THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 181, 6 August 1886, Page 8

THE APIARY.

Interesting Facts About Bees.

I have some quilts made of sheeting and cotton batting. I noticed, a few days since, at the entrance of one hive some of the filling of one quilt, which had been carried out. I opened the hive, raised out the brood-combs, and found that they had been using that cotton for capping some of their brood. Some of the young bees ,had nothing over their heads (and those that had no heads formed), but simply fine bits of cotton stretched across the cells iv many ways, and I could look through the network covering and see the little fellows, like looking through a sieve. There was one patch about two inches square with no capping except cotton batting. You may say this was mothwebs; but I say no, not the work of anything but the bees capping their brood.

Last summer I was doing some carpenter work for a man about a mile from where I live, about the last days of June. As I had lost most of my bees the winter before, I took what work I could get, as the twenty weak colonies I had left did not require much time. One day my wife came to where I was at work and said my bees had swarmed. "Well," said I, "where did they go ? " " Why, they went into a hive," said she. I said : "Do yon know which hive they went into ? " " Yes," she replied, " I marked the hive with a stone." " Well, do you know which hive they came out of ? " " No," she said ; *' I did not see them till they were all flying." When I wenthome in the evening I found they had entered a hive with combs in which the bees had died the previous winter ; and when I examined I found the* to be hybrid Italians, very cross, and 1 did not have a hybrid in the yard. There were also more bees in that swarm than I had in any two of my hives. The next week I noticed a great black bees flying round my empty hives, and at five o'clock in the evening a large swarm of black\ bees came and went into another of 'my hives. I saw them come. — Corr. Gleanings in Bee Culture.

Bees, in Chimneys. — The swarm of bees that some time ago took possession of a chimney in John F. Zollner's dwelling, on Third street, still holds the fort. All attempts to make it too warm for them have failed, and they positively decline to be smoked out. Sulphur has been used to make the fire more effective, but still they linger. It is now proposed to deprive them of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by sealing them in. To the question asked Mr Zollner, " How many are there of them ? " he -promptly replied, and without counting them, "A million." The chimney in A. J. Hull's Grant avenue residence is similarly occupied, and the bees, coming down through flue, pipe, and stove, have played the mischief with lace curtains and other delicate household furnishings by leaving sooty tracks along their line of march. Fire, smoke, and water were used to displace them but without avail, and at last bricks and mortar have been called into requisition and tho bees are now closely housed in. — Napa Register. The modern term " colony," used to designate a hive completely supplied with bees, comb, &c., is considered more expressive than the words swarm, skip and hive, which are only partial in their meaning.