548 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



B. J., April No., 1879, p. 150: also May No. of A. B. J., 

 p. 197; also Bee Instructor, published by S. D. Iticgel, 

 Adelpbi, O., in the April No., 1879; and I will further 

 say, I had never seen anything of the kind. When I 

 first thought of some plan to fasten fdn. in boxes, by 

 which it could be done neatly and rapidly, it just 

 came to my mind as many other things have, and I 

 can say I did not even know of similar devices being 

 mentioned in Gleanings; for, truth to tell, I never 

 heard of Gleanings until about three years ago. If 

 J. L. Lafferty has invented precisely the same thing, 

 it was all unknown to me; but I can prove, by a 

 number of persons here, that I had my machine in 

 use abaut two years ago; but the first notice of it 

 in print was a little over a year ago. I am quite a 

 hand to think out plans and machinery to work with, 

 and might have had a patent on more than one ar- 

 ticle, but have never tried to obtain one on anything 

 yet. All I have to say concerning this fastener is, it 

 is my own invention; and I have acquaintances 

 enough here who know it. W. D. Parker. 



Defiance, ()., June 1, 1880. 



GRAPE-SUGAR CANDY FOR WINTER. 



I see by the May Gleanings, that some one com- 

 plnins that bees won't touch your grape-sugar candy, 

 and you say they ought to have got a small 10c tray 

 first and tried it. I got a tray of you, and put on top 

 ot frames of my best Italians, covered with a quilt, 

 and kept it there all winter. "Nary an eat" did they 

 take; but I made a few pounds and put on top of the 

 frames. One colony ate nearly a 4-lb. tray; another 

 about a third of one, and another starved with a 4-lb. 

 tray, their honey having just run out. 



WINTERING SUCCESSFULLY WITHOUT CARE. 



A neighbor has 20 swarms in old box hives-crack- 

 ed, warped, and rough as can be. He has not lost 

 any for three years, and they are all in a row out un- 

 der lee of a rail fence all winter, part on a bench, 

 part on bricks, part on the others, and all neglected. 

 How is that for chaff or winter protection or cellar- 

 ing? 



I have just transferred my only box hive to a Sim- 

 plicity. B. S. Binney. 



Shirley, Mass., May 20, 1880. 



It is a little singular, that the colony did 

 not use up the small sample tray at all ; I 

 can account for it only by thinking the little 

 sample had got so dry and hard they did not 

 discover what it was. Although bees do 

 sometimes seem to entirely neglect candy 

 made of cane sugar, they are not quite as 

 apt to as they are the grape-sugar candy. In 

 giving it to a stock for the first time, I would 

 look after them a little until they get started 

 on it, and really know what it is. There is 

 always a liability to failure in this way, with 

 any kind of candy stores in winter, and I 

 would therefore strongly recommend the 

 bees being fed up to good condition before 

 real cold weather comes on us. The 20 col- 

 onies that all lived through in the old and 

 broken box hives, were probably in old, 

 tough warm combs, and with plenty of sealed 

 stores, gathered in the early part of the sea- 

 son. While such a case may be occasionally 

 found in almost every neighborhood, taking 

 the country at large we find that box hives 

 with no care have perished at a fearful rate 

 within the last few years — so much so, that 

 thousands who once kept bees are now out 

 of the business entirelv. Here is a good re- 



port from an unprotected Simplicity hive ; 

 but I would by no means think of advising 

 one to try to winter in that way : 



WINTERING IN AN UNPROTECTED SIMPLICITV HIVE. 



Hurrah for the first swarm! To-day, May 15th, the 

 first swarm in this season came out of a Simplicity 

 hive, that had very little protection during last win- 

 ter. It was not fed, and had no other help whatever. 

 It had its own way. So, the Simplicity hive beats 

 the chaff hives by giving the first swarm. It is the 

 first swarm around this neighborhood, and, perhaps, 

 in Michigan. Otto Kleinow. 



Detroit, Mich , May 21, 1880. 



BEES IN TENNESSEE. 



"Robbing time" commences about June 1st with 

 us down here. We all use the old gum, or box hive; 

 keep the native black or brown bees. I have kept 

 bees more than 10 years, and have a large acquain- 

 tance, but never saw a colony of Italians nor a bee- 

 smoker, and but one frame hive, and that my own 

 make. This might be a great bee country. Most 

 well-to-do folks keep a few hives; give them but lit- 

 tle attention, and get a similar return. Probably 

 the worst hindrance to bee culture here is, ignor- 

 ance of the business, carelessness, bee-moth, winter- 

 kill, or freeze, and starving. But yet, my bees are 

 a source of pleasure and profit to me. 



Gaius Branson. 



Clear Spring?, Grainger Co., Tenn., May 17, 1880. 



nONEY FROM THE WHITEWOOD. 



I send you a sample of crystallized poplar or white- 

 wood honey, all taken from one blossom dried on the 

 tree. Whether any had been sipped by insects, I 

 can't say. It was about an average of the many I 

 examined from various trees. The bloom appears 

 about the first of May, and continues from two to 

 four weeks. The honey is very thick, and, to my 

 taste, superior to white clover. Now, what does 

 your Simpson, or Spider, or even Century plant, 

 bearing its half-gallon of hone3% amount to when 

 compared with the stately and far-famed poplar of 

 South-Central Indiana? A single tree may yield its 

 whole gallons of honey yearly for ages (I have no 

 trees for sale), and in old age yield its body for $5.00 

 to $50. Teach us how to have our colonies strong 

 the first of May, and we will astonish the w<">rld by 

 our crops of honey. Joe A. Burton. 



Mitchell, Lawrence Co., Ind. 



I think the sample of honey with the 

 above letter never came to hand; but, 

 friend 15., I tell you, honey don't geta chance 

 to dry down and crystallize in the blossom, 

 in our white wood trees; on the contrary, a 

 bee will station himself by a bud the night 

 before so as to be on hand when it opens, 

 before the rest get there. I am not sure they 

 do it with the whitewood trees, it is true, 

 but that is the way some of them seem to 

 manage with the Simpson and Spider plants. 



We have an abundance of white clover, and a great 

 deal of small fruits; but bees find rather scarce pas- 

 ture after white clover disappears. Plenty of gold- 

 enrod; do the bees get any honey from it? I want 

 to keep about a hundred stocks at this point for 

 lioncy. I have the Simpson plant, late variety com- 

 ing on, and I wish to transplant as soon as they are 

 ready. About how large should they be before 

 transplanting? Some are just coming through the 

 ground. Can I successfully transplant them this 



