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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



Pertaining to Bee Culture. 



[We respectfully solicit the aid of our friends in 

 conducting 1 this department, and would consider it a 

 favor to have them send us all circulars that have a 

 deceptive appearance. The greatest care will be at 

 all times maintained to prevent injustice being- done 

 any one.] 



IRfNCLOSED, y° u wil1 P lease flnd one of N - c - 

 •frlii Mitchell's cards. The postmaster handed it 

 s-^yJ tome. I thought he had been ventilated so 

 thoroughly in Gleanings that he had quit. 



Hugh Harris. 



Moundsville, W. Va., Mar. 15, 1879. 



Post Master:— If you will send us a postal card 

 with the names of bee-keepers who got t'aeir mail 

 at your office, we will send you a copy of the Bee 

 Keepers' Directory free. If you do not wish to com- 

 ply with our request, please hand this card to a bee- 

 keeper and oblige Yours truly, 



N. (J. Mitchell,. 



Indianapolis, Ind., Feb. 27, 1879. 



I give this to show how Mitchell gets hold 

 of bee-keepers to push his system of black 

 mailing, and to guard you against giving 

 him a cent of your money, or paying any at- 

 tention to his threats. 



The following excellent piece of advice for 

 ministers and other folks comes from our 

 energetic friend of the Prairie Farmer, Mrs. 

 Lucinda Harrison. 



another humbug. 



Silver Run, Ala., Feb. 17. 

 Mrs. L. H.; 



1 see your initials connected with bees, hence I 

 write you a few lines; hope you will take an inter- 

 est in and publish my note below in relation to bees, 

 and very much oblige a poor old preacher. 



Yours truly, J. G. Jenkins. 



By close observation and experience I have 

 learned how to prevent the moth or fly from inter- 

 rupting the bee hive. Any one sending me $5, or 

 handing this to an editor for publication, and lie 

 sending me a copy containing publication, I will in- 

 form, name and post office being plainly written. 



Well, well, my observing friend, you are behind 

 the times with your invention; for moths in bee 

 hives are out of date. Italian bees are in fashion, 

 and they are death to the "varmints;" a teacupful 

 of these bees in a hive will keep out the moth* from 

 the combs; and if combs containing worms are in- 

 serted in an Italian colony, these gentlemen are 

 rolled out on the double quick. 



You say you arc "a poor old preacher." You can- 

 not help being old, but if you are a preacher you 

 ought to be a good one, and if you sell your ideas on 

 religion as dearly as those about bees, you ought to 

 be rich. We are a liberal people in Illinois, and you 

 can't flnd a bee-keeper that will not rejoice at the 

 opportunity to show his hives and bee-traps, and 

 will tell you all he knows about bees, putting your 

 horse in the stable, and feeding you on "milk and 

 honey." If you are a Methodist preacher you would 

 get a "yellow legged chicken," to boot! -all free 

 gratis, with an invitation to call again, that the 

 "latch-string hangs out." Five dollars invested in 

 bee-books will let you into all 1 he secrets that are 

 behind the curtain. "Away down in Alabama" 

 wouldbe a good place for Mrs. Lizzie E. Cotton (I'm 

 happy to say that she is a man) to have her adver- 

 tisements circulated. She, or rather lie, doesn't sell 

 hives and bees, but bugs— bugs that hum. 



Peoria, 111. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



While I sincerely hope that the above may 

 strike home deeply, to ministers who are 

 lending themselves to the sale of patent hives 

 and receipts, I feel like begging for a little 

 charity for that very class. Ministers, like 

 editors, bee-keepers, and other folks, some- 



times allow themselves get into queer ways 

 of thinking, and could we know them inti- 

 mately, we might see, at once, that they are 

 more deserving of pity, than censure. While 

 the public good demands that they should be 

 shown up unsparingly, let us try to have a 

 broad charity for the erring. If, as is likely 

 the case, the man is no minister at all, the 

 case is quite a different one, reflecting not 

 on ministers but on those who pretend to be 

 ministers for the purpose of gain. 



f> AM only 16 years old, and yet I am "a bee-man." 

 Last fall, father bought and gave to me 2 "old 



gums;" we left them out in the cold all winter 

 without losing any. This spring he bought two 

 more which he also gave me. The first he gave 

 $2.00 apiece for; the last he gave 50 cts. for. We 

 have just finished transferring the last two into the 

 Langstroth hive, therefore, you see, we need fdn. 

 Now listen! the oilier night, while we were using 

 the smoker (Simplicity), the damper got stuck to 

 the bottom of the smoker. Now I think you ought 

 to make some kind of an improvement on it; such 

 as burning the damper and bottom of the smoker 

 well, before you put it together. I have no doubt 

 but that a good many of your readers have had a 

 like experience. Davtd S. Bethune. 



Snyder, Ashley Co., Ark., March 23, '79. 



Thank you, friend B. I think you will rind 

 no such trouble with the cold blast smokers. 

 I am glad to hear that you succeeded in 

 transferring. You are starting in the right 

 way, with a few colonies purchased cheaply 

 near home. It is your business now to build 

 them up so they will be worth $10.00 apiece, 

 instead of from 50 c. to a couple of dollars. 



GETTING Q VEENS TO LAY IN QUEEN 

 CELLS, ETC. 



WHEN I received my queen I put her in a nu- 

 cleus that had been queiuless about four 

 days. They had queen cells started and 

 some of them contained larvse. 1 didn't destroy the 

 cells but removed the larvae. A couple ( f days after, 

 1 opened ihe nucleus and found that she had com- 

 menced to lay and had deposited an egg in one of 

 ihe queen cells. 1 immediately cut 1 his cell out and 

 inserted it in another necleus, thinking that (-he 

 would deposit eggs in the rest of 1he queen cells, 

 but she would not do so. The idea then occurred to 

 me that it was because they had confined larvae. 

 So to test the matter I got some cells that contained 

 larva? and some that didn't, and inserted them inthe 

 nucleus. She very soon deposited egy in 1bose 

 that had not contained lar\a?, so I cut iliese c< lis 

 out and inserted them in other Ik xes to be matured, 

 and kept on inserting 'cells until I got enough. I 

 fed them liberally every night. Now maik the re- 

 sult of my operations: 1 obtained a lot of the nicest 

 queens, and 1 believe, as large ones as I ever saw. 

 They were uniform in size and color, being larger 

 and yellower than 1heir mother— the queen I bur- 

 chased of you. Now, a word about artificial queens. 

 Some think they are inferior to queens reared nat- 

 urally. I think that the method I have described is 

 natural with one exception, I could not get them 

 to build the cells, but I ennot see how this would 

 affect the matter any; if the eggs were laid in the 

 cells it would matter not what bees built them. My 

 experience does not prove to me that artificial 

 queens are inferior to natural ones, for more than 

 one-half the queens in my apiary are and have been 

 for 3 years artificial, and I can see no difference in 

 their prosperity. As good a queen as I have, was 

 reared from brood that I obtained several miles 

 away. She is but very little larger than a worker, 

 yet she is very prolific. Lekoy W. Vankihk. 



Washington, Pa. 



