1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



137 



This is, in rough, the plan we have in mind. We 

 need, first, money for buildings. I think $500 would 

 put up temporary buildings; but as we shall not 

 have rent land, we should like $1000 for substantial 

 buildings. Friends have loaned or given some car- 

 penter tools, and we have an upright drill and small 

 turning-lathe. What we are desirous of is a few 

 wood-working machines, a blacksmith's and tin- 

 ner's outat. These three are all we shall go into at 

 present. If we can raise .flOOO for buildings we can 

 add a printing-outfit, which will be at our di-posal, 

 without doubt, as our mission has a large plant of 

 this description which will he split if we can find 

 accommodation for a portion of it. 



Now, then, dear friends, can and will you come to 

 our assistance in this scheme, with which we are 

 sure your heart is fully in accord, and thus help on 

 the work of education in whicii we see a direct way 

 of reaching many children? In the end many iieo- 

 ple will receive the word of truth and life, which 

 none of the foreign missionaries can ever hope to 

 carry to the masses with any thing like the success 

 the Christian natives will thus be able to do. On 

 behalf of the mission, and Tientsin station in par- 

 ticular, I beg to re main Yours very -uly, 



Tientsin, China. H. J. Bostwick. 



I may add, that our own Sunday-school 

 subscribed .522.18; and as I had agreed to 

 match whatever they raised, this made 

 $44. 3b. Twenty dollars more were sub- 

 scribed, making $B4.3ti, which we take plea- 

 sure in forwarding to friend Harry this lOtli 

 day of February, 18^0. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS. 



THE VANDEUSEN METAL CORNERED FRAME THE 

 THING DESIRED. 



I see that you will soon have the Vandeusen 

 metal-corner reversible frames, to space 1 'a inches, 

 ready. This is what I want. This last season I used 

 your Simplicity hives under different manage- 

 ments. I used part with the 10 frames. This gives 

 a spacing of 1]^ inches, which is o'„ more than l%— 

 too much. I used others with 11 frames. This gives 

 a spacing of IIJ inches— ,'., less than li'e— too little— 

 but gave me better combs and better results every 

 way than the 10 frames, while I used still others 

 with eight frames to the hive, spaced If inches, 

 which gave me by far the best results of any. Thus 

 I am led to the conclusion that an eight-frame 

 hive, spaced 1% inches, is about right. I am thor- 

 oughly convinced that a reversible frame is best. 



Concord Church, W. Va., Jan. 1. T. K. Massie. 



Friend M., when you get down to forti- 

 eths of an inch, you are getting it pretty 

 fine ; but we are very glad indeed to have 

 the result of your repeated experiments. 

 No doubt you are about right. 



perforated zinc honey-board in swarming ; 

 a good suggestion. 

 As swarming time will begin in the South in a 

 few weeks, I thought to say to those who practice 

 natural swarming, that the perforated zinc honey- 

 board is the one thing needful. When two or more 

 swarms cluster together, just take a hive with sol- 

 id bottom, no entrance; lay the honey-boaid on top; 

 shake the cluster on it. The bees will run down in- 

 to the box, leaving queen and drones on top. The 



queen, in trying to get through the perforations,- 

 will limp her back, thus raising the wings from her 

 abdomen as if on purpose to be grasped and caged. 

 Perhaps you may say the bees will not thus run in 

 and leave iheir queens; but practically they do it 

 every time. You see, I have hived something like 

 a hundred swarms that way, without a single fail- 

 ure. When j-our queens are all caged you can di- 

 vide the cluster into as many swarms us you wish, 

 letting a queen run in with each swarm in hiving. 

 If the cluster is too large for one bo.\, use two or 

 more boxes in catching the queens. 



If not ready to hive your bees at once, lay a 

 queen on top of the box or boxes, wire cloth down, 

 until ready to hive; or, better, drop her, cage and 

 all, amonff the cluster. If the queens are taken en- 

 tirely away, the bees will reman in the box from 

 1.5 minutes to two hours or more. If they have 

 clustered, and failed to find their queen, and have 

 gone back, thej- will break the cluster quicker at 

 each successive swarming, until, after issuing two 

 OFthree times, they will not cluster at all without a 

 queen; but after a vain search they will return to 

 the parent hive. E. S. Arwine. 



Los Berros, Cal., Jan. 18. 



I feel quite sure that you can get the 

 queens in just the manner you mention, and 

 the suggestion is doubtless quite valuable. 



HOW TO market chunk HONEY. 



There are various ways of disposing of chunk 

 honey, and we have found the following to be a 

 very good one. When we can not conveniently get 

 the tin pans, such as Mr. Koot used to sell for that 

 purpose, we buy the two-pound wooden butter- 

 plates, such as grccerymen retail butter in, for 

 which we pay 23 cents per 100. In these we lay a 

 sheet of thin writing-paper. Bring the honey into 

 a warm room some time before cutting, and cut it 

 up with a sharp and v<ny warm knife into different- 

 sized pieces, then weigh and mark the price on 

 each one. This honey looks well, and retails readi- 

 ly at the groceries at the price of honey in sections, 

 and will pay the bill there while it lasts. In this 

 way we dispose of all the nice new drone comb 

 built in extracting-frames. We don't like to use 

 drone combs for extracting from, because bees wilt 

 not fill them as readily as worker comb. 



Barry, 111., Jan. 17. Mrs. M. A. Shepherd. 



Thanks, Mrs. S. We have sold chunk 

 honey in the way you describe. A short 

 time ago we received a consignment of 2000 

 pounds of comb honey. The shipper was 

 so careless as to put the sections in cross- 

 wise of the car. As the honey came by 

 freight, every time that car was bunted on. 

 to by the engine or other cars, it knocked 

 some conib.s out of the sections, if these- 

 sections liad been placed lengthwise of the 

 car, the concussions would have had little- 

 or no effect, as will be readily seen. Well,, 

 when the honey reached us, almost every 

 case was daubed and leaking ; and while 

 some cases had no sections broken, the ma- 

 jority bad several. In some instances the 

 cakes of honey were lying on their sides. 

 What sections were not broken weie liter- 

 ally besmeared. We brought the honey 

 into our wax-room, had the girls wipe off each 

 whole section with a moist rag, wash out the 

 cases, and return what sections were unbro- 

 ken. The broken combs, we put into wood- 



