120 



cLH.vxiN'CJS IX i;!:k cui/rum-:. 



Feb. 



LETTER FROM AN ABC SCHOLAR. 



REVERSIBLE-FRAME DEVICE. 



SENT 20 cts. for Gleanings this month and 

 ne.\t. I have received the .January numbers, 

 and have not been gretting- enough sleep since. 

 They keep me readingr very late at nig-ht, and 

 then in the morning- 1 read and shake this cold 

 weather until the Are gets warm enough to thaw 

 my boots, and I am convinced that I can not do 

 without Gleanings, and do myself justice if I keep 

 bees. Through the kindness of a friend I got a col- 

 ony and a nucleus in 1883; but I read the ABC 

 through twice, besides a lot of old Gleanings, and 

 constructed a buzz-saw and made four Simplicity 

 hives before I owned a bee. I caught the bee-fever 

 from one of your old patrons. I still have the same 

 enthusiasm that I started out with. 1 had one 

 strong colony and three weak ones last spring; 

 increased to ", and took 140 lbs. of comb honey in 

 your 1-lb. sections. The season was cut short by 

 dry weather. 



I started out to build up an apiary, and make it 

 pay its own e.vpenses for keeping. I have enough 

 profit to run it next year. I more than doubled the 

 money I invested. Bees are all right at present. 



I will send you a reversible metal-corner frame I 

 have been thinking about. U. F. Strain. 



Spring Valley, O., JaiL 27, 18S.->. 



Thanks, friend 8., for yonr kind words. 

 Your rever3il)le corner is the Broers corner, 

 mentioned in our back numbers. This makes 

 three wlio have studied up exactly the same 

 thing. Now, then, we have a great moral 

 here. A common want has sprung up; in- 

 telligent minds have been at work at it, and 

 after mature deliberation the wisest heads 

 seem to center, as it were, around a certain 

 point. Tn all such cases as this it is a com- 

 forting thought, that the best device will be 

 brought out sooner or later, and these inven- 

 tions are almost always like a honey-comb— 

 the product of the united work of many in- 

 dividuals. 



DESCRIPTION OF BOOMHOWER'S API- 

 ARY. 



FOR CUT OF SAME, SEE PAGE 8,3. 



fRTEND ROOT:-Had I thought that the picture 

 of my apiary would have appeared so soon, I 

 would have sent you a description of it in 

 time to appear with the view. You have done 

 pretty well in explaining the details, except 

 that the picture was not taken in .Tune. The view 

 was taken the last of September. Only a small por- 

 tion of the fertilizing hives are shown, having unit- 

 ed the rest in full colonies for wintering. The art- 

 ist has omitted a portion of a row of hives which 

 should have been seen between the fence and the 

 first row of hives at my right. The instrument you 

 speak of is a frame-holder, onlj' the artist has not 

 got it quite right in the engraving. 



I have been pretty much my own employer since 

 I have kept bees. The past season T had some help 

 from April until July; from July out I did all my 

 own work. I have another apiary 2' i miles out of 

 the village; and as August is our main honey 

 month, you can think how busy I must have been. 



I took care of both yards, and ran some on shares, 



II miles away, and did every bit of the work myself. 



Some days I would visit my out yard twice a day, 

 part of the time traveling the whole distance on 

 foot. As an e.xplanation why I went on foot part of 

 the time, I will say that our minister has no horse; 

 and when he wanted a horse to use he was at liber- 

 ty to take the pony whenever he chose to have it. 



My out apiary contains 85 colonies; my home 

 apiary, 75 colonies. The product of my home yard 

 the past season was nearly 2 tons of comb honey 

 and about ,500 queens, so you see I did not idle much 

 time away. My home apiary has a hard coating of 

 sawdust over its whole surfaeo. Not a weed nor a 

 spear of grass is allowed to grow anywhere near the 

 hives. I have often offered the sum of .50 cts. for 

 every spear of grass or weed that could be found 

 within range of the bee hives. Over a ton of the 

 comb honey from this yard was gathered from the 

 common red clover. I sent you a sample of the 

 honey. What do you think of it? When I purchas- 

 ed this place, three years ago, where the hives now 

 stand was nothing but a thick hedge of old apple- 

 trees and lilac, and other worthless bushes; in fact, 

 one could not see from the window to the street; 

 but the pick-ax and crowbar did the work pretty 

 well, with me as their motive power. You know 

 wc are commanded to earn our bread by the sweat 

 of our face. F. Boomhower. 



Gallupville, X. V. 



WB "^ »» 



HEDDONS HONEY-BOARD AND HIVE- 

 COVER. 



Ft'UTnEK P.\RTICL'LARS. 



X the cut given last month, page 8;"), 

 which friend Ileddon furnished, the 

 cover is represented as a Hat board, E. 

 The friends may remember that I was a 

 little tenacious of the opinion that sucli 

 a cover would warp. When the hive came 

 to hand, however, it transpired that the pic- 

 ture did not represent the cover at all. The 

 cover friend II. sends us is shown below, at 

 fig. 2. You will notice that, to prevent the 

 warping I spoke of, he has put a piece of 

 one-inch lumber, set up edgewise, on each 

 end, and these pieces are fully as wide as 

 the cleats around our Simplicity cover. To 

 be sure, we can hold them from Marping, if 

 clamped in the above manner; but even 

 if warping is prevented, the arrangement 

 shown is not proof against twisting, and the 

 sample hive furnished by friend II. had the 

 cover so badly twisted when it reached ns 

 (I can not .say how it was when he started it) 

 that I would undertake to get robbers under 

 it in less than half a day. in our apiary. 

 \>ry likely such covers will work all right 

 generally ; but after four or five years of use, 

 if they do not trouble by letting "bees under 

 during a severe dry spell, it will be contrary 

 to all my experience. Another thing, this 

 cover, with its great clamps on the ends, 

 projects over the hive all around; and in 

 shipping bees in a hive or otherwise, it 

 would get knocked loose unless very securely 

 nailed or screwed fast to the hive. ' A cover 

 can be made on the plan of the Simplicity, 

 just about as cheap, and I should very much 

 prefer it : and if you can make bee's push 

 under a .S/h;)'//(v7// cover so as to get rob- 

 bing, I should like to see it done. The Sim- 

 plicity cover also slips into place, and stays 

 pretty securely. The above cover has no 



