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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



HOW TO RAISE PLANTS. 



HOW TO RAISE SIMPSON, SPIDER, AND ANY OTHER 

 PLANTS. 



BY time is out for Gleanings. I thought that I 

 would not take it for the next quarter, but I 

 do not think that I can do without it for a 

 while yet; so you will please find enclosed the 

 stamps. 



On the 4th of this month, I went out to my spider 

 plants and one stalk had four spiders on it. I was 

 much pleased to see the long legs, and, at the body, 

 there was the drop of honey sure enough. I watched 

 and waited to see a bee come and sip it, but, alas! 

 none came. I have tried to get the bees to work on 

 it, but they will not as yet. I have taken them 

 from the hive on honey comb and carried them to 

 the flowers, and waited until they got their load and 

 left for the hive. Then I removed the honey, and 

 when they returned they would fly around the 

 flower, but would not touch the nectar. Other in- 

 sects are busy sipping the honey from the blossom, 

 but the bees will not touch it yet. I know that the 

 honey is there, for I tasted it. Now, I would like to 

 know how I am to get them to take hold of it. 



My Simpson plant is growing nicely. It is about 3 

 ft. high, but has no blossoms yet. Some wild plants 

 are in bloom, but I have not seen any bees on them 

 yet. I know what the Simpson plant is now; it goes 

 by the name of Holms weed, and is used here for 

 scratches on horses. Boil the roots, and wash the 

 horse's legs with the water in which the roots were 

 boiled, and a few applications will cure the worst 

 case of scratches. I see in Gleanings that some of 

 the readers cannot get the seed to grow. I will say 

 to them, if they will take a little pains in planting, 

 that all the seed will grow. Take some rough boards 

 and make a box as large as you want (2 ft. wide and 

 4 ft. long); make it 10 in. deep, and fill with any 

 kind of earth to the depth of 6 in. Then go to the 

 woods and find a place where there is a thick coat of 

 leaves, scrape the leaves away, then take earth from 

 under them, which will be a light loose dirt or mold. 

 Fill the box full with this earth, which will not gel 

 hard. Then take your finger or a stick and make 

 rows about 4 in. apart and one inch deep, and sow 

 the seed as thick as you please. Then rake the dirt 

 over the seed until the bed is smooth. Sow in 

 March, and set your box on the south side of aboard 

 fence. Cover with some old carpet when you think 

 there will be a freeze, and water occasionally with 

 warm water. When the plants come up, be careful 

 not to let the frost bite them. Do this and I assure 

 you, you will have all the Simpson plants you want, 

 or any other plant you wish to raise. 



Vigo, Ross Co., O., July 12, '80. John Motes. 



The reason the bees do not work on your 

 few spider plants, friend M., is that there 

 are too few of them. It wants a large lot of 

 them together for them to get the "hang of 

 it," if I may be allowed the expression. The 

 place where the honey is secreted is a little 

 difficult for them to get at, and they must 

 first learn how. Perhaps they have found it 

 already, but they will be much more likely 

 to do so, where there are even a dozen or 

 more plants. I remember taking a large 

 branch of basswood flowers and holding it 

 before the hives, expecting the bees would 

 alight on it and sip the honey. Not a bee 

 could be induced to notice it. Some of the 



friends have decided that bees would not 

 touch grapes, because they tried them under 

 similar circumstances. — Many thanks for 

 your hints and very plain instructions to the 

 ABC class, in regard to raising plants. 

 We cheerfully send you Gleanings one 

 year for the same. 



JUDGING OF A QUEEN'S PURITY BY 

 HER LOOKS. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT HOLY-LAND QUEENS. 



f KNEW that the queen waa a. hybrid, when I re- 

 ceived her, and also Mr. Sweet said so at the 



' time. Now, I have no excuse to offer you, and 

 I think that every bee was warranted to me. But 

 that is enough, I am done, and, if you feel as though 

 you were all right, then it is well; but, hereafter, I 

 shall buy where I find perfection. 



J. R. GOODALE, M. D. 

 Pawtucket, R. I., July 26, 1880. 



I have given the above to show how un- 

 reasonable some of the friends are. The 

 writer sent us quite a lengthy letter, saying 

 his queen was impure, and in proof of it, 

 carried some of the bees to the editor of the 

 Magazine, in N. Y., who pronounced them 

 hybrids. After a lengthy investigation we 

 found that he purchased the queen of us in 

 1878, and that it was only a dollar queen at 

 that. I expostulated, and received the 

 above card in reply. As some others have 

 declared that they, too, could tell a hybrid 

 queen by her looks, I wish to explain a little 

 what you undertake to do. It is now pretty 

 well decided that the daughters of an import- 

 ed queen may be any color, from a jet black, 

 to one almost entirely yellow. If these 

 queens meet Italian drones, they will pro- 

 duce 3-banded bees, without question. If 

 they meet common drones, they will produce 

 hybrids. Now friend G. and his neighbor S. 

 claim to be able to tell by the looks of a 

 queen what kind of a drone she has met. 

 Without question, they will give up on this, 

 as I have explained it. But they may per- 

 haps say they can tell by the queen's looks 

 that she is the daughter of a hybrid queen. 

 But we have queens, right from Italy, of all 

 shades and colors, as every one who has im- 

 ported knows. Perhaps some will say that 

 a queen with rings on her body, is unques- 

 tionably the daughter of a hybrid queen. I 

 agree that such is usually a pretty safe rule, 

 but, my friends, our best Holy-Land queen 

 has rings along her whole long body, and her 

 "ring streaked" appearance almost always 

 produces a loud laugh from beholders. Her 

 young queens are exactly like her, and the 

 boys say they can tell every Holy-Land 

 queen in the apiary, at first glance. I expect 

 ringed queens are going to be the rage now. 

 To go back ; shall we not exercise a broad 

 charity, before condemning queens by their 

 looks alone? Friend G., I should be glad to 

 have my customers all satisfied, but should 

 I replace a dollar queen for you, because she 

 proved hybrid, and not do the same for the 

 rest, I should be doing a positive wrong. 

 The conditions under which they are pur- 

 chased are surely well understood. I some- 

 what doubt your finding "perfection" in this 

 world, iu either queens or human beings. 



