54 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



fulness, it is easy enough for well people to bejgfor one like it, such as Ernest and Maud 

 cheerful; but when a woman i6 not well, it mustwhave across the street. Fathers-in-law and 

 require some effort to be cheerful. After this,! mothers-in-law are excellent things to have, 

 whenever i get the blues so badly that I think I am just a little way off — say across the street, 

 going to die, i shall leave, and go and stay two A house large enough to have several fam- 

 weeka with Mrs. Harrison. She has a motherly ilies under one roof is good in theory, like 



sort of way of talking to me that does me good. 

 She is a splendid cook, and all her knicknacks taste 

 good. She broils her beefsteak, and it is juicy and 

 Bweet. She cooks apple sauce to perfection; and 

 her tea and coffee are unexcelled. She uses a 

 bright-red table-cloth and fringed napkins. 



Her hees are in the dooryard— some of them close 

 up against the house (when I was there; I suppose 

 they are in the cellar now), and the hives are close 

 together— not more than four inches apart, I think, 

 and are painted some indifferent color. 



"SHE PLANS HER WORK BEFOREHAND." 



Mrs. H. has a large dooryard, filled partly with 

 fruit-trees and grapevines; the grass is kept short 

 all the time, with the lawn-mower, and they have 

 walks to go everywhere. Mrs. H. is a great manag- 

 er. She plans all her work beforehand, and thus 

 saves time and strength. Her home is plainly fur- 

 nished—about like the well-to-do farmers who live 

 about here, and they have no fancy dishes on their 

 table. They have several farms out of town, and 

 the money comes rolling in; but what are they go- 

 ing to do with it? I can not imagine. I know what 

 I'd do with a part of it, if I were in Mrs. Harrison's 

 place. I'd have a good big house built, and have it 

 warmed with steam, with a bath-room where folks 

 could swim, etc. 



Well, well! Mrs. Harrison is a beautiful charac- 

 ter; and the very next novel I write I shall put her 

 in. I think I shall have her figure in the "Cheer- 

 ful Mother-in-law," because mothers-in-law have 

 been slandered, and called cross and hateful, from 

 time immemorial. Mahala B. Chaddock. 



Vermont, 111. 



My good friend, we are exceedingly oblig- 

 ed to you for this home glimpse of Mrs. 

 Harrison. Some of us might be afraid to 

 have you pay us a visit, if you are going to 

 write us up in that fashion. 1 am afraid 

 we should not enable you to make so good a 

 record. Tn regard to building a good big 

 house, take Mrs. Root's advice, and — don't ! 

 We manage a good deal as Mrs. Harrison 

 does, about sweeping and washing ; but we 

 have decided that a larger house than one 



tenement bee-hives ; but I believe that 

 most of those who were so enthusiastic 

 about tenement hives have come back in fa- 

 vor of each colony in a hive by itself. " Eve- 

 ry tub on its own bottom," you know. 



BEES AND NEIGHBORS. 



NOT BEE-LEGISLATION, BUT EXCLUSIVE RIGHT OF 

 TERRITORY BY PURCHASE. 



needs, is a misfortune. Mrs. Root even now 



longs occasionally for our old little home, or honey is scarce and comes in slowly 



f HE only fair and just way for a man to get 

 the monopoly of the bee-business in any lo- 

 cality is for him to pay each farmer or lot- 

 holder within the flight of his bees a certain 

 sum yearly, not to keep any bees on his 

 property. If a law could be had, selling rights to 

 any one person to keep bees in a given locality, 

 then only the rich or well-established apiarist 

 could secure the rights. The poor widow or crip- 

 ple or broken-down professional man would not 

 dare to keep bees within a certain limit, because 

 the Honorable Mr. Moneybags had bought the lo- 

 cal right for a few paltry dollars. Lazarus could 

 not keep bees within three or four miles of Dives' 

 residence. The poor widow could not earn a mite 

 for the Lord's treasury by keeping bees, because 

 some Pharisee had bought the township-right. 



Any law giving one person advantage over 

 another is wrong. According to the plan at the be- 

 ginning of this article, the widow wishing to keep 

 bees need not sell her right, and the law would not 

 take away her right. Any person should have the 

 right to keep a few bees, or as many bees as he 

 chooses, provided his bees do not harm his neigh- 

 bors or passers-by, and are not a nuisance. 



Just here I should like to say, no man has a right 

 to keep bees in a town if his bees really annoy his 

 neighbors. By annoy, I do not mean make nerv- 

 ous people fidgety. No one has a right to keep 

 chickens to scratch his neighbor's garden; neither 

 has he a right to keep bees where they will sting 

 his neighbor's children. Bees are bees, and bees 

 will sting. Whenever my bees become a nuisance 

 I will move them out of town. Our neighbors 

 have rights as well as ourselves. 



The same principle applies to foul brood. That 

 disease should not be] treated with anything ex- 

 cept the furnace. It should be burned, destroyed, 

 root and branch, upon its first appearance. We 

 owe this to our neighbors as well as to ourselves. 

 " Do unto others as you would have them do unto 

 you." You would not like to have a neighbor tol- 

 erating and treating foul brood within the flight of 

 your bees. 



Last spring I selected two colonies, about equal 

 in queens, strength, and in good condition. Over 

 one I used a slatted honey-board and a T super. 

 Over the other 1 used half-depth wide frames, with 

 no honey-board. The one under the T super 

 swarmed out without touching the sections. The 

 one under the half-depth wide frames stored me 

 fifty or sixty sections of surplus comb honey. The 

 honey-boards seem to remove the surplus boxes 

 too far from the brood-nest in a poor season, when 



I think the 



