1885 



GLEANII^GS IK BEE CULTURE. 



817 



sion of those bee lawsuits, but I do not fear much, 

 for we must have bees as well as sheep or grapes, 

 and neither are harmed by them. As I grow all 

 sorts of fruits, I have no selfish ends iu view. 

 No. Auburn, Me., Oct., 18&5. E. P. Churchill. 



Friend C, your reversing device is all 

 right, oidy that the frames liang on a single 

 bearing. This has been submitted a great 

 many times, and such frames liave Ijeen 

 used for a time. The objections are, that if 

 you move the hive they swing like a pendu- 

 lum ; and if one side of the comb is loaded 

 more with brood, pollen, or honey, than the 

 other, it throws it to one side. It is true, 

 you can have spacing-strips at the bottom ; 

 but then the top must always come in just 

 such a place, and then we have frames at 

 fixed distances again. We thank you for 

 your report of reversil)le frames in general, 

 and especially for tlie important facts you 

 bring to liglit. If you can make seven 

 frames hold as much brood as eight do ordi- 

 narily, and thus compel the bees to put their 

 surplus into sections, it will certainlv be 

 Avorth while.— I have often noticed the pe- 

 culiarity you mention, of queens going about 

 with their wings partly spread ; and. so far 

 as I can remember, I have always found 

 such queens faulty in some res])ects, sooner 

 or later. I do not know that the matter 

 has ever before been in print ; but it may be 

 well to warn the brethren, that when a 

 queen carries her wings thus we have good 

 reason to suspect she will not amount to 

 much. Queens, after having been shipped 

 long distances, sometimes show this iiei-uli- 

 arity. In regard to the quantity of i)ackiiig 

 to put over your bees, if yoit" use forest- 

 leaves in a sack, I, too, would say, the more 

 the better ; for forest - leaves can not well 

 obstruct ventilation, any way. 



A NATURAL CAVE FOR BEES. 



HONEY SE.\SON IN TE.XAS. 



TTo T the left of my front yard, a path winds down 

 9H^ to a cave some 2.5 feet below the level, whose 

 ^H' cavernous mouth is an are of 6J paces in 

 '^*- front, and would store 10 times as many 

 hives as I have, if needed for winter guar- 

 ters. Evergreen live-oaks, heavily hung with long 

 gray Spanish moss, with undergrowth of laurel and 

 cedars, cactus villages, algeritas, etc., make a nice 

 mat just over the cave. Right back of our lot is 

 a reservoir, stocked with fine carp, a little over a 

 year old, and over a foot long; and although 12 feet 

 deep, j'ou can see every thing in it and on the bot- 

 tom, as through glass. Food carp need no feeding 

 here, for its waters, taken from the monstrous 

 spring of 8 acres, grow quite fast the same acjuatic 

 plants and grasses that fill the " river head," and it 

 takes a great many carp to keep them down. I 

 think I have the most romantic spot within half a 

 mile of the court-house. There are many fine 

 buildings along the heights. My neighbors (but I 

 refrain from making a letter of length, that per- 

 haps would not interest you), T only wish you could 

 call and see for yourself. Our Te.xas Chautauqua 

 Literary Society and Summer Institute is also on this 

 height, with our almost boundless \\e\v of the 

 prairies. 



I ought to say, our many hundreds of Simplicity 

 hives about this place are as overloaded with honey 

 now (although extracted clean in July), as at any 

 time this year. Many are extracting heavily now, 

 and bringing them to one story high. Many new 

 queens are just beginning to lay. I had a fine one 

 hatch to-day, in a full hive. The weather is flue, crops 

 fine, brood heavy yet, and honey and pollen coming 

 in to do the work. The dengue fever has given 

 everybody through here a shake-up. 



CARP, AND THEIR UTILITY IX KEEPING DOWN 

 WEEDS. 



I wish some enterprising man would dare to come 

 and go into carp-raising, with three ponds on the 

 slope from the reservoir exactly suited to it. I can 

 furnish the ground, and the water is the overflow 

 of the reservoir, always 72°, summer and winter. 

 Until carp were growing in there it was often nec- 

 essary to rake out the masses of spontaneous 

 growth. Now it is gaining on them, and nearly a 

 foot deep on the bottom. I will tell you of Mr. 

 Mitchel's fountain and tank of the hydrant water. 

 He put in some breeding carp where cresses and 

 water-grass were filling up his pond as fast as he 

 could get time to take it out. They grew to great 

 size, and kept things in check. He put brush all 

 around in the water to facilitate laying, etc. This 

 became a mass of glittering verdure, reminding 

 one of a cypress swamp in the i'azoo-River bot- 

 toms, densely hung with moss. W^ell, after the 

 young appeared in thousands, and began to grow, 

 they soon picked the brush clean, and kept nipping 

 the germs, and showing their shiny sides all 

 through it, and they grow like pigs. The large ones 

 are 2 years old and about 2.) inches long, 8-pounders. 



San Marcos, Texas, Nov. 1, 1885. A. W. Bryan. 



Why, friend I>.. it seems to me that you 

 folks down there in Texas ought to be happy 

 with ail tlu'sc advantages, and I expect to 

 hear that you individually are now going to 

 settle down and make the most of these ad- 

 vantages, instead of traveling about from 

 one place to another, as you have done torso 

 many years. 1 can readily understand how 

 a lot of carp may be able to i)aslure olf the 

 weeds and water-plants that lill up your 

 lakes and rivers. 



^ ---^ 



SHIPPING BEES FROM THE SOUTH. 



FRIEND M.4SON GIVES SOME VALUABLE FACTS 

 FROM E.YPERIENCE. 



0N page 732, Nov. 1, is an article from L. W. 

 Gi-ay, and your comments, which interest me, 

 as we are always short of bees in Maine in 

 spring. I have done quite a large business 

 in shipping bees from the South for the last 

 ten years. 1 have received bees from moie than a 

 dozen of as careful bee-keepers as there are in the 

 South. I have had shipped to me from one pound 

 of bees to full colonies, from April to July, and 

 even August. While some lots came iu fine condi- 

 tion, others came all dead, without any apparent 

 cause, packed precisely the same; and while it Is a 

 pleasant and profitable business to both the ship- 

 per and receiver when a lot goes all right, the next 

 lot, perhaps, is received with a heavy express bill, 

 all dead, or nearly so, which makes the business un- 

 profitable and unpleasant for both the parties. I 

 am satisfied, on the whole, that it is unprofitable to 

 ship bees by lail, where they will be on the road 



