1874. 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
89 
■question— well, ns we said before, he forgot 
twas nearly dark and almost neglected to res- 
pond to Blue Eyes’ crows of delight which are 
invariably addressed to her Papa when he is’nt 
too busy— now before going further ’twill real- 
ly be necessary to state that Novice wears 
linen trousers when extracting, for Mrs. N. 
says if lie must go down on his knees so much, 
something must be worn that will wash; and 
as the young bees have quite a trick of crawl- 
ing in inconvenient directions, he always tucks 
these linen pants into his stockings when at 
work. 
After the last comb was taken out he con- 
cluded the Quinby smoker (none had been used 
before) had better be lighted before replacing 
them, and by the time this was done it was 
just about dark enough for the bees to get into 
that kind of a careless way of stinging promis- 
cuously, when disturbed, any thing that they 
can set" regardless of smoke or almost any 
thing else. Now these white stockings — for a 
wonder they were tolerably white — seemed to 
the bees just the thing to “go for,” and they 
did so and discovered a “break in the armor” 
between his low shoes and the linen pants, 
protected by only one thickness ofthin cotton, 
and that is why he is looking dolefullg at his tin- 
kles. 
Meanwhile P. G. has put the cappings in the 
wax extractor, tied the cloth cover over the 
honey extractor, wiped up the floor if any 
honey had been dropped — by the way Novice 
says that she too got enthusiastic and kept on 
extracting long after the barrel was full, until 
in fact a half gallon or more had run over on 
the floor; but this was probably a little exag- 
gerated oil account of his “ankles” — and the 
Apiary is now quiet. The bees are uniting in 
a contented hum whose volume once more in- 
dicates life in the recently desolated Apiary; 
Blue Eyes is sleeping the peaceful sleep of 
childhood, and we, before dropping our pen 
devoutly hope that all our readers have as 
abundant cause for thankfulness during the 
higbt of the basswood season as have we. 
ANSWER TO PRUBLEJI ETC. 
H AS Problem No. 13 been solved yet ? Our bees 
are bringing in pollen very last now. In fact 
i the supply seems to be far in excess of the de- 
mand ; and 1 could take from each of my hives one 
frame completely tilled w ith it. But cun it be kept in 
good state until next spring, and how t 
S. \V. STEVENS, Ridgefield, Conn. 
Pollen taken out late In the fall will keep 
safely and will be used at once by bees iu the 
spring in tills locality, but we should fear it 
would get sour or mould if removed in warm 
weather. Your hives may seem to have an ex- 
cess to-day yet if examined a week later, when 
brood is being reared largely, we sometimes 
Hud it nearly all gone. We have recently seen 
a frame emptied of pollen in so short a time 
that it seemed strange where it could have 
gone. • 
ANSWER TO PROBLEM NO. 23. 
Queens raised from eggs are longer lived but no 
more prolille, lor the time they live, than an S or 1(1 
day Queen. A in day Queen will rarely live one year, 
while an 8 day Queen is good for only about -1 months, 
fly the way. Mr. Editor why is it that Queens sent out 
“v breeders are so Invariably short lived? 1 have 
had Queens from nearly every breeder in the United 
States, and with but one exception none of them ever 
lived to see la mouths. But to return, in 1S70 I raised 
a sot of cells from a strong colony and just before the 
first was hatched. I took them all away and gave them 
a frame of brood in all stages. '1 hey reared about UO 
cells, about ouc third of w hich hutched in 8 days, the 
majority on ihe lull, and 2 or three on the lath.' They 
were all small, hut little larger than a worker. 1 suc- 
ceeded in gelling 5 out ot Ihe lot fertilized, one on the 
lath day alter they were halehed, two the 17th, ami 
two the lfllh. They wire as prolific as any Queens I 
had as far as I eoufd see, but one died of old age in 3 
months, 2 lived nearly t> months, and the other 2 die d 
during the w inter. Queens usually are laying lrcm 7 
to 9 days after they are hatched, with us, and il a 
Queen is not hiving whilin' 12 days we always kill her. 
deeming her worthless. We have repeated the ex- 
periment alluded to above once or tw ice since with 
llie same results. Bees gelling but little honey as yet. 
It rains nearly all Ihe while— ground soaked— Bass- 
wood will not* he open in a week yet. 
G. M. In oi.i i '1 le, Borodijno, N. Y. July 9th. 1874. 
DEAR NOVICE In answer to your problem No. 
23 on ihe cover of Gleanings, lor Jnlv, 1 see no 
dillerence between queens raised ir<m the eggs, or 
queens raised irom grubs already three days old. Be- 
sides I have very olten remarked that out of a lot of 
queen cells, those that halehed last were geneially 
poorest. Every time 1 have had queens hatched late r 
than sixteen days, they were oi little value, whi.e 
those hatched iu ten days proved to be the best, it 
seems that as soon as the colony fimls It ts queenless, 
It gives a superabundance of care to Ihe grubs e hose n 
to be raised as queens. After a few days the care gh - 
en the second chosen grubs is lessened, anet ihe 
queues produced ale poorer. I can sec no ee-ason 
why a greih three tlays old would be of less value thi n 
an egg, to be transformed into a queen, since if we 
give t tie bees grubs of that age and eggs, they will 
prefer the grubs. I think bees know the ir business 
better than we do. Besides It is to-day a well ascee- 
t ained laet, that the jelly given the grubs, for the lie's, 
three days alter hatching, is the same as that given 
the young queen; and that the grubs can eat ol it i.s 
much as they want since they lay in a thick layer of 
that jelly. Chas. Dadant, Hamilton, Ills. 
We are much inclined to think eggs prefera- 
ble, ami we feel satisfied that the young larva) 
should literally swim iu the royal jelly just 
as soon as hatched. That this is not usually 
the case with the small worker larva), observa- 
tion will readily show. If we wish to grow a 
strong specimen of any plant or animal, plenty 
of food is the great desideratum. Even cram- 
ming is sometimes necessary to get the desired 
result, as in fattening fowls for instance, and 
if we wish Queens to .’ive four years and to lay 
eggs up to the llgure fixed by Young America 
of modern times, she should have all the jelly 
she can possibly use and a spoonful (or less) 
should be found lu the cell alter she is hatched. 
How is it brother bee-keepers, after your Queens 
are hatched out do you find any food remain- 
ing in the cell? Look carefully and report. 
Again our recent troubles have really been 
that our worker bees have been too short lived. 
Now is it not possible that where so many 
bees are kept in one locality they fail to And a 
sufficiency of some one of the essentials needed 
to give them perfection of vigor and constitu- 
tion. Novice here suggests that the whole 
trouble may be the want of salt ; some writers 
on poultry now claim that saltiug the liens 
regularly will surely prevent the Chicken 
Cholera. 
FRIEND NOVICE: Double a woolen cloth and put 
under your water bottle ; and to one qt. add % tablc- 
spoonfnl of common salt then your bees will have 
salt water. My bees took about a gallon a day, when 
breeding fast last summer. The cloth will soak with 
water and gives bees a nice chance to suck it out. 
l’ut sheared side of cloth up. Wlicu gettlug salt wat- 
er they got fresh water at the same time so perhaps 
you held better "rig” two bottles, for each. 
J. D. Kuuschke, Berlin, Wis. 
We have got a salt water jar “rigged” but 
they don’t take to it as yet. We have at times 
noticed bees when they, seemed eager for salt. 
