1874 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
75 
tumbling on the bed where he lay, long enough 
to direct that stove wood be piled on the cover 
until the cracks were closed. This was done, 
aucl Mrs. N. for additional security placed on 
the centre of the top of the liive a large stone 
jar, inverted. 
When Novice awoke next morning at about 
his usual hour — 5 o’clock — although a little sad- 
der, and perhaps wiser than usual, his head 
was free from pain, and he of course repaired 
at once to the Apiary, the scene of yesterday’s 
troubles and turmoils. 
A refreshing shower, that had been much 
needed had materially changed the aspect of 
things, and as the locust blossoms had opened 
during the night, all robbing had ceased and 
every thing was lovely. 
On turning his eyes toward the Quinby hive 
which stood under the shade of a dwarf pear 
tree, he beheld a perfect circle of bees for all 
the world like beads strung on a string, greed- 
ily sipping the rain water from the concave 
bottom of that inverted stone jar. It was 
raised up so they could find it readily, was 
clean, and so shallow it could not drown them, 
and altogether seemed just the thing. Later, 
after Blue Eyes was up the numbers had in- 
creased, and so intent were they on sipping 
the pure water, that she could touch them with 
her lingers without their scarcely noticing the 
interruption. Of course the supply was soon 
out, or would have been had we not replenish- 
ed it; the concavity held about a tea-cup-ful, 
and Miss Maudie was commissioned to see 
that they did not "get out.” But they did for 
all that,' for during hot days several tea-cup- 
fuls were needed, partly on account of evapora- 
tion, and it only remained for Novice to devise 
a cheap and simple mechanical arrangement to 
keep constantly full the shallow cavity in the 
bottom of that stone jar. This he did very 
quickly by tilling a quart glass fruit jar with 
water ; a piece of paper was laid over the 
mouth until it could be inverted on the Stone 
jar, and then the paper was drawn out. Of 
course when the water became exhausted so 
as to allow a bubble of air to go up into the 
jar, a little more water comes down and so on. 
A quart of water lasts several days, and the 
receptacle being glass we can always see when 
it needs replenishing. We were amused this 
morning to see the usual number of bees 
around it, and more going and coming quick- 
ly, even though it was raining quite briskly. 
Many of the bees were quite young Italians, 
that it seems had become so accustomed to 
going to a certain spot for water, that they 
couldn’t think of doing otherwise even though 
water was raining down all about them. We 
are well aware the principle of the above is not 
new, as feeders on a similar plan are in use, 
but the plan of supplying fresh water is new 
to us at least. Wc have in former years tried 
arrangements with shavings, water allowed to 
drip on a board, and a cloth laid over a vessel 
lull of water, but all of them were soon aban- 
doned because they were too much trouble, or 
Were untidy etc., and the bees were allowed to 
go to distant muddy streams, to the pump etc. 
Is it not a fact that during the working season 
'lie workers mostly fail from worn our wings, 
and if this is the case should we not save them 
all we can by having supplies near at hand; at 
least water if we can do nothing further i 
Our 4000 Basswood trees were planted with 
this end in view, that is, to give them as much 
forage within one fourth mile of their hives, 
as they usually get in an area of one and a 
half or two miles around their hives. 
The device we have mentioned can of course 
be used for out door feeding, and it is perfectly 
secure from waste; by inverting a tumbler of 
syrup in a saucer, we can also use it for feed- 
ing in the hives, when there is no occasion to 
feed rapidly. This latter plan lias been given 
several times in print already. 
qVILTS. 
JUDGING from the number of inquiries, 
and from the erroneous impression the 
writers evidently have in the matter we should 
judge that we had not been sufficiently ex- 
plicit in regard to the manner of making, and 
the office of this very useful substitute for the 
honey-board. 
Tlie principal error seems to be the impres- 
sion that they are only used during the winter 
and spring, whereas, with hives made with a 
light cover, hinged on, as we make the Sim- 
plicity, Standard, and in fact all hives ordered, 
a quilt is a positive necessity at all timex of the 
year. If they are omitted, the bees not only 
get crushed under the cover when it is shir, 
down, but they proceed at once to gum it fast 
with propolis, making it necessary to pry up 
the cover with a knife when we wish to open 
it, an operation that is at once fatal to the 
morals of both bees and owner. 
Tlie bees should never tie allowed to get above 
the quilt under the cover at all, and to ensure 
this tlie quilts must be nicely fitted. As they 
are liable to shrink in time, they should be 
made rather large, and before tlie cover is 
closed they should be carefully tucked down 
all around so that not a crevice is left open, 
and not a particle of the quilt sticks out so as 
to interfere with the close shutting of tlie cov- 
er. Considerable complaint has been made of 
the bees eating through the quilts, and we have 
had a little trouble of that kind, but not when 
proper (doth was used. We visited a neighbor 
a few days ago who lias between 40 and 50 col- 
onies, and could but admire the nice fitting 
perfect quilts he used; when questioned he 
remarked that he had used them for two years 
and had never had one gnawed through in all 
that time. An examination showed that they 
were made of very coarse, hard twisted cotton 
sheeting. They were sewed on a sewing ma- 
chine, and when done were quilted across with 
very long machine stitches as in the following 
figure. 
They were tilled with three thicknesses of 
wadding. Should these quilts lie found superi- 
or to those we have before described, give the 
credit to Mr. E. O. Blakeslee of this place, the 
mail of the “rail-way Apiary” plan for conveni- 
ence in extracting; and by the way his uniform 
success in the ‘ bee business” bids fair to place 
him way ahead of "us Novices.” 
