178

GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE.

prove through reasoning upon causes and their ef-
That kind of evidence
fects, must be convincing.
is of the greatest value.

Last August, one hot day I stood in the apiary of
a friend who had a goodly number of colonies in
chaff, Langstroth, and other single-wall hives. Ino-
ticed that the colonies in chaff hives lay out the
All were shaded, as all hives
same as the others.
should be, at that time of the year. I reflected on
what I had heard about the "chaff hive in summer."
I looked at two walls with chaff between. Bees on
one side and a temperature of 94° F. on the other.
Of course the colony created a greater heat inside
than the sun did out; hence the sallying out of the
bees. Now, I can not see how these walls can keep
bees cool in summer, as long as they can not bear
the degree of heat they themselves produce. Isn't

must warm the chaff next to it.

It like the darkie's cap, "as good to keep the heat out as the cold out"? By and by I found a chaff bive in the sun. Then I thought that the one outside wall Then I said, "Would some holes in the top and bottom of the wall to let the heat out, do any harm?" "No." "Then the outside wall would shade the inside one." Now, would it do any harm to change the position of the outside wall, as it shades the inside one? Or in other words, is not a single-wall hive shaded, better than a double wall unshaded?

taken only 600 lbs. of comb honey, and 72 lbs. of it
A. M. SAWDey.
came from the chaff hive.
-GL., p. 31, Jan., '80.

Poolville, N. Y., Dec. 9, 1879.

We advocate protecting bees from the cold blasts of winter and the scorching rays of the summer sun, but the intermediate temperatures we say but little about. I had one colony, this spring, in a Langstroth hive, so reduced in numbers that all This must stay at home to keep the brood warm and alive, no increase in stores being possible. seemed to manifest itself particularly on windy days, of which we have had many this spring. I removed them into a chaff hive, and ever since then as many workers have gone out from this colony as J. L. HARTWELL. -GL., p. 260, July, 1879. from others twice as strong. Odell, Ill., June 9, 1879. Without doubt, the chaff hive would keep bees exactly as well, unpainted, but as a matter of durability, as well as looks, I would want hives painted, any way. Painting the outer wall of the chaff hive does not, of course, affect its absorbing power, as it Again, does single-wall hives, because it is purposely made in narrow strips of siding. where there is an outer shell to be fetched and put on, even though it be but little much inclined to put it off, forget it, or perOur chaff hives trouble, the average A B C scholar is very

Twelve years ago, we made a few hundred double-haps delay it altogether. wall hives packed with paper. I believe Mr. Langstroth tried charcoal, it being a great non-conductor. Both plans were abandoned. I think the chaff hive is much better than either of the above, as it is a better conductor of heat.

In regard to the sugar syrup: If you make 11⁄2 lbs. of syrup from 1 lb. of sugar, the bees must reduce to less than 1% lbs. before capping. The coarse outside boxing system costs not to exceed 2c per hive to manipulate. Would not the interest, taxes, insurance, and wear, on the extra cost of expensive hives,

amount to more than that?

Dowagiac, Mich., March 7, 1881.

JAMES HEDdon.

a quilt with one hand and turn back the mat can be inspected as quickly as you can raise very many will perhaps prefer your plan, with the other. At the same time, friend H., and it actually is very much cheaper, especsame size frames.-I presume you are about ially if you want no upper story to hold the right, in saying 1 lb. of granulated sugar would make only about It lbs. of stores, when sealed up in the combs; but am I not right in saying that this 14 lbs. will go further than even 11 lbs. of the best honey? This is pure cane sugar, while honey is, a large per cent of it, composed of grape sugar.

M

BEES IN TEXAS.

I hardly expected, friend H., that the chaff hives would make any perceptible difference during a protracted warm spell, but only that when the sun struck directly on them ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUNG CYPRIAN QUEENS. in the middle of the day, it would drive the bees out less than if they were single-walled hives sitting in the sun. The great advantage of chaff hives in the summer is in keeping the surplus boxes warm all night, and during the cool nights and days, that we often have right in June and July weather. See the following from the A B C book, and Doolittle's reply to it:

I have obtained more surplus honey with this arrangement
than with any other, and am firmly persuaded that a great loss
of honey often results from allowing such a draft of air through
the hive, that the bees can not work the wax, unless during the
To test this matter, I covered a
extremely warm weather.
large colony in the house apiary with woolen blankets while
So
they were gathering clover honey, to induce them to remain in
the boxes, even after the weather had turned quite cool.
long as the blankets remained on, the bees would remain in the
boxes working wax; but as soon as the blankets were removed,
at each time the experiment was tried, they retreated to the
body of the hive. The same thing was tried with thin-walled
hives out of doors.-A B C, page 257.

You are just "shouting" here, and this is one
great secret of success in getting box honey.

(G. M. Doolittle, in review of A B C book.) Also the following extracts from back vol

umes:

CHAFF HIVES AHEAD AGAIN FOR COMB HONEY.

I have 64 colonies, one only being in a chaff hive.
It has been a very poor honey year with me. I have

Y bees have passed through the cold winter in the best condition possible. It is true I lost one colony out of 23, but the queen was not

very prolific, and it seemed her bees would allow the

others to take their stores without any resistance.

My stocks are all strong, with from three to five

The queens

frames of hatching brood, March 1st.
began laying the 20th of January. I had two young
Cyprian queens mated Dec. 8th with pure Italian
drones, that are now ahead of any other queen I
have. They have thousands of young bees, five
frames of sealed and hatching brood, and the young
bees are simply beautiful. These queens were win-
tered in three-frame nuclei hives with empty box
seed. I packed about half of my hives in cotton
placed over them, sides and top packed in cotton
seed; the others were wintered with woolen cloths
on the sides, and chaff cushions on top. The cotton-
seed hives have wintered almost without any loss,
and the queens began laying about a week to ten
days before the others. To-day (March 1st) my bees
are pouring in and out of their hives, loaded with
pollen and honey. One hive has gained 15 lbs. in
ten days. They began bringing in pollen the 2d of

Feb., and have continued, with a few days' excep- | cotton, 5 in honey-plants, and one in potatoes, and tion, to the present time. acre in garden truck, with 5 acres in fruit-trees, to CAN A QUEEN REARED IN THE FALL BE FERTILIZED plow over three times, and 100 Simp. hives to make, IN THE SPRING?

and 60 acres of oats to sow this and next week; so
you see I have my hands full. B. F. CARROLL.
Dresden, Navarro Co., Texas, March 1, 1881.
Glad to hear you are prospering, friend C.
My remarks you allude to were to the effect
that no queen that goes into winter-quar-
ters, unfertilized in the fall, can ever be fer-

I thought you said young queens, wintered over before laying in the fall, would be drone-layers and worthless? Now, the two queens above alluded to are truly an exception, for I would not take to-day $5.00 for one of them; if she continues laying at the rate she is now, she will have her hive chuck full of bees in three weeks more. The peach, plum, apri-tilized in the spring, for the simple reason cot, and almond trees are blooming. The red elm has been in bloom ever since the 1st of Feb. I look for a large increase of bees this spring, and am preparing to increase my little apiary to 50 hives, which will keep me busy, and cultivate 7 acres in corn, 5 in

that she will have passed the age when fertilization is possible. In your warm climate, where bees may fly every month in the winter, it would, of course, be quite a different matter.

pleased to have you just mention his photo. Many of his hives are very expensive ones, $15.00 and over, A PEEP INTO A COSY BEE-GARDEN, AWAY ACROSS but they are his pride. His town is called KirrieTHE WATER.

RIEND ROOT:-Enclosed find photo of a Scotsman's apiary-34 hives huddled together in a small cabbage-garden, right in a small town. The owner, Peter Alexander, is a journeyman shoemaker in rather poor health, but he hopes soon to be able to give up his unhealthy trade and live by his bees. He gets GLEANINGS, and will be mightily

muir, in the county of Forfar.

WM. RAITT.

Blairgowrie, Scotland, Dec. 31, 1880. Many thanks, friend Raitt, and you just tell friend Peter that, if I mistake not, there are more than one whose eyes rest on the beautiful picture above, who are mightily pleased at the view he has given us. Why! one almost feels like walking up and shaking hands, not only with Peter, who stands with

have overlooked it in the fall, for it did not have send you a book called "Sheer Off." See if

GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE.

181

work hiving them. I shook them several times, and neither sell it nor give it away," we concluded to they went in the hive pretty well. The rest I smok-pay the apiary a visit, and see what was the matter. ed down.

When they all got in the hive I threw an apron
over the front of it, and carried it across the street
and set it in its place. Well, in all the work I did not
get stung once. I like to hive bees when they are
good natured. I have not hived any more alone, but
I help in hiving them. Will some girl or boy tell us
whether they can hive a swarm of bees alone? If
they can, I wish they would please tell us how they
do it.
LIZZIE HARRISON.

Peoria, Ill., March 11, 1881.

Well done, well done, Lizzie! and since I come to notice your name and address, it strikes me that you must be Mrs. L. Harrison's little girl; is it not so? I really do not wonder you have energy, and are not afraid of bees, with such a mother as you have.

We found the apiary to be a large one, in a firstrate locality; the colonies were immense, and tons of honey on hand, but none first-class. The hives were black, dirty old things, innocent of paint, and permitted to remain on the hives for months after had never been cleaned. The surplus honey was the winter. This bee-keeper came very nearly being the boxes were filled, and uncompleted ones during in the same boat with another old settler of the brimstone persuasion, who says, "When I used to it any more. Why?" tuk up a gum, I could sell the honey; but I can't do

weather is warm and pleasant, remove your bees to My dear Mabel, Hare Bell, or Blue Bell, when the another hive, and then scrape the old hive as clean as you can get it, scrubbing it afterward with a brush and hot soap-suds, and finish by scalding with clean boiling water. This will kill all the bees'

their happy hum and shaking of their antennæ, and turn the bees to it, and they will thank you with repay you with storing beautiful honey in snowwhite combs. "Thus endeth the first lesson."

I am a little girl 12 years old. My pa takes GLEAN-bed-bugs," and when the hive is dry you can reINGS. I go to Sunday-school almost every Sunday. There are from 75 to 100 scholars. I like my superintendent. Pa keeps bees, and last spring he put them in an L. hive, and they made 150 lbs. Can any one beat that? He would like your A B C book, and he intends to send and get it when he has enough money. NETTIE WAKEMAN.

Ouaquaga, Broome Co., N. Y., March 7, 1881. Very good, Nettie! If your father can do as well as that every year, he will hardly need an A B C book. I really hope he will get some more money; don't you think I am very kind?

Ladies' Department.

MRS. LUCINDA HARRISON TALKS TO THE JUVENILE
CLASS.

E think, Mr. Editor, that our young friend

W

Mabel, of Wyandotte, Kansas, is a very ob

reference to "dark honey."

We know that bees

serving little girl, and partly correct, with clean and varnish up their combs, but they are destitute of scrubbing-brushes, hot soap-suds, and boiling water, for their necessary spring cleaning. Where hives stand like ours, in a city, amid coal smoke, soot and dust, and especially after a long, cold winter like the one just past, with so few cleaning-house days that the bees could not carry out their dead and comb-cappings (and it is now saturated with moisture, rendering the task too great for their strength;) if the bee-keeper does not come to their assistance, no snow-white combs will gladden his eye or tickle his palate. How can the bees prevent soot and dust from shading the honey if they have to walk over a filthy floor to deposit it, or keep their feet or antennæ clean? After a mild winter, with plenty of cleaning-house days, their floors are tolerably clean; but a winter like the past produces a very different state of affairs. The winter of 1879-'80 was mild, and bees were healthy. When we cleaned the hives in the spring, we came to the conclusion that healthy bees voided their fæces in a dry state, judging from the little mounds of an inch or so in height, invariably found underneath the cluster. On hearing such remarks as this about a neighboring apiarist's honey, "I'd as soon have soapgrease in my store as that man's honey; I could

Peoria, Ill., March, 1881.

room.

MRS. L. HARRISON.

Now, Mrs. H., while the veterans may not all exactly agree with you in regard to the the cracks and crevices of the hives, which propriety of cleaning off the propolis from your hot water and soap-suds might do, we certainly all agree in regard to cleanliness being next to godliness. The question has sometimes been asked me, as to why I always have women in almost every room in our factory; it is because men and boys will not, as a rule, be clean and neat in their habits. As our wax-room is not a very pleasant place sometimes for women, we tried for awhile having only men take care of the always do;) but after awhile I offered one of Of course, they did pretty well (we first thing she did was to move the boxes the girls a little better pay, just to take a kind of supervision, you know. Well, the and pails out of the corners, and give the felt happy to see her do it; and after she got room a tremendous sweeping. Why, I just through, it seemed so much more homelike, I could have sat right down in the middle of the floor and laughed, and I should not have stuck fast either. Since then, I have a sort of feeling that I do not want to live-no, nor even work in a room, where there are not some women around. Somebody once said my wife was such a good housekeeper she had spoiled me; but I do not believe it, do you, Mrs. H.? Now, begging your pardon, we are all ready for the next lesson, are we not, Mabel, Freddie, Louie, Jennie, Charlie, Ellen, Roy, Minnie, Eddie, Anna, Lizzie, Nettie, and the rest of you?

Farmer, that the manufacture of fine syrups and
It is now reasonably certain, says the Prairie
sugar from sorghum can be made a vast and profit-
able industry, advantageous alike to the intelligent
products obtained from it, and saving to the coun-
grower of the cane and to the manufacturer of the
try millions of dollars annually which are now sent
abroad for these indispensable articles of daily con-
sumption.