138 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 



GLEANINGS IJMJEE CULTURE. 



.A__ I. ROOT, 

 EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, 



MEDINA, OHIO. 



terms: $1.00 per year, post-paid. 



MEIDIIT-A., -A.IPie,- 1, 1879. 



I am the light of the world: he that followeth me 

 shall Hot walk in darkness, but shall have the light 

 of life. John 8: 12. 



There are 62 of us now at work, little boys and all. 



ABC part IV is all in type, and it will be put 

 right on the press as soon as this number is out. 

 • — «■ — • 



Thf Western Honey Bee is the title of a new jour- 

 nal published at Lebanon, Mo. If I am correct, 

 sample copies are mailed free of charge. 



The Bee Keepers' Exchange, for Jan., is at hand, 

 and is a lively and valuable contribution to our 

 ranks. The other Nos. are to follow shortly; so 

 f riend Nellis says. It is an inconvenient and trying 

 thing, friend N., we know by experience, to be so 

 much behind, especially, when first commencing. 

 You have our sympathy. 



It is hard to tell old subscribers that they cannot 

 have Jan. and Feb. Nos. for less than 20c. apiece, 

 simply because they were a little behind in renew- 

 ing, but as I cannot foresee these unusual demands, 

 how can 1 help it? The journal you are reading this 

 minute, that cost you 8c. or less, I may offer you 20c. 

 for, a month or two hence, after yon have read it ami 

 had the full use of it. 



1 am in receipt of a pleasant letter from the au- 

 thor of "Blessed Bees," regretting that any one 

 should have taken the book to be a narration of 

 facts, and promising to have my criticism, in the 

 March No., sent out with every book. I regret that 

 he has not thought proper to give in a brief, con- 

 densed form, the exact truth of what he has suc- 

 ceeded in doing with bees pecuniarily. 



It has been suggested that grape sugar killed my 

 bees, but, as I told you last fall, I had fed the col- 

 onies containing imported queens, profusely with 

 it, to start the queens to laying, and these have 

 lived, while others have died. Again; bees pur- 

 chased late in the season in box hives, have died 

 with dysentery badly, and they did not have a par- 

 ticle of grape sugar. 



The demand for the cold blast smokers seems as- 

 tonishing. Although a room full of hands are work- 

 ing on them constantly, we have hardly been able 

 to keep up with the demand. 



As every room in our large building is occupied, 

 it looks now almost as if we should have to build 

 another in which to make smokers. There is a 

 steady stream of orders for dozens and half dozens, 

 from those who have bought samples. 



About the middle of Feb., Mr. J. Y. Detweiler, of 

 Toledo, O., paid us a visit, bringing some sheets of 

 tin foil. These were dipped in wax, and rolled in 

 fdn., which, he now assures us, is a perfect success. 

 I have no doubt but that beos will build combs on 



this, but I do not quite like the idea of metal at the 

 bottoms of the cells, and the extra weight it gives. 

 It is, of course, proof against sagging. I shall have 

 to caution those having mills against such experi- 

 ments, for it will spoil or injure rails of any softer 

 metal than copper. 



— »« >■ — 



Mr. A. G. Hill, of Kendallville, Ind., made us a 

 pleasant visit a few days ago. Friend Hill has a bee- 

 hive factory, but he only makes one kind of hive, 

 and makes that only set up and painted. It would 

 be a very pleasant thing, to run a shop in that way, 

 and I think we might make the one kive very cheap. 

 Friend Hill has a patent on the farmer's honey box 

 I illustrated last month and so I have decided not 

 to make them. The patent is only on the idea of 

 separating the box into sections. He has a patent 

 on his hive also, but is very frank in saying he 

 would have been better off, had he never had any- 

 thing to do with patents. 



foundation starters for comb honey. 

 A feav days ago, I found a thick hard piece of fdn. 

 in some comb honey on the table. I cut off the 

 honey, washed the fdn., and found that it was some 

 of our thinnest drone fdn., and the bottoms of the 

 cells, were thinned down as thin as where there was 

 no fdn. at all. The wax that made it cut hard was 

 in the walls, which were nearly, if not quite, of their 

 original thickness and color. The bees, in this case, 

 had only attached the honey to it, and left the walls 

 •without drawing them up. The section was one of 

 a lot that were filled by feeding clover honey in Oct. ; 

 the weather was so cool that they evidently had been 

 unable to work the wax. To guard against the pos- 

 sibility of such work, we are making both the bases 

 and walls very light; fdn. for brood combs must of 

 course be heavier. 



A great many are going into the business of fur- 

 nishing bee-keepers' supplies, and while I am glad to 

 see it and am willing to extend a helping hand, I am 

 really afraid some of us will get into trouble. Prices 

 have been cut down until I find it next to impossi- 

 ble to give a discount further than that given on 

 our price list. These hive-making establishments 

 are an excellent thing, to furnish supplies for a 

 neighboi-hood, and thus save expensive freights, be- 

 sides giving the masses of people the beneiit of low 

 prices. Let ua be civil and pleasant even if others 

 do agree to work for less pay than we can affoi-d to. 

 We cannot all of us agree to sell lower than anybody 

 else, and so I think it will be well to stop before we 

 get down to a price that is ruinous. We do not 

 want to see other's in the same line of business with 

 ourselves get into trouble; do we, boys? 



Weaving wires in a frame, to support the fdn. 

 (as given in Oct. No.) can be done rapidly and at a 

 small expense. Fdn. can also be pressed onto the 

 wires with but little trouble, but on one side of the 

 finished comb, there will occasionally be found im- 

 perfect cells over the wires. If we had a pair of 

 plates as large as the inside of the frame, we could 

 imbed the wires with but little trouble. Mr. Wash- 

 burn and I talked the matter over several months 

 ago, and decided to make some experiments in due 

 time. I see, by the April A. B. J, that Mr. D. S. 

 Given, Hoopeston, Ills., hat put the idea in practice, 

 and I really hope he may make it a success. 



If I am not mistaken, he will require a very pow- 

 erful press, to work a pair of dies the size of a 

 frame, and even then, I fear will use so much wax, 

 that his sheets will be rather expensive. Sewing 

 the wires through the frame, I very much prefer to 

 Hetherington's plan of putting in the fdn. with glue. 



