1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



427 



ik "WW 



This department was suggested by one of the 

 clerks, as an opposition to the "Growlery." I think 

 I shall venture to give names in full here. 



M S the honey season is now over, for this year, I 

 pV will give you the result of the season's work 

 «4j»=4 in my apiary. I started, in the spring, with 31 

 colonies, about half of them being good colonies, 

 the other half very much reduced in numbers. I 

 have taken about 1,4C0 lbs. of comb honey in sec- 

 tions, 200 lbs. of extracted honey, and have, at this 

 date, 93 colonies in good condition, all in chaff ten- 

 ement hives. 1 want no other hive for myself. I 

 sold my comb honey at IS'ic. per lb., and my ex- 

 tracted honey at 10c. 



1 have sent you about 22 orders for goods with 

 about $160.00 in money, and every thing received 

 from you gave entire satisfaction, with the excep- 

 tion of the last tested queen, which was a crip- 

 ple, being minus one leg when received; but, as you 

 have done so well in every other particular, we will 

 let that go, and I want to'thank you from the bot- 

 tom of my heart for the way you have dealt with 

 me. May God bless you. I. K. Good. 



P. S.— Please tell us again how you stand finan- 

 cially, as we are all interested in your wellfare. 



South West, Ind., Sept. 19, 1879. I. R. G. 



And I want to thank you, too, friend G., 

 for it has always been a pleasure to receive 

 your orders. Long ago, I told the clerks to 

 send friend Good whatever he asked for, 

 whether he sent all the money to pay for it 

 or not, for he was perfectly "good" for all he 

 ordered. I suspect one secret of your being 

 pleased, friend G., is that you are not diffi- 

 cult to please, and that, therefore, the credit 

 belongs rather more to you than to ourselves. 



I am perfectly willing to tell you how my 

 finances stand, if you care to know. I am 

 paying interest at the rate of 8 per cent, on 

 $5,365.00; I presume the value of my build- 

 ings, machinery, &c, with the real estate de- 

 voted to the bee business, is somewhere from 

 25 to 35 thousand dollars. We are just get- 

 ting ready to take an invoice, and I will then 

 give you the exact amount. The buildings, 

 machinery, and finished goods are insured 

 for SI 1,325.00. 



it, or even reading it himself. His free lecture was 

 for the purpose of selling his right to make and use 

 his bee hive, wanting $5.00 for the right. I do not 

 ihink he sold a single right. I had ventilated him 

 pretty well, and would have done it again if I had 

 known he was coming here. 



I use a chaff hive of my own construction, and the 

 Langstroth flame. I would have had a stand of 

 bees in the court yard, if 1 had known he was com- 

 ing, and I know no bee keeper would take his square 

 box frame for the Langstroth. 



Salem, lnd., Oct. 9, 1879. John Crayckaft. 



Mitchell sends pamphlets all over the country, and 

 he tells a very flowery tale. Some men are talking 

 1 of handling us for using division boards. Can they 

 doit? Wm. Dawson. 



Smithvillc, Uitchie Co., W. Va. 



They have no idea of touching you, friend 



: D. If they can scare you into handing 



money over to them, they will do it ; but 



they have no intention of doing more. See 



; their record in back Nos. 



Why not club in, and prosecute N. C. Mitchell for 

 getting money under false pretences, and put a stop 

 to his swindle? You may count on me for one. 



Natchetoches, La., Oct. 9, '79. James M. Cook. 



It really does seem as if something should 

 be done, friend M. Is there a lawyer among 

 our beekeeper's, who will tell us what to do 

 and how to do it V In N . Y. City, they have 

 a way of shutting such fellows up out of the 

 way, but I do not know whether or not it can 

 be done where a man is roaming at large as 

 Mitchell is. Post Masters can, probably, be 

 stopped from delivering him his mails. 



Pertaining to Bee Culture. 



[We respectfully solicit the aid of our friends in 

 conducting 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.] 



C. Mitchell was lately in our town and gave a 

 lecture on the bee. He sent a lot of his eir- 

 3 i » culars to one or two persons in this county, 

 that claim to be agents of his, and they mailed the 

 circulars to nearly all bee keepers in the county, ex- 

 cept the readers and patrons of your papers and 

 shop. I, with several others of your readers, live 

 near town. I am not more than \i mile from fhe 

 post office. I got no notice, and did not know that 

 he was in town until I saw a number of bee keepers 

 and others going to the court-house to hear him 

 lecture. So I went over to hear him. He had the 

 usual programme of showing the theoretical work- 

 ing of his particular hive, and that division board of 

 his, "the greatest discovery of the age in hee keeping." 

 He also showed a dirty, worn piece of paper purport- 

 ing to be his patent, taking care to keep it in his 

 hand, and not giving permission to read or look at 



MRS. LIZZIE COTTON. 



This woman, with her feminine hand 

 writing, seems almost too much for the ed- 

 itors of certain papers, and, what is most 

 strange, especially the editors of religious 

 papers. Here is the advertisement she gets 

 them to insert, which has just been sent in 

 by a correspondent, who clipped it from the 

 Christian L nion : 



HONEY BEES. 



NEW PRINCIPES IN BEE KEEPING. 



Every one who has a farm or garden can now keep 

 Bees with profit. Bees kept on my plan are more 

 profit than anything connected with the farm or 

 garden. Every hive of Bees kept on my plan will 

 pay a profit of Fifty dollars every year. Send for 

 circular. Address, Mrs. Lizzie E. Cotton, West 

 Gorham, Maine. 



Now the above is bad enough, but, to 

 make it worse, she gets the following edi- 

 torial notice inserted, which was clipped 

 from the same paper. 



HONEY BEES. 



The special attention of our readers is called to 

 the advertisement of Mrs. Cotton in another column 

 under this head. Mrs. Cotton we believe is one of 

 our most successful bee keepers. 



Now, I wish to digress enough here, to 

 ask if it is right for editors (let alone editors 

 of Christian papers), to insert such notices 

 when paid for it? Does it not mean, to their 

 readers, we would advise you to send your 

 money to Mrs. Cotton, for we think her one 

 of our most successful bee-keepers V 



Years ago, when I was but 18 years old, I 

 started out with an entertainment of chem- 

 ical and electrical experiments. The editor 

 who printed my bills told me to write a 

 notice of myself, and he would "father it". 

 Young as I was, and unused to the ways of 

 the world, I objected. "Why," says he, 

 "they always do it; custom has made it 



