(874. 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
125 
[Continued from jnige 123.] 
the other although made fully six weeks later, 
and nothing prevented the execution of our 
original intention, viz., killing the “crooked 
Queen,” except that she proved pure , and the 
other hybrid. After some discussion they were 
doth to be allowed to winter and further steps 
■decided upon in the spring. The Queen found 
at the entrance man not crooked and the exam- 
ination to-day showed that our division board 
although nicely fitted at the time, had shrunk 
so much that the bees were passing under one 
corner and so we had one large colony instead 
of two with a crooked Queen as their only 
hope. We have before thought we wanted no 
more divided hives, yet division boards can 
he made perfectly safe we suppose, although 
they have cost us some fine Queens before. 
The other hive proved to have a young Queen 
inside so that we have lost only one after all. 
The Green House is finished and two colo- 
tiave been in it for two days. ’Tis true they 
will take syrup from the opposite end of the 
room and carry it to their hives, and a part of 
them seem contented and industrious, but by 
far too large a part will persist in flying 
against the glass bumping about until they 
fall tired and exhausted to the ground. They 
will not as yet touch the meal but have their 
hives' pretty well filled with syrup and have 
commenced sealing it up. The very high tem- 
perature in the middle of the day seems to 
make them very little inconvenience. We im- 
agine ’tis the young bees that do the work and 
that the old ones accustomed to the fields are 
the ones that blunder about on the windows. 
The walls absorb so much heat during the day 
which they give out at night, that the air is 
kept all night at a very comfortable tempera- 
ture. 
Oct. 20th — Three more colonics have been 
placed in the green house and we are sorry to 
say they don’t do just as we would have them. 
They will cluster on the windows and buzz 
about until a good many fall down on the 
ground. Toward night the greater part of 
them get into hires and if the glass was only a 
foot or two above the hives very likely the 
humming as they find their hives would call 
all the late bees into some hive, but as for find- 
ing their own, when so many are crowded 
together, it looks quite doubtful. The bees in 
the first two hives ’tis true, seem to be quite at 
home, and flit about gathering stores etc., and 
seemingly never touch the glass. Had they 
all been put in after having been confined some 
days by cold weather, that might have made 
a difference, as it is, we have had a fine spell of 
weather for some days. We have made one 
discovery which is new to us at least. The 
syrup we have been feeding is quite thin. Well 
the two first mentioned have filled their combs 
so well, that even the eggs one of the 
hives contained are now crowded out. 
1 his morning laden bees were going out so 
rapidly from one of them, we thought it might 
be they were being robbed. After a little prac- 
tice we were enabled to follow them easily 
on the wing, and made out unmistakably that 
' hey, after dancing a while in the sunshine, dis- 
charged from their bodies what scents to be 
only pure water, and after this maneuver they 
returned immediately to their hive with bod- 
ies so much reduced in size that they made 
quite a contrast to their comrades who were 
just going out. Many bees are hopping about 
on the ground with distended bodies seemingly 
unable to take wing, and soon die. Does this 
not partially explain dysentery and show why 
it is so essential that diseased bees be allowed 
to fly occasionally? May it not be also that 
this is a part of the natural process of freeing 
the raw honey of its superfluous water? 
Many of the bees on the glass, we notice are 
those with the distended bodies, and perhaps 
the instinct that impels them to get a greati r 
distance from the hive is the cause of their 
death. 
Oct. 21 st — We put a curtain of cotton cloth 
over the glass to-day and thus kept an even 
temperature of about 80<> ; this does consider- 
ably better. 
three o'clock P. M . — The Queen has actually 
laid one egg in our pet Italian Nucleus in the 
green house. 
Oct. 22nd — That egg is gone. 
Oct. 2 3rd — Friend Dean has been here. He 
very much doubts our being able to get brood 
reared out of season by any artificial means, 
and fears that confining bees by glass will not 
work at all. Many bees are now dead under 
the glass and our weak nuclei is daily getting 
smaller although they seem to labor with an 
industry perfectly natural. 
We really begin to think our experiment a 
failure. We would build a larger enclosure 
without hesitation if we thought ’twould an- 
swer any better. Dean thinks" the farther the 
glass from the hive, the greater would be the 
loss. As a part of the bees seem to be perfect- 
ly at home and carry syrup from any part of 
the room without difficulty we cannot as yet 
agree with him. We now give them full sun- 
shine in the morning until the temperature 
reaches about 80°, and then put down the cur- 
tain the rest of the day, and the mortality 
seems less. 
Oct. 24 di — Gathered up all the dead bees this 
morning that we may be enabled to see how 
many now die daily. We found perhaps a quart. 
Ten o'clock — “Oh you little yellow busy bod- 
ies ! Outwitted your ‘Poppy,’ didn’t you.” We 
went to let down the curtain and our weak 
nuclei seemed so very industrious that we 
took a further look. The Queen and most of 
the bees had gone over to one side of the hive 
where we had not looked and actually had a 
cluster of eggs nearly as large as ones hand. 
Perhaps her Majesty objected to our counting 
every egg as fast as it was laid. The glass 
house may be a success yet. We gave them 
yesterday some basswood honey for a change. 
Oct. 2 (ith — An interesting point comes in 
here; these bees have no pollen in their combs 
that we can discover. To-day is the third day 
since the eggs were laid, but none have hatch- 
ed into larva;. If our former deductions have 
been correct they must work on the meal or 
there can be no larvae. 
After dinner— flow many of our readers can realize 
the joy we felt at finding just one little bee at work on 
the meal when wo went home to dinner ? Of course 
it went strait to the nucleus when laden. After dinner 
two more were at work and although thev each aver- 
aged a load, say, every ten minutes, scarcely a trace of 
it could he found in the cells at 2 o’clock. Arc we not 
right in thinking it was quickly taken into the stom- 
achs of the nursing hoes to be changed into food for 
larva) ami that we shall Hud larva* also, to-morrow or 
day after ? 
