4G 
" NOVICE’S " GLEANINGS IN DEE CULTURE. 
the matter would suggest that bees be 
housed in a location where a zero tem- 
perature is known in winter. We think a 
.snving of stores might be effected even in 
warmer climates, but perhaps it might be 
necessary to use a cellar or one made 
purposely, to keep them cool during warm 
spells. 
3d. We think it will be found that as 
more bees are kept, pasturage will grad- 
ually improve, for those plants that are 
visited most by bees produce more per- 
fect seeds, and thus the bees themselves 
ultimately aid in producing fall pastur- 
age by r their agency in fertilizing the 
blossoms. When you (and bee keepers 
generally, of course), have kept 40 or 50 
colonies in one locality for a half-dozen 
years, we think yon too will find that you 
have fall pasturage. 
4th. When you have the eggs hatched 
in your pieces of comb (see directions in 
May No.) make five nuclei and compel 
them to raise queen cells from the larvae 
in question. When the queens are 
batched build them up by combs of brood 
from other colonies; your empty combs 
will assist very materially. We have also 
known a colony wintered on a little over 
one pound of food per month, and have 
faith that it can be done every time; but 
we have as yet been unable to arrive at. 
such a result uniformly. 
70. — Pour years ago last fall, two of my 
brothers, who were partners living near Cov- 
ington, had 38 colonies of bees and it so 
happened that one of our merchants had a 
lot of good coffee sugar which somehow had 
got scented with coal oil, so he offered it at 
half price. Mv brothers concluded to try 
some of it for their bees, so they took all tho 
honey away from one stock and fed them 
enough of this scented sugar to do them over 
winter, they took it as though there was 
nothing in it and sealed the most of it over 
nicely; during the winter and spring they 
lost all their bees by dysentery except four, 
and the one that had the sugar was the only 
one that was not diseased. 
Jacob M. Mohlkk, Covington, Ohio. 
We give the above as a sample of many 
of the reports in the same direction. 
Next fall we will try and give plain and 
and simple directions for preparing bees 
for winter. 
71. — My experience in losing swarms by 
the swarming out process is us follows : t 
have never known a swarm in good condition 
with plenty of bees to leave the hive, whether 
wintered in a repository or on their summer 
stands. 1 have frequently lost, and have lost 
this spring, several weak swarms. Is it pos- 
sible that a few robbers get in and demoralize 
the swarms causing them to fly out leaving 
honey, brood and even the queen '! 1 leave 
the question for others to solve. 
SCIENTIFIC. 
Reports seem to indicate that it is weak 
colonies generally, but sometimes, we 
are sorry to add, good, strong ones ; and 
we feel “cross” now to think ofihe recent 
loss of a favorite queen, bees and all 
by this cause, leaving much unsealed 
brood in all stages. 
72. — I like your hive except the entranco, 
which looks liko u poor thing. Perhaps your 
door-step when attached, makes it all right. 
Can you regulate the entrance in hot and cold 
weather in a satisfactory manner. 
John Ashley, Bloomington, 111. 
With the door step, (which should have 
two strips nailed across like a letter V 
inverted, to prevent warping, and to guide 
the bees to the entrance when made small 
in the spring,) we have no trouble. Those 
who prefer, can bore an auger-hole in the 
front end, and Mr. Quinby, we believe, 
thinks such an entrance an advantage, be- 
cause the bees show a preference for it ; 
we, however, can discover no positive ad- 
vantage and dislike the holes when any 
one of them happen to be used for an up- 
per story. Our aim has been to have any 
piece answer equally well anywhere, and 
to have those pieces as few and ns plain 
and simple as is possibly consistent, with 
convenience and rapidity in handling. 
73. — Notwithstanding my loss, tho evidence 
I see in favor of Sugar Syrup is so favorable 
that I would without doubt feed it on a largo 
scale in preference to their native stores. It 
does look to mo as if tho idea would lie one 
of vast sorvico to us notwithstanding X have 
beon alow to conclude that any food was as 
natural for them as their own stores. 
R. Wilkins, Cadiz, O. 
74. — However objectionable tight top bars 
may be, I must think that it would be an ad- 
vantage to have the frames secured in their 
places at the tot* at least. I expoct my ideas 
will be much modified by experience, but I 
find it vory much liko loarning to swim ; you 
have got to go in on your own judgmont be- 
fore you know how, hut hail better keep in 
h?i allow water until you yknow what you are 
about. I want all the advice from the exper- 
ienced that I can get, but as much of it is so 
conflicting, shall have to decide for myself af- 
ter all. G. Lbk Portsii, 
Cedar Mountain, N. C. 
Mr. P. utters some rare good sense in his 
last remarks, and we do hope be will try 
closed top frames in “shallow water” be- 
fore “going in deep;" ns our experience 
may have some weight, we will give it 
freely. After an experience of five years 
with about 30 hives with closed top frames 
and as many more open top, we were 
forced to conclude the closed top out of 
the question, where bees are to be hand- 
led, as it seems to us they must be for box 
or extracted honey either. Wherever 
bees find two pieces of wood close or 
near each other in the hive, they glue 
them fast with propolis ; also every crack 
and crevice and even the entrance blocks 
arc “gummed” in place so that unless 
they are frequently “scraped off’ they 
cannot he kept up in place. Again, 
combs all alike in thickness and curva- 
ture, for they will curve, are not to be 
had, and the consequence is they must 
be always replaced in the same order or 
brood is killed and bees and combs are 
crushed. If we attempt to number the 
combs and always keep them in the same 
place and in the same hive, how are we 
to make artificial swarms and equalize 
brood and stores. Whenever an opening 
is made into a hive large enough for a 
bee, those inside especially young bees, 
begin to crawl out and those outside to 
crawl in, and when we are closing tin- 
tops of the frames together the same 
thing happens; it is true by bringing the 
sharp edge of the frame up gradually 
they can be made to crawl in or out, but 
