112 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
fact that the economy of the bee hive demands 
that hundreds of drones be reared where only- 
one is needed ? The pollen is borne so much 
above the seed blossoms that the winds in 
wafting it are almost sure to fertilize the blos- 
soms of some neighboring plant, and the drones 
as they circle up in mid air impelled by that 
wonderful instinct, are more than likely to 
meet with Queens from other hives than their 
own. 
We reached church in very good season, and 
in a much more devout frame of mind than if 
we had spent the whole of the morning sleepily 
over books and papers. 
The spring scales showed at night a gain of 
one half lb., which though a small matter was 
enough to set us rejoicing. As the suspended 
colony is less than an average one, w-e can 
safely say we got 35 lbs. of honey during the 
day, from the Autumn Wild Flowers; and 
to-day they show % of a lb., or about 52 lbs. 
from the whole Apiary. 
Sept. 1 st — One half lb. again to-day, and we 
think that they really have neglected the cider 
mill, as our neighbor promised to send his 
little boy up to notify us, if they troubled him 
again as they did last week. 
Sept. 1 8th — Nearly three weeks have passed 
and the bees have been busy, some of them on 
the Autumn wild flowers, others on dry sugar 
in the open air, but by far too many at the 
eider mill from which we have labored in vain 
to entice them, especially when they made 
"sweet apple” cider. With the extremely warm 
dry weather wc have had this month, we have 
not succeeded in keeping them away entirely, 
although pollen in abundance, and considera- 
ble honey has been brought from the woods 
mentioned. Since writing before, we have 
learned there arc about 200 acres of the wood- 
land fenced close from all kinds of stock, and 
also that the reason for this is, that same 
White Snake root that literally whitens the 
ground, is the cause of a species of “milk sick- 
ness.” Since several people and many cows 
and horses have died from this, the woodland 
has been carefully fenced up. The honey from 
the weed has something of a hoarhound flavor, 
and gives the hives a peculiar odor. It has 
been suggested that our bees too, died from 
this same “milk sickness,” but we are more in- 
clined to accord it to the cider mill. At any 
rate our hives are now most of them heavy 
with nicely sealed stores and pollen ; these 
stores are a mixture of honey and cider with 
liberal doses of sugar syrup given every eve- 
ning, and all we can do is to hope the latter 
will counterbalance all ill effects of the former. 
As they have all been kept rearing brood 
briskly we trust at least two thirds of these 
stores are sugar. 
We have loaned our Quinby smoker to the 
cider mill folks, and wc are again using our 
“sauce pan.” It certainly has one advantage, 
and that is, that it don’t “go out” even if we 
do forget to “squeeze” it incessantly, but on 
the other hand it smokes ones eyes badly at 
times, and when the smoke don’t happen to go 
in the right direction we sometimes get a sally 
from the hybrids that make us long for the 
bellows smoker again. The latter does good 
service at the mill, but it doubtless takes much 
time to drive the bees a little ways. We can 
Oct. 
only congratulate ourselves that ’twill soon 
be cool, and then such troubles will be over. 
Sept. i’.ith — ’Twas just one year ago to-day 
that we moved our bees to the swamp on ac- 
count of the cider mill, and the “cider mill 
man” has just been here to tell us that some- 
thing must be done with “them bees.” 01 
course we dampened the sugar, and soon had 
all the bees tame and wild from a mile or more 
around, having a grand free picnic at our ex- 
pense. The weather has been unusually warm 
and sultry ; cool days that must soon come, 
will probably end this trouble for this season. 
Sept. 21«f — We have tried putting a strong 
colony in our bee house, placing it before tin- 
window so that it could receive the full 
rays of the morning sun. The great problem 
was, to see whether after collecting on the 
windows, they would regain their hive. It is 
with much joy that we are able to state they 
did, nearly all, after they had once learned 
how. The young Italians learned the pro- 
gramme readily, and even made foraging voy- 
ages to remote corners of the room to some 
combs of honey, and returned with the spoils, 
safely to their hive. The old bees, accustomed 
to the fields, as we anticipated, buzzed on tin- 
window until tired and then formed in a large 
cluster at the top of the window. In about an 
hour a few found the hive again and set up a 
loud call, and by noon, the entrance was cov- 
ered with bees that with elevated bodies were 
fanning their wings at a great rate to make 
known to their comrades the joyful intelli- 
gence. By sundown, all were in safely except 
perhaps a dozen or two. 
With space for them to enjoy the full sun- 
shine, we have no fear but that all would regain 
the hive safely, but we confess it seems quite 
improbable that the bees from a dozen hives or 
more in a small enclosure would all regain 
their respective hives; still, until we have tes- 
ted the matter, wc have no real right to doubt. 
We have before made mention of bees with 
distended bodies found around on the ground 
during “cider time.” Well, among those on 
the window, we found quite a number such, 
and they soon fell to the floor. Later in the 
day the floor was soiled with their excrement 
and this soon had quite an unpleasant smell 
that reminded us vividly of two years ago, yet 
this was quite a warm day. Gould they have 
had ample room to fly farther from the hive 
perhaps this would not have been observable, 
but we cannot help thinking it is the effect of 
the cider mill. Perhaps giving them a fly ev- 
ery week or two during the winter might do 
much to avoid the evil effects of such diet but- 
that it will prove a perfect remedy for Mu- 
gradual dwindling away as did ours last spring, 
we hardly dare hope. Our bees did not die 
with dysentery as has been intimated. 
From an experiment made we would decide 
that bees do not make honey, but simply gather 
it. We threw out some of the thinnest, raw 
unripened honey that we could find during the 
basswood harvest, and put it in a fruit jar cov- 
ering the mouth with thin guaze only. After 
keeping it in a very warm place for several 
weeks it was found to be as thick as the thick- 
est honey, to have lost its raw taste, and to 
have become nice honey, such as is taken out 
of sealed comb. 
