460 



gLeANINGS IK BEE CULTURE. 



July 



your ABC book you mention that bees may be 

 poisoned, but you do not state how they are affected. 

 If you can tell us the cause of the trouble, or the 

 reinetly, if any, it may enable us to avoid more loss 

 such as has already occurred. In some instances 

 three swarms have been put into one; and in many, 

 all of the bees have died. C. D. Wkight. 



Durang'o, Col., June 10, 1885. 



Friend W., your bees are evidently poi- 

 soned by something they have gathered, or 

 by some disease attecting tlieni. Some of 

 the symptoms you mention are striliiiigly 

 like those of the nameless disease 1 have 

 mentioned in the A]U' book. 1 should try 

 to find out what they are working on, to see, 

 if possible, whether they have been gather- 

 ing any thing that will account for it; also 

 ascertain over how large a tract of country 

 this malady extends. This may give you 

 some clew to it. 



THE WAY AN ABC SCHOLAR TRANSFERRED HIS 

 BEES. 



I will tell how I did it. I took a large piece of 

 mosquito-bar, put it over a large hat, made arm- 

 holes in it, tied it around my waist, put pants in 

 top of boots, put on a pair of rubber gloves, and 

 went to work. I pried off the side of a box hive. I 

 bad a good smoker, but didn't use it. I cut out the 

 combs, and a friend of mine tied them in the 

 frames. I think there was nearly 60 lbs. of honey 

 in it, and somewhere near that of bees. There 

 wasn't room to put your hands in for bees. My 

 father said they would go to the woods next day, 

 but they didn't. It took an hour and a half to do it. 

 I filled seven frames of brood and honey, and there 

 wasnit any room for more bees. These were trans- 

 ferred June 6, 188.'). I looked at them Tuesday, the 

 9th, and cut off the strings; and they were doing 

 finely. So much for a beginner. 



Lockport, N. Y. Mvuon Uailev. 



^'ery well done, friend JMyron ; but if you 

 did not use the smoker, you might have laid 

 aside that big mosquito-bar veil also. Tlie 

 reason why you had so much honey and 

 bees in the way was because you waited un- 

 til June. If the oi)erati()ii had been per- 

 formed in the time of fruit-bloom, as usually 

 recommended, there would have been fewer 

 bees and also less honey. However, you did 

 pretty well as it was. 



KEEPING BEES ON AN ISLAND; SOME SUGGESTIONS 

 ABOUT WINTERING. 



I am on an island of 600 acres and of course I have 

 tried the bees here, and here is my experience, as 

 short as I can give it. I came here in June, 1882; 

 bought eleven full colonies; no surplus honey, no 

 natural swarms; but fall found them in good sliape 

 to winter, and I did winter them without any loss- 

 ten in Simplicity in cellar, one in chaff hive on sum- 

 mer stand (I Italianized all that year, 1882). June, 

 188:5, found them in vei-y good shajie, ready for 

 work. This year they made about .50 U)S. of surplus 

 honey from five colonies; the other six I used for 

 raising queens and dividing, selling some f 13 or $it> 

 worth. We had no fall flow of honey, and October 

 found them almost destitute of stores, so I fed them 

 up nicely until perfectly safe on this score, with su- 

 gar syrup, and placed them in cellar, nicely packed 

 and ventilated (same number— 11 colonies), Nov. 20, 

 188;}. Now comes the point, and pride takes a fall. 

 They all died but one, and that one was next to the 



cellar-door; 8 died in March, 2 in April, and they 

 died with their tongues right on the feed, and look- \ 

 ing tlie same as in life, when standing sipping honej' 

 from a feeder— no disease of any kind that I could 

 detect. 



Now, what was the mattery Well, I am going to 

 suggest, and see if you agree with me. I think the 

 air was poisonous. I have now but two colonies. I 

 shall try them on summer stands. I feel (juite sure 

 that I can not do much raising honey here, but I 

 can raise queens, and good ones too, and have them 

 purely mated. I am half a mile from "Maine" 

 land; and I have noticed a great many times when 

 I have been rowing across fi-om the m.':'.in land to 

 the island when the wind was quite strong against 

 the bees, they would fly heavily laden abreast of 

 my boat, dropping lower and lower, until coming to 

 the water, never to rise, so 1 feel that 1 lost thou- 

 sands in this wai'. L. 8. Smith. 



West Gouldsboro, Me., Nov. 24, It^Sl. 



Friend S., I sliould think, from what you 

 say, that an ishmd is not a very desirable 

 place for keeping bees. In fact, there are 

 times when a good many of them must be 

 lost by falling into the water.— In regard to 

 wintering, the fact that the one by the cellar- 

 door lived, and the rest all died, seems to in- 

 dicate, as you say, bad air, or not enough 

 ventilation. Perhaps if you had a ventilator 

 that would keep changing the air of the cel- 

 lar, they would all have done as well as that 

 one by the door. 



IIONEY-THIEVES. 



I, like A. J. Kimmons, of Round Rock, Texas, am 

 no specialist, although I take the greatest pleasure 

 with my bees of any of the rest of my employ- 

 ments; i. e., general farming, and stock raising. 

 In consequence of our excessive drought our bees 

 scarcely made their own supplies. Last spring 

 count, 44; increased to 74, and doubled back to 62, 

 present number. I sold barely honey enough to 

 buy a barrel of sugar, which I fed to the weak col- 

 onies. 



A word now about thieves. I see bj reading last 

 Gleanings, that other localities are torment»'d by 

 thieves as well as my own. I beg pardon; but 

 while I should not like to kill a man (even a thief 

 for stealing honey or any thing else), I still feci to 

 denuir from your only idea of education or evangel- 

 ization; for we have a lew (T am glad there are no 

 more), that, according to Hible testimony, are 

 "fools." They say in their hearts, "There is no 

 God." Their only restraint is the fear of the law. 



The two imported (]ueens I got of you did good ser- 

 vice; but the first one does much the better, and 

 raises the best queens and bees. I shall want 

 another in the spring. Elias Cole. 



Ashley, Ohio, Dec. 6, 1884. 



Friend C., I think you misunderstood me. 

 I would by no means" do away witli the law. 

 I have never dreamed of advocating such a 

 course. Send thieves to jail, by all means, 

 as fast as Ave can get hold of them; but at 

 the same time, do all in our power to pre- 

 vent the necessity of law and jails, by educa- 

 tion and evangelization. Almost every Sun- 

 day Ijneel with ciiminals in our county jail. 

 I am sorry for the necessity of their being- 

 there ; but yet I thank (iod' every lime 1 see 

 one there, "that we have been able to get 

 hold of him and stop him in his folly. Only 



