1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



413 



Under this head, will be inserted free of charge, 

 the names of all those having- honey to sell, as well 

 as those wanting- to buy. Please mention how 

 much, what kind, and prices, as far as possible. The 

 prices quoted in our cities for honey are, at present, 

 too low, to make it worth while to publish them. 

 As a general thing, I would not advise you to send 

 your honey away, to be sold on commission. If 

 near home, where you can look after it, it is often 

 a very good way. By all means, develop your home 

 market. For 25cts., we can furnish little boards 

 to hang up in your door yard, with the words "Honey 

 for Sale" neatly painted. If wanted by mail, 10c. 

 extra for postage. Boards saying "Bees and Queens 

 for Sale," lame price. 



SHAVE one barrel of basswood and one barrel of 

 clover honey which I will sell for 8c. per ft>. here, 

 and throw the barrels in. Will send sample if 

 desired. K. M. Barbour. 



Alamo, Mich., Sept. 20, 1879. 



I have 6,000tt>. of light, extracted honey, put up in 

 barrels holding 25 gallons each. I will sell and de* 

 liver the same^at rail-road depot, or on board steam- 

 boat, at Shreveport, for To. per Tt>., or 75c. per gallon. 



C. C. MARTIN. 



Benton, Bossier Par., La., Sept. 24, 1879. 



GOOD FOR LOUISIANA. 



Will you please inform me whether Ihe prices you 

 give in Sept. Gleanings for extracted honey in 

 Cincinnati can really be had or not? If so, give me 

 the name of a responsible dealer. I have made nine 

 or ten thousand pounds and have engaged only 

 about three thousand (at seven cents), and will be 

 bound to ship somewhere. My honey is light and 

 nice for Louisiana. If I could get eight cents in 

 Cincinnati, it would pay me to ship. 



My bees have done moderately well, 1 suppose, 

 averaging near one hundred pounds to a colony. 1 

 had a very large natural swarm on the 11th inst., a 

 hybrid, which was the first one I ever knew in this 

 month. Thej- left their hive (two story) full of honey 

 and brood. C. C. Martin. 



Benton, La., Sept. 15, 1879. 



Our friend, C. F. Muth, is the only one I 

 know of who buys honey in Cincinnati. He 

 is perfectly reliable. I am very much pleas- 

 ed, friend M., to get such a report from the 

 South. 



Chicago.— Honey— Choice, in single comb boxes, 

 10@12c. Extracted, 8@8c. 



Bees-wax.— Choice, yellow, 20@.22c. Darker grades, 

 12 l /i@15c. 



New York.— Honey— Best comb, ll@13c. Extract- 

 ed, 7@8c. 



Bees-wax.— Choice, 25c. 



Cincinnati.— Honey— Best, in single comb boxes, 

 10@12c. Extracted, 8@10c. 



St. Louis.— Honey— Scarce and firm. Fair to 

 choice comb, in nice pkgs., 14@16c. Extracted 

 10®12>/2C. 



Bees-wax.-— Prime, steady at 20c. 



R. C. Okeer & Co., 

 117, North Main St., St. Louis. 



California.— Honey— New comb, 12%@15c.; Ex- 

 tracted, 8(5',10c. 



Bees-wax.— Best, 30@31c. For darker colored, 

 2(X3>22'/jC. 



A COMPLAINT. 



fHE section of larvae that you sent me arrived 

 in excellent condition, a part of it being yet in 

 " the egg. I suppose that you started it Mon- 

 day morning; it arrived Tuesday evening, making 

 It 36 hours on the way. I inserted it in a nucleus 

 where I am positive there was no other brood, and 

 after it had remained there a short time, I grafted a 

 few cells, choosing the youngest larvae. I then 



waited until that portion which was yet in the egg 

 had hatched, and grafted more queen cells. I got 18 

 nice cells built, and was expecting as many nice 

 queens; but when they emerged from the cells they 

 were, I believe, without a single exception, as black 

 as the ace of spades. I thought there must be a 

 slight mistake somewhere, but did not condemn 

 them until the workers from the same comb hatched. 



I did not use all the larva? but left the greater part 

 of it to be matured as workers. I don't think a 

 single one of the workers showed three bands, and 

 nine twelfths of them showed only one; and some 

 showed none at all. Your theory about Italians 

 turning black is rather plausible. I know that 

 hatched bees will turn dark when closely confined, 

 but larva; will not change; it is an impossibility. It 

 would be just as reasonable to suppose that larva' 

 from a black queen would hatch yellow bees. You 

 say that the larva 1 sent was from an imported queen. 

 1 say it was from a hybrid queen. I care not wheth- 

 er she was imported or home bred. I have made a 

 fair statement of the matter and am willing to be 

 qualified to it, and I now appeal to your honor to 

 comment. Leroy Vankihk. 



Washington, Perm., Sept. 19, 1879. 



P. S.— You asked me to send you some of the 

 workers from that larvae. This I can not do as they 

 were hatched with other hybrid bees and I can't pick 

 them out. You might as well depend on my judge- 

 ment, for 1 know a pure Italian as well as you do or 

 any t " 



itinr man. 



L. V. 



The above is published by the especial re- 

 quest of friend V r . The larvae sent him was 

 from our best imported queen, and I think, 

 if he examines the workers more carefully, 

 he will find they have the proper bands, as 

 described in the A 13 C. Larvae sent by 

 mail often produces queens as dark or darker 

 than the native queens, but their worker 

 bees (if the queens are purely mated) are 

 nice Italians. I have no other explanation 

 to give. Although I have tested great num- 

 bers of imported queens, I have never seen 

 one that produced hybrid bees, although I 

 know some would sometimes call them such. 

 They will all stand the test of purity I have 

 given in the A B C, and I cannot guarantee 

 more than this. Yellower bees can be pro- 

 cured from other stock, but not better honey 

 gatherers. I have never seen a black worker 

 bee from the brood of an imported queen, 

 and am as much at a loss to explain how 

 such a thing cmdil be, as friend Y. himself. 



SIMPSON HONEY PLANT. 



PLEASE let me know when and he 

 seed. Should this year's seed 1 



lowto sow the 

 np 5 " seed, snoma ttns years seed be sown this 

 =<j fall? If so, would it bloom next year? The 

 plant grows here in the woods. I would like to sow 

 2 acres of it. James Spencer. 



Woodbum, la., Sept. 14, 1879. 



[I have made a great many experiments in sowing 

 the seed during tin- past two months, but all 1 have 

 sowed in the open ground has been almost a failure. 

 A few plants have grown, it is true, but not nearly 

 enough to plant that 4 acre field. One of our girls 

 sowed some in a flower pot, in doors, and nearly 

 every seed grew; she tried again, with some large 

 wood boxes tilled with black leaf mold from the 

 woods, and the plants have come up by the thous- 

 ands. Some of them are now nearly as large as 

 small strawberry plants, and are growing wonder- 

 fully. These will blossom next year, without ques- 

 tion; but whether those raised next spring will or 

 not, I am unable to say positively. Friend Simpson 

 answers our questions so briefly I hardly understand 

 him. 



Just for the fun of it, I will send you one of these 



