GLExVXINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



distances apart in the hive, but we who handle hun- 

 dreds of frames in a day, would think them quite a 

 bother. Mrs. Davis is somewhat apprehensive in 

 regard to the increase of the apiary; she reasons 

 that if she gets stung once a day from a dozen 

 hives, she will average 8 or 10 stings per day from a 

 hundred swarms. 



Upon our return from Middletown, we made a 

 short halt in Springfield, Mass., and found the hon- 

 ey market about the same as in other quarters. All 

 dealers complain of dull sales, in this line of their 

 business. We were impressed with the variety of 

 prices at which honey was sold; but upon inquiring 

 about butter, we found as much of a variety in 

 that. Though that is a standard article, we found 

 it ranging all the way from 18 and 20 cts., at our 

 home, to 25 and 36 cts., in Conn. At all points, a 

 nice article, put up in good shape, commanded the 

 best price, and there will be but little white honey, 

 in single comb3, kept over until spring. 



It seems the Geow brothers have made a fortune 

 in the honey trade in the N. E. states, and the field 

 is still open for enterprising and honest dealers to 

 work up a splendid honey trade in those states. 

 Connecticut has not, as yet, developed such honey 

 resources as York State, and they do not raise 

 enough for the home demand, Grocerymen say 

 that if thev could only sell as much honey as they 

 did a few years ago, when times were flush, they 

 would purchase quantities of honey. Where hund- 

 reds of pounds were then sold to employees in 

 manufacturies, now but a few pounds are sold. 

 Still, our honey production is greater than ever, 

 and it goes somewhere; it must be spread oat thin- 

 ner, and goes over a greater territory. Should 

 flush times come again and to stay, as some de- 

 clare, our honey trade would spring up again into 

 still greater proportions. . 



Upon our return to Troy, we found our friends 

 talking of a man named Duffy, who shipped several 

 thousand lbs. of comb honey to N. Y., by boat, and 

 accompanied it; but after a day's trial to sell it, he 

 got disgusted and returned it all to Troy, and could 

 not sell it at anv price. T did not learn the style of 

 packoge. Will Mr. Duffy rise and explain as to the 

 truth of the reports about him? 



Excuse the length of this epistle. It leaves us at 

 home again, trving to profit from our excursion. 



Hartford, N. Y., Dec. 3d, '78. J. H. Martin. 



well, but not so well as yours, nor is it quite so 

 handy. These hives, nicely painted, not counting 

 mv labor, will cost me less than a dollar apiece. 

 While I am here, I must show you a picture of the 



^ ib » a» 



A COUNTRY PARSON'S BEE-KEEPINU. 



4pfl| OOD morning, friend Root. I thought I would 

 v k«?J dr °P in and P a y m ? subscription to Glean- ' 

 ^JT ings for another vear. 1 find it so valuable 

 I can't think of doing without it. And, by the way. 

 [ will also add that during the year, I bought an 

 Emerson binder, and now I could scarcely be in- 

 duced to do without it. I have a thin board, size 

 O'txe 1 .; inches, and as soon as I receive a number, I 

 trim it neatly to these dimensions, and having 

 placed it in the binder, I "can sit down, happy," 

 with no thought of getting the number soiled, torn, 

 or lost. By the way, friend Root, that advertise- 

 ment needs "reconstruction"; you can't put 4 years 

 of Gleanings (latest vols.) in one of those binders 

 at once. You see Gleanings has outgrown its 

 "baby clothes", and of course feels bigger now than 

 formerly; 338 pages last year, 424 this. That looks 

 healthy. Glad to see it, I'm sure. 



I havn't received my imported queen yet, because, 

 you see, I havn't ordered her. Money has been so 

 close, and you tell us not to go in debt, winch is 

 very srood advice, certainly, and accords with high- 

 er authority, which says "Owe no man anv thing" 

 (Rom. 13, 8,); but I must confess, it is rather hard 

 to wait when there is more than twenty times the 

 amount needed cominsr to us, and has been due sev- 

 eral months. Butit willcome and so will the queen; 

 and so, I bide my time. 



At spare moments, I have been making some 

 chaff hives, a la Clark, "with variations," and I 

 don't feel ashamed of them either. 1 have made 

 them two stories high and of nice planed pine 

 boards. The corners I made of ^ lumber, cutting 

 pieces of the proper length, %M by l'j respectively, 

 and nailed them to look very similar to the corners 

 made a la Root, which I couldn't make if I'd try, be- 

 cause I havn't the machinery. The roof, I make of 

 clean pine boards, % in. thick, and extending over 

 1% inches. Around and under this extension, I 

 nail strips 1 in. thick by 1U wide, cutting places to 

 fit the corners. It makes a good roof and looks very 



SIMPLICITY COMB HOLDER. 



It answers the purpose nicely, is very easy to 

 make, and costs almost nothing. When I finished 

 the invention, T imagined friend Root saying, "Well 

 now, that holder can be made and finished for about 

 10 cents, perhaps 94, and the work ought to be well 

 done at that price." 



HOW TO MAKE IT. 



Take a piece of '„ lumber, size 20x94 inches; also 

 cut two pieces, 9 I .x2 l >, and U inches thick; saw a 

 rabbet 4x% inches, in one end of each, in which 

 tack a tin rabbet k in. high: nail these ends to the 

 sideboard; also nail on a thin bottom board 20x-"r 

 inches; then fasten on two pieces of hoop iron and 

 bend to hang on the Simplicity hive; finish by giv- 

 ing it a good coat of paint, and you have one of the 

 cheapest and handiest things about the apiary. Al- 

 low me also to add that now is the time to make this 

 article to have it ready when wanted. 



Don't you think friend Williams got his SauliDs a 

 little mixed in Nov. Gleanings? 



Now. friend Root, whenever you go out "rusticat- 

 ing," I would be glad to have you stop with the 

 Country Parson. Will treat you the best welknow 

 how. Good day. L. S. Jones. 



New Philadelphia, Ohio, Dec. 5, 18*78. 



I stand convicted about the binders, and 

 Saul of Tarsus too, friend J. 



DEPOSITORY OF 



Or Letters from Those Who Have Made 

 Ree Culture a Failure. 



Su HAD 30 stands of common bees transferred to 

 Langstroth hive, the last of May, and have lost 

 _ !) half of them. The job was badly done. Many 

 of them were evidently without queens or brood. 

 Only yesterday, it being warm, one small colony 

 left its hive and went into another. On examina- 

 tion, I found honey, some capped over, but. no 

 brood or eggs, and there never hns been any, which 

 proves that they are the same bees put into the 

 hive 6 months before; rather contrary to what I 

 was told as a fact, that the life of a worker bee is 

 about 45 days. I hope to be better informed. 

 Shelby Co., Tenn., Dec. 12, '78. A. Donelson. 



Now, friend D.. it rather reflects on you, 

 as a bee-keeper, if you allowed a colony to 

 stand 6 months, without even discovering 

 that they had no queen, eggs, or brood. I 

 should expect we would all go into Blasted 

 Hopes, pretty speedily, if we did it in that 

 way. The transferring was certainly very 

 badly done, if you lost even one out of 'SO 

 transferred in May. I think, my friend, you 

 arc hasty in saying the books teach that 

 worker bees live only 45 days. Do they not 

 say about 4-3 days on "an average, during the 

 working season? The brood in the hive 

 would not all hatch under 21 days, and the 

 bees, being without a queen, would not 

 work as they usually do. During the win- 

 ter time, bees live on an average nearly <> 

 months, and the bees in your queenless 

 I hives would perhaps live nearly as long. 



