20S 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



entirely with ice. and thus save a heavy bill 

 of expense. 



MELTING CANDIED HONEY, MAKING BEE 

 CANDY, ETC. 



If you have candied honey in barrels, set 

 in it a tall tin can, containing water; run 

 one of the steam pipes into this, and you can 

 melt the honey without any danger of injur- 

 ing it. A gate in the side of the barrel will 

 conduct the melted honey out, and strain it 

 into any receptacle you wish. For making 

 candy, or melting maple sugar or anything 

 of the kind, the first arrangement is the 

 nicest thing. With the honev gate, you can 

 run melted sugar into cakes of any size, with 

 great rapidity and no daubing. 



SEVEN-TOT TUItNTI'. 



April \llh. — Our first crop of blossoms on 

 the honey farm is beginning to open. It is 

 the seven-top turnip. Our past open winter 

 has bepn the most severe on the plant of any 

 we have had ; and the greater part of my 

 turnips were thrown out by the roots, by the 

 alternate freezing and thawing. Those 

 sowed late, as I advised last fall, are almost 

 all gone. The only really nice plot of them 

 is where we plowed in several loads of stable 

 manure for some raspberry vines. Although 

 we did not sow a turnip, in a few days a 

 most luxuriant, green foliage made its ap- 

 pearance, and, to our astonishment, they 

 proved to be the seven-top, which had only 

 been sowed on other parts of the farm. So, 

 you see, where we tried to prepare the 

 ground, and purchased a high priced fertil- 

 izer, we have scarcely a turnip, and where 

 we did not want turnips, we have a patch of 

 them that I shall feel more proud of for a 

 month to come, than perhaps any other spot 

 on the whole honey farm. I gave a dollar 

 for that manure heap, and I wish I knew 

 where I could buy a hundred more like it, 

 for two dollars each. 



queens found dead in front of the 

 hives. 

 We have had an unusual number of cases 

 of the above, with our imported queens, and 

 several have been reported to us, of import- 

 ed queens Avhich we have sold. I can 

 scarcely hlame our customers for claiming 

 that the queens must have been old ones, yet 

 I hardly see how this can be, even though 

 some of our friends in Italy were not honest, 

 as I suppose them to be ; for the losses seem 

 to come from all of the lots we purchased ; 

 I am sure they would not all send us old 

 queens. Is it not likely that the long ocean 

 voyage has something to do with their being 

 short lived? I do not think I shall ever 

 want another invoice so late in the fall 

 again. There is hardly a question but that 

 our late troubles with spring dwindling have 

 something to do with queen's dying before 

 they are a year old, and I believe such losses 

 are much more likely to occur in colonies 

 rather weak, than in powerful ones. It is 

 certainly quite desirable that we should have 

 long lived, as well as prolific, queens, and if 

 queens reared under the impulse of natural 

 swarming will insure this, it will be well to 

 have them reared that way, but let us not 

 be in haste to rush to this conclusion pre- 

 maturely. 



VILMORIN S IMPROVED DANDELION. 



2\st— These are now in bloom, and their 

 great size, and bright, dazzling yellow make 

 them one of the prettiest sights on the 

 grounds, especially when covered with Ital- 

 ians, as they are whenever it is warm enough 

 for the bees to fiy. I presume they would 

 make excellent greens, but we have too few 

 to try them. 



A BLACK QUEEN. WITH YELLOW BEES. 



I mentioned last season having a daughter 

 of an imported mother, that was even black- 

 er than the common black queens. She has 

 wintered her colony finely, and now moves 

 about among as fine, yellow bees as any in 

 the apiary, making almost a ludicrous con- 

 trast by her jetty blackness. This queen 

 pretty nearly upsets the notion that any one 

 can tell a pure Italian by the color of the 

 queen herself. Does it really matter, my 

 friends, what color a queen is, so far as her 

 value for honey is concerned ? 



MAPLE SUGAR BEE-CANDY. 



We have just succeeded nicely, in making 

 the 1 lb. bricks of maple sugar and flour, — 

 four pounds of sugar to one of flour. Stir 

 the flour in the hot sugar when it is just 

 done enough to make hard cakes, and then 

 keep on stirring it. until it becomes white 

 and of a creamy grain. When it is so thick 

 that it will just run down smooth, pour it in- 

 to little oblong pans, just right to hold a 

 pound. If you are going to sell it, set the 

 pans on the scales, and rill exactly a pound 

 into each. The flour gives it a taste some- 

 thing like very rich cookie dough, and, with 

 the maple sugar flavor, I am inclined to 

 think it will prove as great a favorite with 

 the children, as a new confectionery, as it 

 will with the bees. It will furnish all the 

 bees need to start brood rearing, even during 

 long rainy spells, such as we sometimes have 

 during this month. One of these sugar 

 bricks will start the brood as if by magic. 

 If you lay a sponge filled with water by the 

 side of the brick, the bees will use it up 

 much faster, but I do not know that it gives 

 any especial advantage. 



m ■•■ & — ■ 



PACLONIA HTIPEKIAL.IS. 



fi WILL take it on myself to send yon a descrip- 

 tion of a very beautiful tree which we know as 

 — the Paulonia. When this tree comes up, it 

 very much rpsembles a mullen stalk. The first year 

 of its growth the leaves come out in pairs on oppo- 

 site sides of the stem, and are very large. It sheds 

 its leaves in the fall, when nothing remains standing 

 but a straight stem. The second year, limbs grow 

 from the points where the leaves were the first 

 year, and during the third year, it prepares itself for 

 blooming. Commencing in August, it forms a small 

 pod, which lives all through the winter, and blooms 

 in April of the following year. The blooms are very 

 beautiful. They are royal purple in color, and form 

 themselves very close together on the limb, making 

 a beautiful bouquet. This is the greatest honey 

 flower in the world. Each flower contains a drop of 

 honey. I will send you some of the flowers, and also 

 a pod that contains the seed. This tree is a native 

 of Japan, and is a rapid grower. The one of which I 

 speak now is 10 years oil, is 1% It. iu diameter, and 



