748 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



back. I have not had them swarm again the 

 same season. I have practiced this plan for 

 three years, also for others. I always look for 

 second swarms on the eighth day. weather per- 

 mitting. I have had them swarm on the sev- 

 enth, never after the fifteenth day. 



Lisbon, Me., Sept. 11. Ben.i. Merrill. 



SCRAPING sections; using fanning -mill 



SCREENS. 



You ask for a device on which to scrape sec- 

 tions. I arrange a rather long low table, just 

 high enough to clear my lap when seated at it 

 in a chair. For a rest for sections I use a couple 

 of fanning-mill sieves with half or three-fourths 

 inch mesh. On one sieve at my loft I turn the 

 case of sections upside down and slip the case 

 oflf, and they are easily separated. On the oth- 

 er sieve I rest sections and scrape them. I 

 think it pays me well to save the separators if 

 they are not too much eaten away. I scrape 

 them only where they come in contact with the 

 sections. The bees are not nearly so apt to 

 build brace-combs to the glazed surface of an 

 old separator as to a clean new one. They are 

 also less inclined to curl, an'd are cheaper than 

 new. W. C. Simons. 



Arlington, Pa., Sept. 4. 



THE LANGDON device NOT A NON-SWARMER, 



BUT A SWARMER; in THE ROLE OF THE 



LATTER. A SUCCESS. 



Friend Root:— You call for reports with re- 

 g ud to the Langdon non-swarmer. I have 

 used it this sea^^on, and with me it has proved 

 a success. 1 think, however, that it does inter- 

 fere with brood rearing. It was predicted last 

 spring that this device would bring about great 

 changes in the apiary, and I think it will. But 

 in my opinion its real value lies in its being used 

 as a swarriier and not as a non-swarmer. Next 

 year I expect to use it for that purpose. When a 

 colony begins to look like swarming I will set an 

 empty hive by their side, into which I will 

 place a few frames from the colony, including 

 the queen, and then put on the device and send 

 the field bees into the new hive. Then I will 

 remove the device, set the new hive on the old 

 stand, and give the old colony a queen or a 

 queen-cell, if they need it. I think the above 

 plan will work, for this years experience has 

 proved that field bees can be run into another 

 hive. C. H. Sherwood. 



Newton, N. J., Sept. l:.'. 



HOW TO MAKE A MODIFICATION OF THE POR- 

 TER BEE-ESCAPE. 



After reading the article in the Aug. 15th 

 Gleanings, page 648, on bee-escapes, the idea 

 .struck me that I could improve on our English 

 cousin's method. I took a %-inch board, 16x:21 

 inches, and with a l^.j-inch auger I bored half 

 way through from the under side, finishing 

 with an inch auger. I then cut a channel, as 

 described in Gleanings, but cutting on one 

 side of the hole. The channel is 9^ inch wide 

 and one inch long, cut sloping. The v/ire screen 

 was cut a little longer than the hole, say 2K 

 inches long, and then the wire was unraveled 

 for half an inch on one end, leaving the points of 

 wire half an inch long. These were all bent back 

 except the four center wires which fit in the 

 channel and allow the bees to pass under, but 

 do not allow them to return. I have three of 

 those boards at work in my apiary, along with 

 the Porter escapes, and they do the work fully 

 as well. The .boards that I use have two holes, 

 or escapes, but I think that one hole would do 

 the work as well as a Porter escape. Make one 

 and try it, and see how cheap an escape can be 

 made. It cests practically nothing. 



Our honey crop is poor this year. The drouth 

 spoiled it. W. S. Fultz. 



Muscatine, Iowa, Aug. 31. 



There is a general complaint of dull times. 

 All farm products are ruinously cheap; and, 

 though our honey is also cheap, the bee-men 

 are about as well off, and I think a little better, 

 than the producers in other industries. 



Redlands, Cal., Aug. 4. Rambler. 



FAITH IN GOD CONTRASTED WITH UNBELIEF. 



Since the time when I thought best to per- 

 mit some of the friends to express in Gleanings 

 their unbelief, there has been a sort of ringing 

 in my ears and a hungering in .my heart, that 

 these poor mistaken brothers might see how 

 awfully cruel it is to take the stand they do 

 in their antagonism to the gospel as revealed in 

 the Bible. Just now a little Christian tract 

 comes floating through the mails into my 

 hands. As I looked it over and caught the in- 

 spiration from the pure loving spirit it unfolds, 

 I wondered, "Will not this little story touch 

 some heart, and lead it out of the darkness of 

 unbelief into the light of faith in God ?" 



THE CAMP MISSION. 



Let us glance at a typical lumber-camp. Tlu'ough 

 a lumber-road in a deep forest we come to three 

 long, naii'DW sliantics of logs — one forliorses, mules, 

 and oxen, and the otlier two for men; the sleeping- 

 building tilled with liard Ijunks; the dining-building 

 liaviug a long table set witli tin dislies, piled witli 

 COM rse food. A blast from a tin horn lorings from 

 twenty-five to one hundred men in lieavy mackinaw 

 or toboggan suits. Tlie men are known as " shanty 

 boys," and some are only boys in years, while some 

 old loggers have spent nearly all the winters of 

 their life in camp; but the majority are strong- 

 young men in their prime, mostly rough liard fel- 

 lows from everywliere, of nearly all nationalities. 

 Some whole camps are French, German, or Norwe- 

 gian, but usually they are a mixed lot, representing 

 sometimes lialf a dozen countries. 



Tliis great army of woodsmen, equiiiped witli 

 axes and saws, and stationed here and there 

 throughout the great forests, are numbered by the 

 hundi'ed thousand. They fell the timber for tlie 

 churches of tlie land, but are banished by their 

 worli far beyond the sound of church-bells. They 

 provide tlie material for tlie homes of the nation, 

 but are themselves outside of liome comforts and 

 saving influence, only as Ihey are reached by camp 

 evangelists. No congregations receive gospel mes- 

 sengers more gladly. No camp-meetings in the 

 world liave such results as these winter camp-meet- 

 ings, where swearing men have become praying 

 men; where gospel hymns have taken the place of 

 vilest songs. Almost every camp has good singers. 

 A hymn lias brought up old memories, leading to 

 lasting good. Whole camps have been changed. 

 One Sabbath a camp-meeting was held where the 

 Salibath before there had been a drunken carousal, 

 and men liad been chased out of the camp by 

 drunken companions with axes. Strangely, murder 

 had not been the result, and oneweelr brought a 

 great change. Oh if we only could reafh more of 

 the multitude of cami)sl e have been able to 

 send out only a few of the many evangelists needed 

 for this gospel work in the forest. Yet. as the re- 

 sult, hundreds of lumbermen have been brought to 

 God, and there has been untold good that we can 

 never know until the recording angel unfolds the 

 eternal history. 



In a work like this, shall we lack money '? Only '■> 

 cents will buj' a New Testament, and 3 cents a go.s- 

 pel song book with a hundred familiar hymns; and 

 only 1 cent will Tiuy twenty gospel cards, all of 

 which have been blessed in the saving of souls. It 

 is strange how eiisily rough hearts are sometimes 

 reached. Testaments are read in camps sometinies 

 by hardened men who would not look at the little 

 book at home. A gospel hymn rings through a 

 canip, and is caught up by other voices and awakens 

 tender chords, recalling holy memories that seemed 

 buried for ever A gospel card or tract is slipped 

 into the porket, and read some lonely hour to call a 

 homesick soul to God and heaven. 



How far this gospel work shall reach into the 



