292 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



ALABAMA AND ITS HONEY-PBODUCINQ-PLANTS, ETC. 



Some of tbe friends who read Gleanings wish to 

 hear from a point further south than Tennessee. 

 We have 130 colonies of Italian bees on the summer 

 stands. We increased them in 1889 to 14 colonies, 

 and secured 50 lbs. per colony, mostly extracted. 

 The bees are bringing- in big loads of nectar from 

 various flora, but the principal source is titi bloom. 

 Titi is an evergreen. It blooms when 4 to .5 feet 

 high, but grows to a height of 20 feet, and 60 per 

 cent of our honey was from it last year. The ex- 

 tracted honey sold at 10 cts. per lb.; comb in 1-lb. 

 sections, 15 cts. Bees have been on the wing nearly 

 every day this winter, if winter you may please to 

 call it. Only one morning, Nov. 18, 1889, my ther- 

 mometer registered 33°. Last year's foliage has not 

 all been cut from the peach, pear, plum, quince, 

 and apple trees. The apple-tree (one of them) has 

 young growth 8 inches long; the elder, ^5 inches; 

 strawberries and plums (Japan) are ripe. The 

 truckers are shipping garden vegetables north by 

 the carload. My beautiful roses are in bloom every 

 month in the year. Young bees are flying. I had 

 young drones flying on the 7th of January. I 

 should be glad to see some of the friends who suf- 

 fer with the cold and hunger out in Dakota down 

 here. I tried Northwestern Texas, t)ut the little 

 blizzards and dry spells were far from being agreea- 

 ble, and I came here. The climate and the good 

 people who live in Alabama are all right. 



Whistler, Ala., Feb. 14. A. M. Hoyle. 



HOW TO SELL BUTTER AND HONEY AT GOOD 

 PRICES. 



Friend Rout:— There is one thing I do not think 

 you can agitate too much; and that is, to educate 

 the producers of our couatry tosell their produce 

 to the consumers as much as possible themselves. 

 I think they will be surprised at what they will 

 learn and can do by having a good article that will 

 please their customers— that is, if they have the 

 Christian spirit, and love their neighbors as they 

 ought. 



Two years ago my wife and I were making gilt- 

 edge butter, but could get only 13 cents per pound 

 for it, at the store. We thought it did not pay to 

 make butter at that price, so I said to my wife, 

 " Why not take some samples and find some private 

 customers for our butter?" We did so, and secured 

 three who would take such butter as we were mak- 

 ing, and pay 15 cents per lb. for it. We took pains, 

 and made nice clean sweet butter, and salted it to 

 suit each one's taste. The result was, when winter 

 came we got 22 cents per lb., and we could not sup- 

 ply the demand at that. Now, this will apply to 

 honey, berries, and other produce. Have a good 

 article, put it up in a neat clean package, with 

 good weight or measure; and if you are pleasant 

 and accommodating, and try to please your custo- 

 mers, success is certain. I know this to be so, for I 

 have sold small fruit in our city of Columbus for 

 the past 13 years, as well as honey and vegetables, 

 and I can sell just as much now as at first. But 

 whoever goes to peddling must make up his mind to 

 work as hard or harder than if he were hoeing corn. 



Columbus, Wis., Mar. 10. R. B. Kidder. 



school children to come to our place and have a 

 honey picnic one Saturday afternoon. Thirty of 

 them came; and after playing at various games 

 until they were hungry they were invited to the 

 tables. The tables were set in a nice shady place 

 and were well supplied with bread, butter, cake, 

 honey (both comb and extracted), and milk for 

 them to drink. It was a very pretty sight to see 

 them enjoy their lunch as well as their play. There 

 is but one family among them that have honey to 

 eat at home. After playing an hour longer they 

 were each given a nice section of honey, put up in 

 paper cartons, with labels, to take home. We all 

 enjoyed this way of " raising" honey so much that 

 we have decided that the honey picnic shall be an 

 annual gathering as long as we have tair crops of 

 honey. A. C. Bugbee. 



Lochiel, Ind., Feb. 13. 



THE QUEEN. 



1 nave some beautiful lines written by our village 

 poet, a eulogy on the queen, written at my request 

 this winter, to help me out on a lecture or bee-talk 

 that I gave for the benefit of our Sunday-school. I 

 was so wrought up with the beauty and majesty of 

 the queen in writing about her that I could not ex- 

 press myself in terms as suitable as I thought she 

 deserved, so I called upon him to help me out, and 

 this is the way he has done it. T. O. Peet. 



Arlington, N. J., Mar. t!. 



The following is the poem : 



On a throne of gold —ay, purer far 



Than light of sun or moon or star, 



1 hold my reign, with royal sway. 



Over my subjects, day by day. 



My hive, a tiny, busy world. 



Where labor's flag is never furled. 



A lesson to the earth I teach, 



Perlect beyond all human speech. 



When spring, with all its luscious sweets, 



Ladens the air; when summer greets 



The earth with larges of delight. 



Then do I reign with glorious might, 



Queen of my own enchanted sphere. 



Ruling my subjects far and near. 



There are " woi-kers " in our busy land. 



And " drones." They're seen on every hand: 



But a lesson from the busy bee 



The outside world may learn from me: 



That in labor there is sweetest zest; 



That the fruits of toil are still the best. 



John Keynton. 



Pretty well done for your village poet, 

 friend P. I should have enjoyed being pres- 

 ent with the rest of your Sunday-school. 



A HONEY PICNIC. 



Rambler's way of raising honey reminds me of a 

 way by which we succeeded in raising about forty 

 pounds last September. We invited the Sunday- 



HOW WE FIX OUR L. HIVES TO MOVE THEM. 



In the spring of 1886 we moved 24 colonies in our 

 quadruple hives 8 miles, over some very rough 

 roads, on a lumber wagon, with no springs, and we 

 did not break a comb nor injure the bees in the 

 least. We use wooden frames made out of %x% 

 lumber, 8 frames to the hive. When the frames are 

 in the hive there is a % space above the frames at 

 the top edge of the hive. Now, to secure the frames 

 so they would not slide together we cut a piece of 

 frame stuff just long enough to go across the 



