408 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Oct. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



^_. I. ROOT, 

 EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, 



MEDINA, OHIO. 



TERMS: $1.00 PER YEAR, POST-PAID. 



i^EXDnxrA., oct. i 3 ist'0- 



And now I say unto you, Kef rain from these men, 

 and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work 

 be of men, it will come to nought: 

 !r But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest 

 haply ye be found even to tight against God.— Acts 

 v. 38, 39. 



Friend Alley says, in his circular, he does not 

 hire "boys and girls" to raise his queens, but that he 

 does it all himself. Now, friend A., was it not a 

 little naughty of you to speak in that way, and then 

 say what you did about Gleanings? Our boys and 

 girls have been shipping the queens for the last few 

 months, the very day the order was received, which 

 you could not possibly do, all alone by yourself. 

 Some of our readers know how far you are behind, 

 and one of them says he sent you $9.00 last March, 

 and has not got "ary" queen yet. We keep telling 

 them to be patient, for you are cei-tainly all right, 

 but seriously, friend A., are there not some bright, 

 smart boys and girls in old Massachusetts, that 

 could help you, and themselves too, and save your 

 reputation for promptness? 



A year or two ago, I sent B. B. Barnum, of Louis- 

 ville, Ky., a little over $50.00 worth of comb fdn., he 

 promising to pay on receipt of the goods. After 

 some excuses for not so doing, he finally, in a very 

 unconcerned manner, informed us on a postal, that 

 he had become bankrupt. After trying to investi- 

 gate, I found he owed many bills of the same kind. 

 When importuned, he finally said he had property 

 enough to pay it all, but he seemed neither then nor 



since inclined to have any solicitude in regard to 

 whether his customers got any pay or not. He has 

 since gone into business again, and I did finally re- 

 ceive his advertisement. Well, letters have lately 

 been coming in asking if they should send this same 

 Barnum honey on commission. I would, under no 

 circumstances, entrust him with a pound of honey, 

 and I am not sure that he should not have been put 

 among Humbugs and Swindles long ago. We have 

 complaints that he has never settled for honey sent 

 him on commission years ago. 



There are a few friends who prefer the old style, 

 hot blast, Simplicity smokers. E. B. Plunket, At- 

 lanta, Ga., and J. H. Nellis, Canajoharie, N. Y., have 

 a few of the old ones left. 



A bee often alights on a person .lust as it would 

 on a fence or a tree, and if let alone it will fly away 

 in a few seconds, and not once in a thousand times 

 will it sting. It is only in the vicinity of their hive 

 that bees sting intentionally.— Cincinnati Grange 

 Bulletin. 



After a great many experiments in shipping 

 queens to the most distant points, we have pretty 

 well demonstrated that a section box with, at least, 

 a part of the honey sealed is the safest arrangement. 

 We also often keep a hundred or more queens caged 

 in the office, ready to fill orders at short notice, and 

 we find by far the least number of dead bees in this 

 kind of a package, although we have tried a full 

 sized section with sugar candy, and large bottles of 

 water. The honey is more apt to get broken down 

 in transit, it is true; but, by having it stored in old, 

 tough combs, we make a sure thing of it, especially, 

 if the cage is kept right side up. To insure this, we 

 now put a little leather handle on it, as suggested 

 on page 402. We will give friend F. $1.00 for the 

 idea, besides our thanks. 



CAGING QUEENS ON HATCHING BROOD, CAGING 

 QUEEN CELLS, ETC. 



There seem to be certain things in bee culture 

 that revive about once in so many years, and each 

 one who works out the idea seems to consider him- 

 self a new discoverer. Many times, months of hard 

 brain work and expensive experiments would have 

 been saved, had the individual known what others 

 had done in the same line before him. One of these 

 is surrounding a comb of hatching brood with wire 

 cloth, and introducing a queen by putting her on it, 

 while it is hung in the hive. A modification of the 

 same idea is to cover a portion of the hatching- brood 

 with a cage containing the queen. All of these plans 

 are a great deal of trouble, and the queen is little, if 

 any, more sure of being received when released in 

 the whole colony, than when let out of a cage in the 

 ordinary way. Pushing a cage into a comb destroys 

 a great deal of brood, and the bees usually go to 

 work and dig it out, as they will any foreign body; 

 the queen, therefore, is never safely caged, unless a 

 wire cloth cap is put on both sides of the comb, and 

 the two pressed together until the edges of the wire 

 cloth meet. A full account of my experiments and 

 successes in this matter, as well as in caging queen 

 cells, &c, was given in the A. B. J., about 10 years 

 ago. In the directions I have given you for intro- 

 ducing, these things have been carefully considered. 



The following from the Farmers' Magazine is a 

 little extravagant, I fear, but still there is a world 

 of truth in it. 



Household Miseries.— My entire household, in- 

 cluding the hired girl, is full of satisfaction over the 

 fact that 1 have just driven the axe handle into the 

 axe and wedged it there, so that it can't under any 

 circumstances come out. 



It may read like a small matter to you, but do you 

 know that that helve had been loose for nearly five 

 years. Yes, for five years that axe has flung itself 

 across the yard whenever I struck a heavy blow, 

 leaving the helve in my hand, and I suppose I have 

 decided more than a thousand times to go in and get 

 a hammer and chisel and fasten the helve in. I was 

 thrown down and had my arm broken by the axe 

 flying off, two girls had their noses broken, we 

 spoiled the stove boiler, nearly killed three boys, 

 and yet I didn't get around to fix the axe until to- 

 day. 



Foster was telling me the other day that he had 

 finally glued the knob on the bureau drawer, and he 

 seemed greatly relieved. I remember when that 

 knob was knocked off— almost seven years ago. I 

 was helping him move Ihe bureau when the acci- 

 dent occurred, and I never was in the house after- 

 wards without hearing Mrs. Foster say: 



"Come, Henry, haven't you got time to fix that 

 knob on this evening?" 



"Yes, Martha," he would reply, and yet it was sev- 

 en years before he got to it. 



Header, is there an axe loose in the handle, or a 

 knob pulled off, about your premises? If so, fix it 

 this minute, and then be happy. I wonder if spring 

 dwindling among the bees is not the result of just 

 such— shiftlessnezs. Up and be doing, this minute. 



