111., Aug. 12th, 1878. J. L. Hartwell. 



If a warm day occurs very soon after the 

 removal, it is pretty sure to result in harm. 

 Give them a permanent stand, and let tliem 

 remain tliere the year round. 



WrNTERING IN CLAMP?. 



Has any one, to your knowledge, trie<l wintering 

 liecs in clamps, as Langstrotb calls them? If so, 

 with what success? D, Norton. 



Galva, 111., July 23nd, 1878. 



Clamps were at one time used quite large- 

 ly, and with good success too, I believe, but 

 their untidiness, the labor of rigging them 

 lip every season, and the dampness that is 

 pretty sure to trouble in clay soils, has led to 

 their abandonment. A cave in a sandy 

 bank, or a large well ventilated frost proof 

 cellar, is generally preferred ; but, of late; 

 the dialf packing on the summer stands has 

 seemed to please better, all things consider- 

 ed, than any kind of in-door or clamp win- 

 tering. 



SCOVILIiE'S WIRE LOOP, ETC. 



I have 32 colonies in Langstroth hives, with Sco- 

 ville's wire attachment for frames. The latter, I am 

 well pleased with, but think I shall modify it, next 

 jear, according to an idea given me by a neighbor, 

 Mr. S. F. Pratt. I will describe. Let the hive be a 

 simple box without rabbet, nail stout (t)i rabbets 

 from ^^ to % inch wide, on the inside; the wires, in- 

 stead of being made in loop form, are to hook into 

 this tin rabbet, and to be so bent as to give a sup- 

 port of from *-i to % in., thus avoiding the tipping or 

 turning to one side, when the frames are loaded un- 

 equally on the two sides. Tovi see that the frames, 

 by this an-angement, can be adjusted to accommo- 

 date thick combs. 



The plan is old and abandoned. Propolis 

 will, in time, trouble very much, and you 

 will kill bees badly. 



BUILDING UPWARD, ETC. 



The most of my bees are hybrids. Many of them 

 have begun at the bottom, both in sections and 

 frames in the upper story, and built upwards; I 

 have a number of frames nearly tilled in this way. 

 What shall I do about it? 



Use fdn. for startei-s, to ]je sure. This is 

 one of the very troubles that fdn. is to cor- 

 rect. 



SWARMING AND LOSS OF QUEENS. 



In the spring, I had a colony in an old box hive. 

 It sent off a swarm five or six times in succession, { 

 ■which was hived all right each time, and each time : 

 returned to the mother colony; the last time it came I 

 off, I ga-\o it a frame of brood, and this secured it. 

 Ten days afterward, the same performance was re- : 

 peated by another swarm from the same colony; it ' 

 was treated in like manner with like results. In 



NEW USES FOR A SMOKER. 



My cow comes home rather late in the evening, 

 and mosquitoes are very annoying. But put a coal 

 of fire in the smoker, fill It up with some well rotted, 

 dry, basswood, set the smoker near you in the sta- 

 ble when milking, and good bye, mosquitos. 



If the mildew attacks your grapes, just put a 

 table-spoonful or two of powdered sulphur in your 

 smoker, without flre, of course, and you can send 

 the powdered sulphur like a spray all over your 

 grapes and leaves, verj' rapidly and evenly, and in 

 quantities so small as not to be noticed. 



Exelsior, Minn. J. W. Murray. 



FUMIGATING HONEY. 



Won't some of Mr. Root's folks stop a minute, and 

 tell me how much brimstone to use with a certain 

 number of cubic feet. I have turned one lot of 

 honey to a beautiful green shade, but I can contem- 

 plate the worms now with great satisfaction. I sup- 

 pose the honey can only be extracted. I don't mean 

 to ask questions often, for "I know, you know." 



Brocton, N. Y., Aug. 7th, 1878. Mary Simons. 



Mr. Doolittle says i lb. of brimstone, for 

 every 200 cubic feet of air which your room 

 contains. If about a lb. is used in a moder- 

 ately sized room, I think the comb will sel- 

 dom be turned green. 



TJKSEALED HONEY IN SECTIONS. 



I have taken oft' my first section boxes ; they arc 

 certainly verj' beautiful, and I can hardly express 

 to you the pleasure I experienced in taking them 

 out, one by one. These 56 boxes came off from a 

 hive that swarmed on the 27th of May, built all their 

 comb in the lower hive, and the 2nd" story was put 

 on and ready to take off by the last weeit in July. 

 I have been disappointed in getting section boxes, 

 and have lost a good deal of time. I noticed around 

 the edge of the section boxes one or two cells not 

 capped over, and it does not seem as if the bees 

 ever would cap it. In taking them off some of the 

 honey run out. which would, in case of sending to 

 market, spoil the looks and sale. How do you fix it? 

 Could you lay them on a frame and let the honey 

 drip off. Henry B. Shane. 



St. John P. O., Concordia Parish, La. 



There will always be more or less honey, 

 at the close of the season, that is not perfect- 

 ly capped, and there are several ways of dis- 

 posing of it. One is to use these dripping 

 sections at home, or to sell them in your 

 home market at a little reduction. Another 

 is to uncap and extract the honey with an 

 extractor. Mr. Doolittle advises storing 

 such honey in a glass house, or some similar 

 idace, where the unsealed honey will be 

 dried downi so thick, that it will not run out 

 of the cells even if it is turned over. I have 

 never succeeded perfectly with the latter 

 plan, but iierha])s it may be done. The un- 

 sealed honey could easily be thrown out with 

 the extractor, but it would be likely to soil 

 the wwkI of the sections. 



