84 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Mar. 



very much. I cross the St. Joseph rivsr in a little 

 canoe, every Sabbath, walk 2 miles, superintend a 

 Sabbath school, walk back, and cross home again, 

 very tired. May the Good Master bless you in the 

 good work, and' when you are called to cross, the 

 deep, dark river, may his angles bear you company. 



Wm. L. Kino. 

 St. Joseph, Micb., May 14, 1878. 



Thanks, my friend. Your hoop iron, 

 spring hook, on the end of the frame, -is not 

 exactly new. The objection to it is, liabili- 

 ty to kill bees, and to be clogged with propo- 

 lis. Your fertile queen's going out doors is 

 certainly something new. It seems that, af- 

 ter all, fertile queens do, at least sometimes, \ 

 leave the hive. Who can tell us more about i 

 this? 



AUSTRALIA. 



WATER FOR BEES DURING SHIPMEMT. 



fi MUST now tell you of another failure; 10 small 

 boxes, each containing- an Italian queen, were 

 tss sent from the apiary of Fiorini, of Venice; they 

 arrived here on the 14th of May, all dead. There is 

 another consignment due here to-day, but it has 

 not yet arrived. I am doubtful about their safety. 

 With regard to water, I have sent upwards of a 

 thousand colonies away during the last 7 years, and 

 never lost a single stock. Water is no new thing 

 with me; I have used it for more than 7 years, and 

 have never sent a colony away without it. Some of 

 my bees have made a journey of 3 mos. and 20 days, 

 traveling on bullock drays, and in the broiling sun, 

 (How is that for high, Novice?) and arrived safe and 

 sound, at the station. 



More than 2 years ago, I mentioned water to you, 

 when describing the hive I would like to have sent 

 from America. These are something like the words 

 I used: "Send me plenty of bees, plenty of stores, 

 and plenty of water." 



Now, if this next lot of Italians don't arrive safe, 

 you had better try your hand. You will not lose 

 much by the affair (depend upon it), if it proves a 

 success. So now, Novice, I must wind up, by telling 

 you that my stock only numbers 11 colonies, and 

 that I am going back to the good old Langstroth 

 frame (there is none other), and I will hang it in the 

 chaff Simplicity. By the way, I hope you will do all 

 you can for the safety of my goods; the lawn bee 

 hive will be quite a novelty here. S. Carroll,. 



Milton, Brisbane, Queensland, Aus., Nov. 7, 1878. 



I certainly will try my hand, friend Car- 

 roll, if you fail in your next shipment, and 

 if the bees die on the way, they will cost you 

 nothing. It seems hard enough to pay these 

 expensive shipping charges when your bees 

 come through alive, and to have the whole 

 shipment dead, is awful. 



I think of you often, friend Carroll, in your 

 far away home, and if you do have trials and 

 disappointments, we sympathize with you, 

 even if we do not do much to help you. 



point, but sometimes, it looks much as if such was 

 the case.] 



Oh! oh! oh! don't stop your paper! Keep my 

 name on your books, as I will send you money soon. 

 I can't get along without your paper, and as long as 

 I can get 10 cts. per day, I will try and pav you for it. 



W. W. Rowley. 



Eau Galle, Wis., Jan. 17th, 1879. 



[Can't break over our rules, my friend, even if it 

 is a killing matter, but I will tell you what I will do; 

 I will send you the Jan. No. free, and before Feb., 

 you can certainly scrape up 25c. It does me much 

 good, to know you really want it.] 



Oh! Oh! Oh! I was too happily disappointed to re- 

 ceive Gleanings! I rlid not expect you would be 

 so foolish as to trust these bee men. Now, I have 

 just got the $ 1.00, so I will send it to you with this; 

 but a little advice won't come amiss will it? Don't 

 do so again; as you may lose it next time. 



Feb. 2, 1879. W. W. Kowley. 



$&$§ and faumM. 



?' HAVE lost one swarm of bees this winter. They 

 died wil h plenty of honey in the hive. What 

 wis the matter? W. W. Templeton. 



Hunt-ville, O., Jan. 30, 1S79. 



[I cann t tell, from so brief a statement of the 

 f '<ts, but if I could see the hive, I think I could de- 

 cide. It may have been too few bees, with too little 

 protection; their stores may have been of such a 

 nature that it caused dysentery; there may have 

 been so little upward ventilation, with exposure to 

 the frost, that the moisture condensing about the 

 cluster diluted their honey and caused dysentery, 

 or they may have had a disease that caused them to 

 die, when all the conditions were, so far as we could 

 see, all right. Whether there be such a disease as I 

 have last mentioned or no, is quite an unsettled 



As you have used fdn. freely the past season for 

 box honey, I would like to ask the following ques- 

 tions:— Do you think by using it, that as much hon- 

 ey can be obtained as with the ext'r., when wo ex- 

 tract only from combs entirely capped over? \\ 

 should say that, even with the aid of fdn., we could 

 get nearly twice the amount of honey with the ex- 

 tractor.] 



Considering the cost of fdn. in boxes, how much 

 more should we charge for comb honey than for ex- 

 tracted honey, in order to get back the outlay for 

 fdn.? [When extracted honey is 10c., comb honey, 

 in nice sections, should brina' about 20c] 



The work of fastening in fdn., compared to the la- 

 bor of extracting, is another item to be thought of. 

 How many sections, with fdn., can one hand put up 

 in the wide frames, all ready to hang in the hive, in 

 one day? [If I had the stuff for the sections, and 

 fdn., I think I could put them up, and furnish about 

 20 hives in a day.] 



In removing sections, do you wait until all are 

 ready, or do you remove a few as soon as capped 

 over? [Take off every section as soon as finished, 

 of course; this is the one great advantage of sec- 

 tions, that the honey can be kept pure and white, 

 and the bees at no time stopped, by taking too much 

 honey at one time.] 



If you remove as fast as capped, would it not be 

 better to wedge the frames in the center, turning 

 half of them in the opposite direction? You could 

 then get at the center frames, without disturbing 

 the others; I suppose they would be filled first. [I 

 do not think wedging up in the center would offer 

 any material advantage. After the wedges are re- 

 moved, any frame of sections can be taken out eas- 

 ily.] 



If you wait until all are ready to remove, would 

 not the bees lose time, and, not having work to do, 

 swarm? [Yes.] J. B. Colton. 



Waverly, Iowa, Jan. 22, 1879. 



Yesterday, I reviewed the stock that had your im- 

 ported queen. I found sealed brood on two frames, 

 and eggs on another! They have wintered admira- 

 bly in the chaff hive. L. L. Langstroth. 



Oxford, O., Jan. 29, 1879. 



We have 62 colonies in the cellar, and one on the 

 summer stand, in a chaff packed hive. Idon'tthink 

 20 bees have died in the latter, during this long con- 

 tinued cold weather. Yours for chaff packed hives, 



Columbus, Ind., Jan. 20, 1879. J. M. Brooks. 



Times are dull, and money scarce; honey worth 

 8 and 10c. here. David Bare. 



Hubbleton, Wis., Jan. 7, 1879. 



I lend my Gleanings to my neighbors to read, 

 and think I will get several more subscribers in a 

 few days, if the money panic does not visit their 

 pocketbooks too much. The last time I saw my 

 A B C, it looked as if chimney sweeps had turned 

 bee-keepers. I could not keep it at all, and the last 

 time I heard from it, it had gone toward the Unaka 

 Mts., in North Carolina. 



A great many persons are becoming interested in 

 bees in this country. The last honey season was on- 

 ly a moderate one. The peach crop was abundant, 

 and they put in their time, eating peaches. 



M. A. Huffaker. 



Riverdale, Tenn., Dec. 31, 1878. 



