66 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



are prodigious breeders, and sO Cunning- that they 

 are styled the "river lo.v." The tail of the carp is 

 bifid, and they belong to the order of ihe Malacnp- 

 terifriia n/ (u.Mi.'xdds; " those fishes have the skeleton 

 osseous, jaw complete, bronchia picteratcd, all of the 

 rays of the fins soft, except sometimes the first ray 

 of the dorsal, or pectoral fins; verental fins behind 

 the abdomen." 



By the way, Mr. Hoot, were you thinking of carp 

 when you put your bees, 250 in number, up for 

 winter"/ You are not quite as small a bee-keeiicr 

 as the one who had only 15 bees. 



Nashotah, Wis. Nellie M. Olsex. 



A'ery good, Nellie. But, is it really a fact 

 about' fish living three weeks out of water? 

 If so, I shall have to say again, " What a 

 world of wonders this is!'' We are in the 

 habit of using the expression, " J.,ike a fish 

 out of water ;" but now it happens that they 

 live and eat and drink (that is what you 

 mean is it not, Nellie?) and do not die, even 

 when two or three weeks out of water.— 1 

 guess I shall have to own up about the 250 

 bees. Pretty good joke on Uncle Amos, is it 

 not, when he sniiU'd a little at the girl for 

 saying that they had only 1.3 bees, and then 

 afterward tells about 2."U himself. 



OEOUGE'S FATHEK. 



My pa has T stands of bees. Three arc in box 

 hives, and four in frame. He transferred two 

 frames last fall. He took 300 lbs. of honej', and fed 

 them on sugar syrup. They arc doing nicely now. 

 Pa takes Gleanings, and we like it very much. He 

 has the ABC book, and ma says he reads it more 

 than he does his Bible, and that he thinks more of 

 his bees than he docs of her. Geoijoe Task. 



Cornwall, N. V., Dec. 21, 1884. 



Well, George, I do not know but I shall 

 have to take your pa's part a little. May be 

 just now it is necessary that he study G lean- 

 ings and his ABC book a good deal. I 

 suppose that by this time he has the greater 

 part of the Bible in his heart, so that it 

 shines out in his daily life, even if he does 

 not read it as much as the bee-books, and 1 

 should say it was something the same way 

 with yoiir mother. The subject of bees 

 is new, and he gives it more attention now. 

 lierhaps. than these other things. ])o you 

 remenibei- that story in the Bible, about the 

 prodigal son? The elder brother complain- 

 ed because the father paid so much atten- 

 tion to that spendthrift l»oy when he got 

 back; but the father had not for a moment 

 forgotten the faillifiil and diligent son, even 

 llHiiigli api)('aranc(s might have looked a lit- 

 tle that wav to an outsider. 



NANNIE'S STOHY ABOUT THE CAUP-I'OND. 



Vncle ^wos:— May be I ought not call you that, 

 because you do not know me; but I know you ; that 

 is, through Gleanings. Other boys and girls call 

 you that, so I thought I would. Papa keeps bees, 

 and has taken Gleanings ever since I can remem- 

 ber, and I like to read the juvenile letters. 



I will tell you about our carp-pond. The man we 

 bought the farm of, says he has known the pond 

 for 65 years, and it has never been dry in all that 

 time. He says the old hunters claim that they 

 found beavers in it. We have enlarged it so that it 

 covers about a third of an acre. The original pond 

 is just the shape of a bowl. Papa ajiplicd to the U. 



S. Fish Commissioner for the German carp; and 



when the flsh came, the pond had about one foot of 



water in it. There were 25 flsh from 3 to 7 inches 



long. For the first few days they seemed to be do- 



j ing well. The pond is surrounded by forest trees, 



I and one cold windy day a great many leaves blew 



into the pond, and then it froze over. After the ice 



thawed out, papa went down to the pond and he 



' saw a dead flsh floating on the surface of the water. 



He got a rake and raked all the leaves out along the 



shore; and before he got through he found 16 dead 



flsh. He did not know the cause, unless it is that 



the body of water was so small, and the leaves 



seemed to make the water unfit for the fish. The 



pond is filling up rapidly, and papa is going to try 



ugain. N.A.NNIE Stehle, age 13. 



Marietta, Wash. Co., ()., Dec. 21, 1884. 



Thank you, Nannie. AVas not the trouble 



i because your pond was too shallow? The 



books say there ought to oe places in the 



pond at least three feet deep for the fish to 



! get into when the water is frozen. May be 



I the leaves would make the water unfit for 



: fish, but 1 hardly think so, for carp are very 



hardy. 



SOPHIA ANU her .MOTHEK AND THE BEES. 



My papa has 90 hives of bees, all in good condi- 

 tion; they are all Italians. This last summer was 

 a poor season for bees. We got very little surplus 

 honey. It was too cold and dry in our neighbor- 

 hood. My mother and we three children tend to 

 the bees all summer. My papa has been supervisor 

 for the last two years, so he doesn't get time to 

 tend to the bees. Mother can handle the bees bet- 

 ter than father can. They don't sting her half as 

 much. She can go in among them, and work with 

 them bareheaded, and don't get stung; but we put 

 our bee-caps on. They don't like us so well. We 

 I get stung very often, but we have got so used to it 

 that we don't mind it. We have lots of work with 

 bees in summer. They always paid us well for our 

 trouble, except this last summer. Year before last 

 we got about 2000 lbs. of honey, all put up in one 

 and two pound sections. I tell you, we felt proud, 

 as many a dollar we made out of it. We get 20 cts. 

 a i>ound, or we generally give 6 Ihs. for a dollar. 

 ' But father says we must not get discouraged. May 

 ; be next summer they will do well again, and pay 

 ; us double. 



Father wants to get a Holj-Laiid queen this next 

 summer. I wish you would tell us if they are bet- 

 ter than the Italians, and if you keep them for sale. 

 My father is much obliged for the bee-books you 

 sent him. He is a poor scholar himself. He gener- 

 [ ally gets me to read the journals, or else my mother 

 does; but she hai-dly ever has time to read. I read 

 I to him some evenings; but I have my school lessons 

 i to study. Father means to send me to high school 

 I next winter. Sophia P. Schnekh, age 12. 



Shrewsbury, Pa., .Jan. 1, 1885. 



That is a real good honest letter, my little 

 1 friend, and I am very glad to know that 

 your mother can handle the bees so well. 

 Your report may be an encouragement for 

 other mothers ; who knows? We have the 

 Holy-Land queens for sale, but we do not 

 find them superior as honey-gatherers ; but 

 they have many very valuable traits, espe- 

 cially where one wants a good many queen- 

 cells built, ov where we want to increase 

 colonies rapidly. 



