352 



GLEANINGS IN 13EE CULTUllE. 



May 



the bee-keeper, and he was not at home. My lather 

 and a gentlemen living with us got through a trap- 

 door in the roof and hived them, and left them 

 there until brother came home: then they brought 

 them down. April 7, papa told us to come out to 

 the coi-ral before we had even had breakfast. We 

 were very much pleased to see a nice little brown 

 foal standing by our mare"s side. Our papa lets 

 her out on the grass every morning, and we go 

 with him and run with our little foal, and we have 

 much fun with her. Lilli.\n T. Hixde, age i:5. 

 Anaheim, Cal., Apr. 9, 1885. 



I WHV KITTIE S PAP.\ LOST NEARLY OXE-THIRD OF 

 HIS BEES. 



I got a pair of ear-rings for a present, and a nice 



chromo. Pa took his bees out two days ago. He 



1 lost nearly one-third. He set them in rows, packed 



! with chaff. He was very busy last fall building a 



\ house and cistern, and neglected them. He made u 



bi-ick filter in the cistern, something like that one 



in Gle.\nin<;s. 1 should like to see little Hiiber. I 



wish you could see our blue-eyed baby. Her name 



is Pearle. Kittie M. Uaugak. 



Border Plains, Iowa, March 38, 1885. 



ALTA'S LETTER .JUST AS SHE WROTE IT. 



DEAR AVR ROOT. MY mA FonD a swaRav oF 

 bEeS oh An oaK tReE. she pUT theai iN tuE 

 SELLER. aTT They aLl DieD she WA.'iTg To 

 Get sf>ME MqrE. iF this is WoRth A Book 

 sEmD The JiAnT kjlLeR. i am g YeArs oLa. 



Hatches Mills, Ind. Alta M. Costello. 



WANTS A book, EVEN IF SHE IS LITTLE. 



If I am little and can't write, I want a book, so I 

 get Jimmie to write for me. Jimmie goes to school 

 all the time. I get awful lonesome. 



IJerthaE. Howe, j 

 how jimmie's father feeds bees. I 



As pa keeps bees and takes Gleanings, I thought j 

 I would write and tell you how he feeds his bees. 

 He has a Simplicity feeder, which he sets on top or 

 near the cluster; then with a box with a hole in 

 the top he covers it up. The hole is covered with 

 wire cloth; he places a tin tube through the chaff , ! 

 so he can pour the syrup in the feeder. Pa got his 

 first bees in the woods in a tree. That was in the 

 spring of 188:2; that summer he found another tree, 

 but they had no queen, so he sent and got a queen 

 of you, then bought one stand, so he had 'i stands 

 to commence with in 18813. They increased to 15, 

 and last summer they increased to 1i3; but pa 

 doubled them up to 16, and now he has but seven 

 stands left, as the chatf did not keep them from 

 freezing. This is the first letter I ever wrote. I 

 have one little blue-eyed sister, i years old. Her 

 name is Bertha. Jimmie R. Howe, age 8. 



Sulphur Hill, Ind., March 5, 1885. 



orange-blossoms from AWAV down in FLORIDA. 



I received the book that you sent to me, and I 

 like it very much indeed, especially the little book 

 with little Bopeep in. We have a school now. I 

 like the teacher very much indeed, and I like to go 

 to school, and I hope that it will keep more than 

 three mouths. Sometimes I whisper, and she 

 keeps me in at recess; but I don't care for that, be- 

 cause I can have some fun. Every Friday we 

 speak pieces. I like to speak. Tell me the name of 

 your little girl. I have read some letters in Glean- 

 ings, and I found the name of Blue Eyes. I 

 thought that I would send you some orange-blos- 

 soms. Eva Glawson. 



New Smyrna, Fla., March 8, 1885. 



Thank you, Eva, for the orange-blossoms. 

 I am glad to know that you like to speak 

 pieces at school. I am glad that your teach- 

 er is trying to have you stop whispering. 

 Our little girl's name is Carrie, but we call 

 her Caddie for short. She brings me some 

 of her ligure-work which she does at school, 

 every few days ; and, by the way, she is get- 

 ting so she writes very well. I think we 

 shall have to have one of her letters in 

 Gleanings. 



.TOHN'S REPORT. 



From three colonies last spring we have taken 110 

 lbs. of extracted and 50 lbs. of comb honey, making 

 in all 160 lbs., mostly from Spanish needle. Bass- 

 wood yielded nothing, and white clover yielded only 

 a small amount of honey. Wo increased them to 5. 

 They are all in good condition. I packed 4 on their 

 summer stands, and put one in the cellar. I carried 

 it out of the cellar on the 5th ult., to give them a 

 cleansing flight. As the bees are gathering pollen 

 now, I think I have wintered well. Most of the 

 farmers around here have lost a good many of their 

 bees. The coldest weather here this winter was 36 

 degrees below zero. Pa is moving about 50 stands 

 of his bees to a place called Bear Creek, five miles 

 south of here. He has taken 30 down, and will take 

 the rest in a week or two. John V. Nebel. 



High Hill, Mo., April 1, 1885. 



WH.VT IS HONEY-DEW? 



We received the hives all right, I am glad to say. 

 I am a boy 14 years old, and live on a farm near 

 Princeton. My papa keeps bees, but is traveling 

 for the Trenton Iron Co. I put all of papa's hives 

 together. We had 10 hives last fall, and have 8 out 

 of 10 now. My mamma and I will have to take care 

 of the bees this summer. Will you please tell me 

 what honey-dew is? Irving D. Banks. 



Princeton, N. J., April 30, 1885. 



Friend Irving, it is a hard thing to an- 

 swer; but I suppose the most of it is an ex- 

 udation from certain insects that feed on the 

 bark and foliage of different trees. At oth- 

 er times, the plants themselves seem to ex- 

 ude a sort of honey, or saccharine substance. 

 For the last few days our bees have been 

 very busy on the heads of lettuce in our cold 

 frames. I suppose they find something that 

 is sweet, of course, for they search every 

 leaf carefully, and dive away down into the 

 heads. They are on hand every morning, 

 just as soon as the sun is up enough so they 

 can Uy. 



MUSKR.iTS E.\TING THROUGH CARP-PONDS. 



The animal that made the hole in your dam was 

 probably a muskrat. They are sometimes A'ery 

 troublesome. My neighbor had a good dam spoiled, 

 and all the water let out by them. He lias x-ebuilt 

 the dam, and stocked the pond with carp. He now 

 keeps the rats away by watching for them, and 

 shooting them whenever he sees any of their work. 

 A good way is to trap them with a steel trap set un- 

 der the water in their runs. J. H. Tinker. 



Olathe, Kansas. 



Yes, friend T., I know it was a muskrat. 

 for one day when I was down by the creek I 

 saw him walk along leisurely, sometimes 

 under water and sometimes out. Once in a 



