“novice’s” gleanings in bee culture. 
45 
HEADS OF DRAIN FROM DIFFER- 
ENT FIELDS. 
Of.— Is dissolved sugar as good for 
]|'vl raising young bees ns honey? You ap- 
“jtI pear to "go strong” on wintering boos 
on sugar. In this country, where honey is 
high, I would like to put as much on sugar as 
I can. Daniki, Ford, Floral, Kansas. 
We think it certainly as good and with- 
out question, cheaper, lteports from 
many sources justify us in saying that the 
addition of cream of Tartar, vinegar, 
glycerine, Ac., are entirely useless. Mr. 
.1 ohnson informs us (see Heads No. 59) 
that his bees did not winter well after 
brood-rearing in February and March, and 
that he considers the vinegar injurious al- 
though his great loss was occasioned 
mainly from large amounts of honey dew 
gathered last fall. A single comb of 
such honey, heavy and completely sealed 
would kill a strong colony in a week that 
that had been heretofore healthy; and, 
strange to say, the bees seemed to winter 
on it wcdl enough until they commenced 
brood-rearing. Is there not a connecting 
link between this fact and the idea in 
Problems of this No. ? To go back; for 
spring feeding use sugar and water in 
whatever form is most convenient, so that 
bees will take it without waste, and it may 
be dissolved in hot or cold water, as is 
convenient; and the same can be said of 
feeding to prepare colonies for winter, on- 
ly it must be scaled up before cold weafh- i 
er. 
05,— I put 10 stocks of bees into a clump 
made by piling the hives in a pyramid, cover- 
ing with straw, then earth, with no ventila- 
tion. One died from lack of stores and one 
from having nothing hut candied honey. The 
rest value out in splendid condition, with the 
exception of a few mouldy combs. Most of 
the stocks wore weak when put in and had 
very little honey. I think the clamp is agood 
way to winter weak stocks. I put them in 
Nov. 12 and took them out March 25th . 
Apis, 
Will Apis tell ns if the candied honey 
was sealed over? It is our impression 
that neither honey nor sugar syrup is in- | 
jured by being candied if sealed over. 
The objections to clamps are the necessa- 
ry litter and untidiness generally, besides 
inconvenience of access. 
6d.— It has been a principle with me for sev- 1 
oral years in market gardening to rniso tho 
largost possible amount from the smallest 
amount of land, and to sell so cheaply that 
those who had heretofore bought articles at 
high prices us luxuries could now buy so low 
that in time they would consiilor them as a i 
necessity, and by this means croatc a perma- 
nent market. 1 think that to he the drift of 
"(! leanings,” and if so I’m with you. You 
claim to he aNovico, but I am a "novico-or” 
fellow than you, and when I read tho article, 
"Italian Quoons for Twenty-five Cents.” the 
idea eccurrcd to mo that pure bred drones 
could he shipped cheaper than either queens 
or eggs. What think you of tho idoa ? Would 
it not revolutionise things somewhat 1 Stock 
breeders tell us that by using the rough bred 
males always we can soon obtain all tho 
desirable points we wish. Following out tho 
idea, 1 do not sco why puro drones, of which 
there are always plenty, could not bo used to 
fertilize our black queens by Mrs. Tupper's 
method, and in a short time our colonies could 
become Italianized. 1 do not know why u lot 
of drones cannot be kept by theinsulves on 
hand for use whenever wanted through the 
1 season. J. M. Hill, Greenville. 111. 
In our locality black drones outnumber 
Italians so greatly that we fear the use of 
drone eggs will be of little use. So very 
few have succeeded with Mrs. Tupper’s 
method that we fear it will have to be 
abandoned, and can’t help thinking that 
there might have been some mistake in 
the original experiments. Until we can 
have some process by which others can 
succeed at least occasionally, we should 
advise not spending more time or money 
on the subject. 
fi7.-How would it do to paralyze bees with 
puff-ball and commence transferring immedi- 
ately in a warm room ? I think I will try It. 
N. E. Fukntick, Castalia, 0. 
We would much rather have live bees 
to deal with than paralyzed ones, for they 
would then get out of the way and cluster 
around their brood. Turn over any box 
hive and give them a little smoke, and 
they are almost as harmless as flies. Dur- 
ing the bloom of the apple trees we should 
even omit the smoke. 
08.— For the past two winters I have left my 
strongest stocks on their summer stands 
protected from the north wind, and they have 
died. While I have saved most of those put 
in the cellar and some of them are verylight. 
M. G. Palmkr, Portland, Maine. 
Such seems to be the general report, 
although a few report directly to the con 
trary. 
69,— 1st. How can you raise bees and grapes 
together? Our Congressman, lion. K.T. W. 
Duke, refused to receive as a gift one of your 
papers, saying ho intended to destroy his 
bees because they destroyed his grapes. 
Send the Journal to him at Charlottesville 
containing your answer. 
2d Is tho wintering house for bees advisa- 
ble in middle Virginia? Not a month pusses 
but the bees can fly out, no discaso, nu loss 
except from starvation or loss of queen, late 
swarms useless, and no pasturage alter tho 
15th of J uly. 
2d. How can I remedy tho defect? want 
of late pasturage. 
4th. I want to make five Italian swarms 
out of the 25cts. of comb. How am I to do 
it? I have a lot of comb on hand in Langs- 
trotli fratnos and some 20 stands of bees 
mostly in I.angstroth’s hives. Season bad 
for 12 or 15 duys past— cold and wet. Apple 
tree blossoms lost. I once wintered a late 
swarm in a dampish collar on 5 lbs- of honey ; 
combs vory moldy, no upward ventilation, 
little loss in bees. 15th Nov. to 1st March. 
John - 11. Townlry, Red Hill Depot, Vo- 
1st. After giving the matter consider- 
able attention at different times we fail to 
discover that bees ever notice grapes of 
any kind unless they are broken opeu by 
birds, fowls or insects, they then gather 
the juice as they do from sweet apples, 
etc. We have always raised a line crop 
of Concord’s and some Iona’s, Catuwbas, 
Isabellas, etc., but never had them in- 
jured in the ieast by the bees, although 
our hives have clusters of grapes all 
about them. When common fowls had 
access to our apiary the bees seemed 
quite active on the clusters they had 
broken and destroyed; but when they 
were fenced out, the bees ceased to notice 
the grapes although muny of them hung 
on the vines until after frost, 
2d. Having had no opportunity to test 
