1S8.5- 



GLEANi::^(JS 1^ iJEE CULTUUE 



no 



furnish our horses with the epizootic, and be 

 found ourselves, some morning', in the last gasp of 

 expiring hunger, to get into " Blasted Hopes " ? 



This little insect that I have loved so well and 

 praised so abundantly is a deceiver — a swindler 

 and a cheat. Ho, she, or it, is a " fraud, a delusion, 

 and a snare "—a robber, a thief, and a murderer. 

 Now, you don't often read such plain talk in a bee- 

 paper; but I just want the " little beast" to know 

 exactly what I think of him. 



THE HONEY SEASON IN C.VI.lFORNl.\. 



The honey season here has been a very poor one. 

 So far as I can learn, it is the same all o\er the 

 State. You will have no great shipments of Cal- 

 ifornia honey to glut the markets this year. There 

 was plenty of bloom, but there was no honey in the 

 flowers. That was caused by an insufRcicnt rainfall. 

 AVo hope to do better next year. 



A Cl-EAN WAY TO GET GOOD WAX. 



I was always in the habit of boiling my wax in a 

 bag, placed in a2-gallon kettle made of galvanized 

 Iron; but one fine morning last spring my"biller 

 busted" at the side. The more I tried to mend it, the 

 more it leaked. I had to pour in cold water, and 

 draw the flie. I did not want to pay six or seven 

 dollars for another kettle. I let the matter lie until 

 it could lie no longer. Then I wrote to you, to see 

 if you could mail me one of your wax-extractors. 

 The answer came, that it was not mailable. I lay 

 awake at night, studying what I should do. Am I 

 to be Hanked — surrounded and beaten by a pusil- 

 lanimous beeswax? Neverl I jumped out of bed, 

 into my clothes. An idea had struck me — hard! 

 Mrs. Chaddook's plan was inadmissible. Mr. Por- 

 ter's plan was destructive; Mrs. Harrison's plan 

 was dirty and bothersome; Dr. Miller ju.xt missed 

 the mark. Wc had a small sun extractor; but I 

 went to work and made one 4 feet long by li'e wide 

 on top. 1 lined it with bright tin, and put in a sjxjut 

 long enough to run through the wall of the hono}'- 

 house. You see, I was preparing to extract honey 

 a§ well as melt beeswax. That sun extractor, set 

 on the south side of the honey-house, with piiie 

 running inside'of the house, was all that could bo 

 desired for melting small cakes of honey like mine. 

 But, for wax it beats the world. Take Dr. Miller's 

 large dripping-pan, with a hole "busted" in one 

 end of it (I put a half-round spout in mine); grease 

 the pan well, and lay a i)icce of old sacking in the 

 bottom, just the size of the pan. except behind; let 

 it come up far enough to catch hold of. Now raise 

 your dripping-pan a little in the rear, and till it up 

 with! wax. It doesn't make any diflcrence how 

 dirty it is. Now grease a big dishpan, and set iDulr.r 

 the .spout of the dripping-pan. Put on your sash, 

 and go about your business. In the evening all the 

 nice yellow wa.x will be in your dishpan. In the 

 morning filfup again, and so on until your dishpan 

 is full. It will all be in one solid cake, for the wax 

 melts alike, you sec, in both pans. When you are 

 done, the rag will readilj- pull out of the dripping- 

 pan. Roll these rags up, tie them with a string, and 

 put them in an old hive until you get for or five of 

 them. You can then boil them. You will get a 

 little cake of wax from them, which you can run 

 through the dripping-pan process with the ne.vt lot. 

 Now, here is no dirt, no watching, no boiling over; 

 no bother or fussing, and always a clean, clear, yel- 

 low wax. 1 nevercould get two cakes of wax of one 

 color before. All the wax is now nice and yellow. 

 The dirt dflo« not melt and run, consequently it 



staj's in the dripping-pan. There is nothing toclean 

 up. Your dripping-pan is ready for the next lot, 

 and is kept for that purpose alone. As for the rags, 

 you would need to boil them out only once a j-ear. 

 If you are lazy, you can throw them away %vithout 

 losing much. 



I see by Oct. 1st Gf^eanings, that friend Hart, of 

 Florida, has got hold of the sun extractor for w^ax; 

 but he, too, melts only the wax. The idea is, to get 

 it in just the shape you want it for market, and the 

 above plan does it all at one operation. Any plan 

 to render wax that is thorough, complete, clean, 

 and that will give a uniform bright color, must of 

 necessity be very valuable to the average bee-keep- 

 er, and I am he. 



Our loss of 20 stands, I should have said, was part- 

 ly caused by moth. As we pay no attention to 

 bees in this country, from the close of the honey 

 until about the next February, any loss or death of 

 a queen is sure to be followed by a loss of the col- 

 ony. You folks think you know something about 

 moth ; but you don't. With you they are a nuisance; 

 here, they are a besom of destruction. 



We commenced on 95 hives; had 5 natural swarms, 

 making an even hundred. After the season closed 

 we made !')'2 three-frame nuclei. Here we can 

 winter three frames, with a good queen, as well as 

 nine. We now numl)er 152 stands. None of these 

 nuclei were made on the Doolittle plan. We did 

 make one on that plan, but — well, j/'»» know its 

 fate. J. P. Israel. 



San Dieguito, San Diego Co., Cal. 



FrieiKl I.. I liave for years been aware 

 tliat a feeder, or some chunks of honey, or, 

 if you choose, a dish of cappings. ptit into 

 the upper story, at a time when honey is 

 coming in from llie fields, will have the ef- 

 fect of making the colony useless. I will re- 

 peat what I have given before, jterhaps once 

 or twice. When we lirst commenced extract- 

 ing we thought to save the honey sticking 

 to the cappings. by putting them on a honey 

 boai'tl over a strong colony. The whole cof- 

 ony turned all its energies to fussing with 

 those cappings, licking off the honey, and 

 working the wax out into fantastic shapes. 

 But while doing this they didn't increase an 

 ounce in weiglit, while colonies right side 

 by side were gathering 10 lbs. of clover hon- 

 ey a day. It would have been money in our 

 pockets, a good many times over, to have 

 dug a hole in the garden, and dumped the 

 cappings into it. instead of putting them 

 over the hive. New hands at the business 

 often defeat themselves in just this way. 

 They keep their l)ees fussing with feeders, 

 or some trash that they want to save, when 

 the bees might gather (liiite a crop of honey by 

 going out int(') the Melds. It may surprise 

 some to know that bees will bring in more 

 honey from the fields than they will take out 

 of any kind of feeder you can fix. This fact 

 upsets some of the talk about feeding bees 

 sugar and glucose, to get comb honey.— In 

 regard to the sun wax-extractor, I do not 

 quite understand what you say about ex- 

 tracting honey as well as beeswax. And 

 you speak of melting ''small cakes of hon- 

 ey.'' What do vou melt small cakes of hon- 

 ey for? Isn't it a fact, that the heat of the 

 sun in vour climate is much greater than it 

 is here in the States, even in the summer? 

 It seems to me astonishing, that the heat of 



