388 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



Juke 



quantity of water ; in fact, it often runs out 

 of the combs on to our clothing, when tlie 

 combs are tipped sitlewise. At times, wlien 

 tlie h-noy is all old and sealed. I should 

 think \ery likely a supply of water would be 

 an advantage, especially during hot weath- 

 er.— A good tinner's folder will fold the rab- 

 bets all right ; but a folder that is made 

 strong enough and accurate enough to do it 

 properly, costs S3tJ.U0 or $40.00. If the rab- 

 bets are slightly rounded on the bottom, it 

 does not matter materially. 



MAKING DARK HONEY WHITE. 



I read a short time ago in a newspaper, that iu 

 sugar-refineries the syrup is filtered through ani- 

 mal chai-coal, and by this process the syrup lost its 

 color. Will you please ascertain if this report is 

 correct? and also ascertain the exact way to pro- 

 ceed, and the cost of this process? Please attend 

 to this matter, and give results in Gleanings. We 

 have a great deal of colored honey (No. 1 in quality), 

 but unsalable on account of color, and if a cheap 

 process can be ascertained it will add thousands of 

 dollars to the earnings of bee-keepers. 



Mauston, Wis., Apr. 14, 1885. Chas. H. Grote. 



I believe it is a fact, friend G., that sugar- 

 retiners do remove the coloring matter from 

 syrup by filtering it through animal charcoal. 

 I do not know whether the idea is possible 

 with honey or not ; but I agree with you. 

 that it would be a most desirable process if 

 possible. Have we, among our readers, any 

 one suthciently acquainted with sugar relin- 

 ing to answerfriend G.'s question? 



BEE-KEEPING AS A BUSINESS. 



I happened to be writing to one of my old 

 A B C scholars : and as I had not heard of 

 him for some time I asked him if he was 

 still a bee-man. The following is his reply, 

 and there seems to be a moral iu it: 



As for being a " bee-man," I came as near getting 

 over it this winter as I ever did. They "friz." 

 Now don't tell me to fix 'em up warm in chaff hives, 

 etc. I know all that. When I lose bees it is always 

 the colonies that are seemingly strongest and best 

 prepared for winter. The strongest swarm I have 

 now was in one-story Simplicity, no cushion, sever- 

 al holes in cover; late swarm. I do not talk and 

 write as much about bees as formerly, but like 

 them as well as ever, and make them pay their 

 way. It is easier to get 100 lbs. per colonj-, than it 

 used to be to get 2.5 lbs., because of "the know how." 

 It seems at times as if bees were the best stock a 

 man can keep; at other times they seem a mystery, 

 a delusion, and a snare. Hut for all that I expect 

 to own a few colonies as long as I perambulate this 

 little hall of mud. I'm not sure but I'll get some of 

 A. 1. Koot's cheap big baskets to winter them in; 

 take bees out of hive on to bottom-board, turn 

 basket over them, and winter all right. See? 



Itemson t'orners, O., Apr. 15, 1885. S. Lucas. 



Friend L., the point you make, that bees 

 winter with a hive full of openings, when 

 they do not winter with the best of protec- 

 tion, has been made several times, and I think 

 it itoints out i)n'tty clearly that yoii have 

 been packing >our bees too closely. Put 

 loose chaff and nothing more over the 

 frames ; or if that is not sulliciently porous, 

 till the upper story of the chaff hive with 



forest-leaves, dry and loose. To prevent 

 the bees from getting up among tlie leaves, 

 I would use a burlap sheet. May be the 

 cheap big baskets would answer better than 

 some of the hives you have been using. 



A LITTLE STORV WITH A MORAL. 



When the postmaster saw the last metal block 

 come he dived down into a box and brought up an- 

 other. It seems it had got lost out of the package 

 of metal corners, and he had not known whom it 

 was for, so it lay in the office all the time. If I had 

 asked him for it he would have given it to me. 



Albert W. Hinde. 



Anaheim, Cal., Mar. 31, 1885. 



I suppose that most of you have had experi- 

 ence in inquiring for things both at express 

 offices and postollices, and being told they 

 were not there, and it afterward transpired 

 that the same thing had been waiting for an 

 owner for some time. One of the hardest 

 things to manage I have ever found, in al- 

 most any department of business, is to avoid 

 the accumulation of rubbish. Sometimes I 

 go into the counter store and tind a variety 

 of odd traps stuck here and there. Wheii 

 the clerks are called, sometimes they reply, 

 "Why, it has been lying around here this 

 long while ;"' and in spite of every thing I 

 can do, we have this state of affairs over and 

 over. At the very time that they were tol- 

 erating or harboring tliis accumulation of 

 rubbish, somebody was suffering sadly for 

 the need of the very article. Wetry to tie up 

 all packages so that it is almost impossible for 

 the label or address to get detached : but for 

 all that, they do sometimes get astray in the 

 mail-bags. "Now, if I were looking and wait- 

 ing for something as you were, friend II., I 

 would go to my postmaster and say some- 

 thing like this : '' I have been watching and 

 waiting very anxiously for a little s(iuare 

 piece of iron that was to come through the 

 mails. You have not come across any such 

 thing ' lying around loose,' have yodV" A 

 great many times sucli an explanation will 

 bring the missing thing to light where you 

 would not lind it otherwise. The same is 

 true of the express business. 



KIND WORDS IN REGARD TO BURMAH. 



I am reminded of the value of little things very 

 forcibly by reading those letters from our mission- 

 ai-y biother in Burmah. Some four years ago I 

 asked you to send Gleanings to him, which you 

 kindly did. That, like a little seed, dropped on fer- 

 tile soil, sprang up, and lo! from this we have the 

 "Pioneer Apiary of IJurmah " already fully under 

 way, with unlimited i)ossibilities of usefulness in 

 developing an industry which may be made of great 

 value to the benighted race. It is a great pleasure 

 to read Bro. Bunker's good letters, and to think 

 that we helped him— just a little— to get started. 

 Let's shake hands, Bro. Root, and all rejoice to- 

 gether. Let us not neglect, " as we have opportuni- 

 ty," to drop a seed now and then, in out-of-the-way 

 places, which may " bear wheat, perchance some 

 other grain." 



In pursuance of this thought I have rolled up a 

 package of Sunday-school papers to send out to a 

 desolate home in the wilds of the Elk Mountains, of 

 Colorado. Two little girls of ten and twelve years 



