210 



GLEANINR8 IN JiKE CULTURE 



MAU. 



to it, and then they draw it hack in. All this is done 

 with the rapidity of lightningr, apparently. 



Jerome Ooon, ago 12. 

 Hayflclil. rrawlora Co., Pa., Fob. r,, 1885. 



Many thanks, Jerome, for the fact that 

 you give us in natural history. I presume 

 "when the frog wants his long tongue out of 

 tlie way. he just swallows it; is that Avhat 

 you mean? I wonder if Prof, t'ook knows 

 iliis about frogs. 



DEATH OF THE IMPOHTED QtlEEN. 



Pa has about 100 hives of bees. He got about 4000 

 lbs. of honey from 60 hives. He gets IS'a cents for 

 comb and extracted honey, and 18 cents for section 

 honey. The best honey-plant here is the horsemint. 

 About two months ago ma went out into the apiary, 

 and found our imported (lueen dead. We had been 

 raising queens from her. and pa left otf the lid, and 

 the mean robber-bees robbed it. Don't you think 

 they did a mean thing? O. H. Brogden, age 10. 



Uryan, Te.\as, Jan. 11, 188.5. 



It seems to me a little mean to think rob- 

 bers improve every such opportunity, my 

 young friend ; but" I guess most of the fault 

 belongs to your father for forgetting to cov- 

 er the hive. It is pretty sure death to a col- 

 ony, to forget and leave the cover of the 

 hive off when robbers are troublesome, and 

 your letter is a good reminder. 



THE CHRISTMAS-TREE; TOADS, ETC. 



My grandpa taKes Gee.\nixgs, and 1 like to read 

 the letters in it from the young folks. It makes me 

 feel accjuainted with the boys and girls who write 

 for it. AVe are having vacation now. Our school 

 closed just before Christmas. We went to school 

 the last day, and were all very much surprised to 

 lind that our teacher had a Christmas tree for us, 

 with in-eseuts for every one. It made us boys, who 

 had been troublesome, ashamed, and we are going 

 to try to do better next term. We have got for her 

 a copy of Longfellow's poems, and are going to put 

 it in her desk. We are in hopes that she will l)e as 

 much surprised the first day of the term as we were 

 the last. 



My grandpa's bees have all gone to sleep for the 

 winter. I was reading in Gt^eanings a letter from 

 Charles Leyvraz, about slcunks eating bees. Bees 

 have a great many enemies, but I did not know be- 

 fore that skunks are one of them. Our bees are 

 troubled by the toads. They will go up to the hive, 

 and when the bees come out they will stick their 

 sharp tongue out so quickly that the bees do not 

 have time to sting them.B Sometimes we could see 

 half a dozen toads by the hives, waiting for the bees 

 lo come out. At night, and after a shower, we had 

 to put boxes up beside the hive. A. Powers. 



Woodstock, Vt.,' Jan. 10, 1885. 



I'ENNISG VV RAUniTS, ETC. 



My pa keeps bees. He has been at the business 

 two years, and he likes it better ihun any thing he 

 ever undertook. There are a great many bc(!S in 

 this part of the country, but they are kept in old 

 box hives. Pa says he will not ha^■e bo,\ hives. He 

 has all his bees in Simplicity hives. There is a man 

 in this neighboi'hood who made some of the funniest 

 little hives you ever saw. They ha\-e two stories 

 and a gallery, or[portico, in front. 



My ))a says you went to a heap of trouble setting 

 those boards in the ground around your rabbit- 

 yard. He says you could have just laid the boards 



tlat on the ground, as near the wall as possible, and 

 it would have answered, as the rabbits would never 

 think of going back to the edge of the board to 

 sci-atch, but would scratch at the wall. The same 

 will keep rats out, only the boards must be put on 

 the outside of the pen. Mattie F. Dileehay. 



Milford, Ellis Co.. Texas, Jan. .5, 1885. 



Thank you, ]Mattie. Yevy likely your 

 plan of fixing the rabbit-pen will do; but 

 boards laid on top of the ground will warp 

 and roll up so as to be unsightly, will they 

 not? I thiidv I should prefer them set in 

 the ground, as ours are. 



A neav bug-trap, etc. 

 I can answer one of the questions that were asked 

 in Geeanisgs. Iron was made to swim, see II. 

 Kings »>:«. T found it myself in the Bible. The 

 place was in the river Jordan. 



I will tell you of an invention my pajia has made, 

 and of which I send you a small pai)er pattern. He 

 thinks it would save paying money for Paris green. 

 He can clean the vines nearly as fast as he can 

 walk. The mode of catching is to hold it in your 

 left hand by the handle, which is a wire running 

 from each front end to the middle of the back. In 

 the right hand carry a broom, brushing bugs of all 

 kinds into the basket. Then make a lionttre of 

 straw, and throw them in. I think this is something 

 new, and will be a benefit to you. if you raise pota- 

 toes. Fa>\ X. AVedge. 

 Friendsville, Neb., Feb. 20, 1885. 

 Friend Eda, your bug-trap, if I understand 

 you correctly, is something to avoid the ne- 

 cessity of stooping over every time you find 

 a bug, and I shouldn't wonder if the idea 

 were a very good one. It seems to me that a 

 long-handled dijti)er, however, would be just 

 as good. Avould it not? Take the dipper in 

 one hand, and a light broom or stick in the 

 I other. Knock the bug or bugs into the dip- 

 I per, then go to the next hill, and so on. 



bitter honev. 



Pa has 5 stands of bees, and ma has 3. Pa was 

 looking at them to-day, and one of his was dead. 

 Ma's are all right. The last honey we took from 

 them last fall was bitter. Pome one told us it wns 

 the honey-dew, but pa thinks it is honey they gath- 

 ered from a tall weed that has yellow blossoms. The 

 blossoms are in a cluster on the fop of the plant. 

 We do not know the name of it. Last year was our 

 first one with bees. 



Flow TO feed. 



The way we fed our bees was this: We put the 

 sugar syrup in pie-pans, and cut a piece of paper the 

 size of pan, and made it full of holes, and laid it over 

 the syrup. We spent about !*30.00 on our bees last 

 year. 'Jhe first hive we bought we got two swarms 

 liy transferring, and ;.'5 lbs. of honey. We had an 

 Italian (pieen given to us; the others we bought in 

 old-style hives, and transferred them into Simplicity 

 hives. We did not get any increase from them. 



t:ARI'-lM)NI)S, MITSK-RATS, ETC. 



My grandpa has a carp-pond. He has been troub- 

 led by nuisk-rats this winter, making holes in the 

 dam. and letting the vvater out. There have been a 

 good many mibk-tracks around the pond. They 

 take fish too. I think it more likely the musk-rats 

 instead of the crabs made the holes in your fish- 

 pond. . Howard Zimmerman, age 12. 



Franklin Square. ()., Jan., 1885. 



