1;^;- 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



13ft 



.Kl'©)p igtei*-i-i® JE'Lti.® ® 11 a!^>a.'^S i»^«) 



■?vJ^jf^/?K have Increased from seven to thirteen, and 

 WW taken oil" 'tOO lbs. box honey ami about 40 lbs. 

 \l''Jj IVamc. Our best stock s^ive U)^>}i lbs. Wv 



f-liali pack thcdi in straw the last ol' November or in 



Deccmlior, and not open Uieni until the last of March. 



Will some ojie wlio is constantly experimenting, please 



trv the straw-' It is clieap ami eap.\ . 



Wm. It. Kduaiu'S, .Skaneateles, X. J. 



I am a bepinn«i-. Started last spring with five 

 stands and increased to nineteen. Have taken 700 

 lbs. ol'lioncv, nearly all in small caps. 



li. .\. Calvi.n, Ean Clair, Mich., Sept. 3Cth, '75. 



REPI.V TO JAMES SIEDUON. 



•^ r,;)EKMIT me to give on these pages my report for 

 jjr* (hi^ seaso^n, at the ■same time to try to say some- 

 t— ?j thing- to console our much bereaved frierid 

 James lleddon; begginjj his pardon however, and as- 

 suring I'riend II. that we only wish to get at facts in a 

 friendly way. Now fncnd "il., I have six thousand 

 <!ollars invested in farm i)roperty, 80 acres, the soil 

 gravelly loam . onve timbered with sugar maple, bass- 

 wooil and elm ))rincipally- It is in a goofl state of 

 <-ultivalion and I try to "make it i)ay all I can in a 

 money point of view "without impoverishing tlie soil. 

 1 might also add, I am a farmer's son, have taken the 

 Am. Agricnllurisi for j'cars, am 35 years old, and 

 weigh 175 'bs. Am hale and strong, yet withal I tind 

 farming a very slow way of making money. The pi-o- 

 <'.eeds from this fann for the past three years will not 

 junount to 8100.0(J annually alter paying hired help, 

 taxes, wititering stock, etc. 



Now, for bees and bee culture I will take this sea- 

 son, it having been the poorest of all since 1 have been 

 in the bee business. I sold 5 stocks in the spring at 

 $18.00 each, leaving me 75 to begin the season with ; 

 itrom these I have increased to 175, have sold ".'S stocks 

 at glo.OO each, leaving me 150 stronger stocks than I 

 ■over before had ready for winter quarters. Have ta- 

 ken StiOO lbs. of extracte<l houev, 17 barrels or a little 

 less than (iOOO lbs. of whicdi, 1 sold to Mr. Chas. F. 

 Muth of Cincinnati, at 10 cts. per lb. Balance of ex- 

 n-acted sold at home by the jar, jug and pailful. Have 

 also sold 700 lbs. of comb honey in frames at 25 cts. per 

 lb., and I have yet on hand about -JOOO lbs. of uutin- 

 sshed comb hoiiey which 1 am selling at 20 cts. per lb. 



I have a letter llefore me received from friend Hed- 

 <lon, in which he says, when Mr. Bingham succeeded 

 in wintering his bees two years ago, about GO in num- 

 l>er, he got ^louo.oo worth of hon(!y, all box ; now does 

 Mr. H. know this? I presume be does or he would 

 never have written it. This theory being true, only 

 think ! of having S-2,000.00 buried up in this precarious 

 j'ursnit. Indeeil, Irieud H. 1 like to hear men grum- 

 ble, but you suit me too well, t sliall withhold my 

 grumbling until I see how well I can do with 100"0 

 .swarms, if perchance I winter 'em. 



H. M. IJoOf, Carson City, Mich., Oct. 5th '75. 



HOrSE APIAUIES. 



BEAR NOVICE :— I desire for my Apiary the se- 

 verest criticism, and the most thorough practic- 

 al tests, but it is desirable that they should be 



made in .(/««? /«?7/(, and with a view to the improve- 

 ment of our "profession." 



The "cxiiensive ventilators" spoken of, if made of 

 wood. woul<! not cost more than two or three dollars, 

 and the jiainted entrances not to exceed lifty cents. 

 IMore expensive ones could be used, but thev would 

 l)e no better except for the looks. The house itself 

 may be built of any form or dimensions, and any style 

 ol hive can be useU in it, though I prefer the close- 

 litting frame witliont box, or the bimplicity with 

 some modjiications. For common use and particular- 

 ly for bo.x honey, the form of the building should be 

 rectangulai-, that form is more convenient, aiid very 

 iimcli cheaper than the octagon. When the extractor 

 is to be used, and one chooses to add the extra ex- 

 pense, the rectangle and hexagon combined is most 

 desirable. 



A house 9x15 feet will accomodate fifty hives, and 

 give ample space for eighty 1}< lb. surplus frames to 

 each hive, and for handling the hives -to advantage. 

 Such a house, built according to my plans, will cost at 

 least a third less than a building of the same dimen- 

 sions built the usual way, and less than fifty good 

 out-door hives. 



As to my claims in the A. B. J.,]^c'mg''^niuch loo 



.s?ro«(/," 1 can only say that the matter is in the hands 

 of the bee-keepers of the (Mnmtry, and i i^ave no doubt 

 thcj- will decide it iirojjerly. 



It its claims are sustained— as I have ni> doubt they 

 will be- it will work an entire revolution in Iwe cul- 

 ture, and save inillitnis of dollars every year, that are 

 now \vasted ; ami will also open up an avenue of 

 healthlul and remunerative employment to the ladies. 

 J. fS. CoK, Montclair, N. J., Oct. 12th, '75. 



On the 5th of Oct., I visited Mr. Coe at Montclair, 

 and saw Ids bee house. After reluming home, 1 saw 

 the article in <;i.EAN/N<i,s, on jiage l.'U, saying I ha<l 

 never seen his house, et(% I saw "nothing about his 

 house, that would leail me to suj/pose that bees would 

 sting less, than in Faulkner's house. When you and 

 Mr. Coe have made as many tons of box honey in 

 the house apiary as 1 have, we will hear nothing more 

 about l>ees not stinging in the bee house. 



J. P. MOOKK, Binghampton, N. Y. 



Late in the season— about the middle of August— J 

 bought two of Faulkaer's patent bee houses, one con- 

 taining 14 stands of Italian bees, the other 15 stands of 

 same— they had gathere<l no honey tliis season, and 

 had not been /ci up to that time, and were conse- 

 quently not in a very good condition. I was totally 

 inexperienced, never having had any thing to do with 

 beva, but commenced feeding them right away, first 1 

 fed syrup made from cofl'ee sugar, but they did not 

 lay up any honev, so I bought some buckwheat honey 

 and am now feeding that. "But my inexperience I lear 

 will cause me to make some errors that will cost me 

 my whole stock. What would vou advise in niv case? 

 J, A. SMITH, Hal-twell, O., Oct. lOth, '75. 



We would much prefer sugar syrup to your 

 buckwheat honey. See page 69, this same 

 item from friend Prentice will do for those 

 who are so much in favor of the straw packing. 

 They had buckwheat houey. Friend S. we 

 would like to know about those house Apia- 

 ries ))efore they came into your hands ; havi; 

 they ever been a success? It in very injudi- 

 cious for beginners to invest in expensive pat- 

 ented fixtures. 



I am in doubt about cutting a hole in the quilts ami 

 putting in wool. In working that bee house don't 

 forget the small folks who have from one to a dozen 

 hives. 1 winter in the cellar. 



Hannah W. Williams, Springville, la., Oct. G, '75. 



Send me if you please a little fuller description of 

 "house Ai]iary." 1 like the plan and want to put up 

 one like it. Do you make tiie fioor doubled how do 

 you make air spaces in outside wall? How large 

 should the ventilator be, from cellar, and aljove 

 through roof? Do you have any ventilator from out- 

 side into cellar ? 



J. S. NoiiLE, Akron, O., Oct. ISth, '75. 



We would again earnestly advise that our 

 friends be not hasty in deciding on house Api- 

 aries; canyon not wait until we have given 

 it a test for a whole year? 



Floor IS not double, for we hav(; a very close 

 cellar under it ; we do not have twiy ventila- 

 tion from the cellar, chiefly because our soil is 

 clay, and damp in cold weather; in fact we 

 have no vcntihitors more than the >% entrance 

 holes, and we are xitvy mucli inclined to think 

 none else are needed. The.se entrances will be 

 closed with wool or woolen cloth in very cold 

 weather. Air spaces in the wtillsare made by 

 separating the paper with strips of board — 

 lath will do — thus making three dead air si)a- 

 ces. Each coating of i)aper vre made as nearly 

 airtight as we could, iwesuniing that if the 

 frost gets through the first two coatings it will 

 rarely get through the third, and never, we 

 hope, through the fourth^ During a recent 

 freeze many bees were killed by getting too far 

 from the cluster in our out-door hives, but noth- 

 ing of the kind luis taken place in the house, 

 and this one item, during spring and fall, will, 

 we think, prove a great gain. 



