18S2 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



585 



friend describes. Such a machine would be 

 so very handy, we may decide during the 

 comine: year to get up soraetliingof the kind, 

 for about §2-5. Ou. How many of you want 

 one? 



I almost forgot to add, that all kinds of 

 buzz-saws are dan serous. Since we have 

 been in the business, four different boys and 

 men have lost a large part of one hand, by 

 letting them slip against a saw while in mo- 

 tion. If you work with buzz-saws, be careful! 



Or Departiuciit lor duties to bo attcudcd to 

 this uiontU. 



TP^r^NLESS in localities where the bees can 

 ^\ fly, I would not now undertake to feed 

 liquid food any more. Feed either 

 candy made of granulated sugar, in the way 

 that has so often been described, or use the 

 " Good candy," that has been so much talked 

 about of late. There can be no possible ob- 

 jection to it, unless it is that the granulated 

 susrar may rattle down to the bottom of the 

 hive after the bees have licked the honey all 

 out. If the sugar is well stirred into the 

 honey, and the whole allowed to stand sev- 

 eral days before it is fed, I think it will be- 

 come so well incorporated that the bees will 

 lick it all up. I have just directed that 

 some that has been several weeks mixed up 

 may be put over the hives this morning, and 

 before night I will report to you how it 

 works. If all is well, as I am sure it will te, 

 feeding in cold weather will hereafter be 

 summed up in about the following : — 



"■ Go to the store and get some granulated 

 sugar ; wet it up with honey, until you 

 make a stiff dough. Lay it right on the 

 frames, over the cluster, in qtiantities of from 

 i to i lb. at a time ; and as often as you tind 

 it gone, put on some more, until your bees 

 have enough. After putting it on, lay right 

 over it a Hill's Device, then a sheet of bur- 

 lap or coarse bagging, then chaff. For con- 

 venience you may navp. a chaff cushion, 

 made of tliis same coarse bagging ; but even 

 if you do. have enough loose chaff also to 

 make all so tight that no bee can ever work 

 his way up in any of the corners, and die on 

 top of the cushions." 



This last point I flunk very important. I 

 can not bear to find dead bees around, when 

 I open a hive. A dead bee on top of a cush- 

 ion alwavs makes me feel dismal, even after 

 I have closed up the hive and gone away. I 

 wouldn't have it. If bees die in the cluster, 

 and are carried out at the entrance, it is 

 probably no fault of you's ; but if your hive 

 is so made that tliey get up over the cush- 

 ions, and they die because they don't know 

 how to get back, it is your fault. Every 

 single bee is valuable. Not oidy that, but 

 God made this little speck of animated life, 

 and intrusted it to your care. Have you any 

 right to let them die t)y your carelessnessV 



Don't let mice get into your hives. They 

 are ravenously f(md of lioney; and if the 

 entrafices to the hives are large enough they 

 will be pretty sure to get in. The chaff 

 cushion over the bees is a grand place tor 



mice to winter in ; and if you should neg- 

 lect to have wire cloth over the ventilators, 

 you are almost certain to find them there. 

 They will tear your cushions all to pieces, 

 and make every thing smell. Why, if I 

 wanted to find something emblematic of 

 shiftlessness, ruin, and devastation, it would 

 be the litter left by a lot of mice, and the at- 

 tendant smell. Don't have it anywhere, no 

 matter what it costs to get them out. A 

 few days ago the apiarist said he could not 

 keep the mice out of his chaff cushions. I 

 told him to clean out the whole room, and 

 get down to the bottom of the matter. 

 What do you suppose was the '^ bottom of 

 the matter"? Why, it was a bag of rye and 

 oat meal that we used for feeding the bees 

 last April, that had been put into a hogs- 

 head, and then corn-cobs for the smoker had 

 been piled over it. You can imagine the 

 jubilee the mice had among those cobs, and 

 about how that bag looked when it was un- 

 earthed. Now. is there nothing of that sort 

 around your premises? Are you short of 

 money? I wouldn't wonder if it were lucky 

 for you if you are, for you are then in a 

 frame of maid to learn prudeuce and econ- 

 omy. 



Can you see any thing about, or think of 

 any thing that has cost you money? If so, 

 is it projierly cared for, and not going to 

 waste? That tin pan out there, that the 

 chickens have been eating out of, cost a 

 dime or more, and it will soon be trans- 

 formed into nothing but an ash-pan. Bring 

 it in, clean it up, rub it with a greased cloth 

 to arrest rust, and it will do good service a 

 long time. Use stone dishes for any thing 

 that must be put out into the weather, and 

 bring them in speedily before they get broken. 

 I have known a few bee-keepers who would 

 borrow their wife's pans and dishes, and for- 

 get or neglect to bring them back. Well, it 

 is customary among business men, good bus- 

 iness men, to insist on having settlements 

 with everybody before the beginning of a 

 new year. Every thing borrowed is to be 

 returned, or accounted for. All unsettled 

 transactions are to be closed up some way, 

 even if such settlement entails loss. Well, 

 now, wouldn't it be a good idea to bring 

 back all those tin pans and other utensils, 

 nicely cleaned up before the first of Janu- 

 ary? If you are busy all the time, just go 

 over your stock of implements for bee cul- 

 ture some evening, and get every thing in 

 nice trim for the next year. Try it and see 

 if vou don't feel "■ good " after it. Not only 

 clean up and save the wax, but clean up and 

 save the honey. Be ready to say you haven't 

 a pound anywhere, when the bees begin to 

 bring in honey again next summer. I am 

 not going to say good-by yet, for you see I 

 have one more visit to make you this year, 

 any way. That is one good feature of the 

 Juvenile. 



It is now two o'clock; just five hours since 

 the Good candy was placed over the cluster 

 of three colonies. They had about one- 

 fourth lb. each, and it is all gone on two of 

 them, and no grains of sugar are found on 

 the bottom-board. Can any cheaper way of 

 feeding, eitlier for warm or cold weather, be 

 devised? 



