GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
im 
w hen winter comes to keep up proper temper- 
ature, and of course must perish. Was not 
such the case with your own ? The extractor 
is almost the only remedy for such troubles. 
FRIEND NOVICE : -Those eggs came to hand after 
»;u hours from the time you mailed them, but the comb, 
box ami all was pretty much smashed line; still 1 have 
from one end of it, where there was a cell or two 
which was not smashed down to the base, two larva} 
hatched, but no Queen, cells found over them as yet. 
Now I want you to put me up some more as I direct: 
on the morning of the 24th of July put a nearly new 
worker comb in the centre of the brood next where 
your imported Queen Is. Look at it on the morning 
oft he 25th and if there arc eggs in it send them to me 
by the first mail on Monday the 27th of July. Now 
how to nut them up: Make a box of wood M inch 
thick. Make it three inches square by two inches 
deep. Have the top or cover go on with screws so as 
not to jar the comb. Now go to the hive and get the 
oldest eggs in the comb above mentioned, exit out a 
piece two inches square and wrap it up in soft paper 
>o you cannot see a bit of comb. Put inch of cotton 
wadding in the bot tom of box, put in comb and tuck 
in wadding on each of the four sides, then put in wad- 
ding until box is full. Screw on top, and send. Please 
excuse us for becoming teacher to an older member of 
the bee-keeping fraternity, for we have faith that if 
the eggs are put up so they will not jar we can hatch 
them, for since we sent you for the eggs just received, 
we have placed a frame of worker eggs in a hive and 
nnd had them hatch all right, alter they had been left 
in our shop away 'llom bees, eight days. You ask on 
your card if we are certain that eggs will hatch after 
being kept a month. We will give you the facts. In 
using our small hive described in A. Ji. J. we some- 
times get drope brood lh boxes. On finding such we 
s, 'l them out, thinking to spoil it and left them out in 
one instance nearly a month, and then put them in 
the hive again and to our surprise the next day but 
• me found plenty of larva- in the boxes. We now take 
precaution to see that the eggs are hatched, and then 
we can set them out a day or two until the brood sut- 
lers when all will be right unless the Queen lays in 
them again. 
I he poorest season so far, wc have ever known. 
<hir hives will not averaged lbs. of honey in each at 
'■ate. ( ause, cold and wet. Basswood just opening 
and we are hoping for better times. 
(i. M. Doolittle, Borodino, N. Y. July 18th, 1874. 
1*. S.-In the comb of worker eggs referred to above 
J lie bees only hatched those that would hatch in 24 
hours. The rest were all cleaned out. 
No excuse is 
su min. 
ever needed friend I). for pre- 
to teach us ; our capacity for taking in 
instruction is boundless, and we will faithful- 
ly perform our part of the experiment so long 
ns there is any hope of success. When we are 
desired to send the comb in such wooden boxes, 
as are described wc shall have to request that 
*tbout 10c. additional be sent. 
1 lie following is just at hand. Our opinion 
‘ s that the whole secret is warm weather, 
uvli as we invariably have in ,J uly for instance, 
n uiTiih ! Off with old hats and new. We have two 
!• i V < i el, 1 s *. lear, y ready to seal, out of our two 
• . hatched lrom the comb of eggs we received 
jut down to 
iid taken all 
.. v .,om the bees 
"m wo expected our imported larva* had fared 
’ have two line Queen colls 
G. M. i>. 
for hi ’? m <)() * ' ? i;<) — There now, you have told on me 
rlmr i n V v l u '° hwM-tred and fifty hu es of Ires last 
J; V U nii, id that so much since you did 
U,.. the i act that 1 lost near /our hundred colonies 
I'rili r i J !! Us , S 1 ,, .* ,IL ' an, l near two hundred colonies the 
batched from the comb of eggs wi 
. • vo . 11 J,| l smashed up. Our heart wen 
. ! ; H, , ols when we found that the bees hat: 
Nu ‘ nut of the comb we had awav iVon 
f,!;;; hut wi* ream 
l| om them. 
•'priii 
took 
J1,,< 1 now 
boloiv that, not leaving me Jive per cent of niv 
- 1 ll *ne. I started with 17 hives this spring 
''n good colonics from them besides 
and 
!:!. kln £ hfteen hundred pounds extracted honey. 
now 1 will 
f°r the beo malady 
M 
n - two dollars each to 
iv 3 i„,i i m * v ,S 0 <>d colonies to live over until next 
Hlvk'onll / l,s V‘! r ° winter so safely that I would not 
neiviii "ire lor insurance. Two thirds of the 
liali «,f \ L, K»°n have swarmed and perhaps one 
oni have made some box honey. Clover was 
entirely gone July 1st. Basswood we may say com- 
menced yielding that day and lasted until the 8th. 
K. W ilk in, Oskaloosn, Iowa, July Kith, 1874 . 
From seventeen to eighty , and 1500 lbs. of 
honey is certainly ahead of us friend W., but 
we think you mentioned having purchased 
Queens for them, in a former letter. If Bass- 
wood only lasted nine days with you, we are 
certainly ahead here, if we are not a Basswood 
country; wc have had almost three weeks 
and considerable is gathered yet from occa- 
sional trees that blossom late. 
. NOVICE :-Our 100 colonies have incrcas- 
«.» I ni,, hily bv natural swarming, and that not- 
withstanding all the opposition I could bring to bear, 
short ol extracting the honey from the breeding 
apartment, which I did not wish to do, as I wanted 
an the box honey 1 could get. Bees obtained more 
honey than usual lrom fruit blossoms, but the yield 
lrom white clover is comparatively light in this’sec- 
tlon, owing to the clover being badly winter killed, 
and also Injured by drouth. In many places bees 
obtained just honey enough to keep them breeding 
and swarming, and where they were permitted to 
" , the yield of surplus honey must la* 
light. A friend told me he knew six swarms to issue 
lrom one of his stocks, and he did not know how nianv 
more came out and went to the woods. 
I only permitted my colonies to swarm once, with 
the execution of one which swarmed twice, conse- 
quently they were lull of bees when Basswood bloom- 
ed, and worked on it accordingly. All of m\ old 
stocks, with one exception, and many of the swarms 
are at work in surplus boxes. I have lrom i; to 22. 4 or 
•Jib. boxes on each. I have taken off a few hundred 
pounds and there are more ready to come off' as soon 
as I can lmd time to attend to it. But most of the 
boxes are not quite ready to come off yet, as the honev 
is not all sealed up. Bees are beginning to work oh 
the second crop of red clover where it was cut early ; 
and it drouth or the grasshoppers do not use it up as 
they did last year, 1 hope for a fair yield of honev, 
notwithstanding the unfavorable spring. The one old 
stock that has not worked In surplus boxes was the 
weakest I had in the spring. It has become quite 
strong, bid 1 have kept it as a kind of reserve upon 
which to draw whenever 1 want a frame of broou or 
honey lor any purpose. 
Honey seems to be thicker and heavier this year 
than common, as boxes that seldom contained more 
than four lbs. hold almost live. The dry weather evi- 
dently had something to do with it. 
All of my old colonies have too much honey in the 
breeding apartment; many of them twice what they 
should have, and it will have to be extracted after 
that in the boxes is sealed up. 1 do not wish to do so 
now. as 1 have found by experience that extracting 
much out of the breeding apartment during the work- 
ing season always detracts from the box honey. 
James Bolin, West Lodi, O. July 2oth, 1874. 
We must say friend B., that we are disap- 
pointed in your report. We had fixed our 
opinion on having you report at this date 
about 10.000 lbs of extracted honey, or 100 lbs. 
to the colony on an average, and here you have 
been allowing your 100 stocks to “fool away 
their time” (begging your pardon) on box hon- 
ey. Of course, you may know best. Our bee- 
keepers here, who brought their stocks through 
in any kind of shape are making a good yield 
with the extractor, but taking an Apiary 
through, they would not get one fourth the 
amount in boxes, so far as we can learn; and 
yet the prices are constantly quoted in our 
Cleveland papers at nearly the same. Thick, 
well ripened, transparent honey, is rapidly 
making for itself a market at a price but very 
little below box honey, and if you do not re- 
port at least (5000 lbs. of box honey we shall 
think you have erred in summer management, 
whatever may be your skill in wintering. 
There! we’ll stop now lest some one may 
think our O' • barrels of honey and 45 colonies, 
are making us “sass\ r ” again. 
