88 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



was inquisitive to know whether it was not the 

 new process honey, as it was so nice. He said that 

 undoubtedly much of the comb honey on the mar- 

 kets was machine-made. I grave him the address of 

 A. I. Root, and told him that he had a standing 

 offer of $1000 for a sample of artificial comb honey. 



THE LANGSTROTH VERSUS THE AMERICAN FOR 

 WINTERING. 



O. O. Poppleton, in the Dec. Review, says that it 

 was never claimed that bees would winter better 

 on a shallow than a deep frame. Our 

 bees are on American and Langstroth 

 frames, in chaff hives. We winter on 

 seven frames, and last spring it was 

 a noticeable fact that those on Amer- 

 ican frames (28 in number) were near- 

 ly out of stores, and some had to be 

 fed, while those on the L. frames 

 had clustered in the fall on the ends 

 of the frames next to the entrance, 

 and on May 1st had reached only the 

 middle of the frames, and had nearly 

 half of their stores still on hand. 



THE SIMPSON HONEY-PLANT. 



The Simpson honey-plant (flgwort) is 

 quite plentiful in this section. Last 

 season I cultivated some plants for 

 our bees; but during the whole sea- 

 son not a bee touched it, showing conclusively that 

 location has much to do with the honey-producing 

 qualities of plants. 



Our winter thus far has been a favorable one for 

 the bees. Our coldest weather, 10° F., was on Dec. 

 22, and since that time it has been beautiful Indian 

 summer, the bees flying almost daily. 



S. w. Taylor. 



Harveyville, Luzerne Co., Pa., Jan. T, 1889. 



the product of Maine's strain of Wonderful 

 Red ; these great white ones are Burpee's 

 Silver King, and so on. I have no particu- 

 lar use for them, growing strawberries 

 mainly, as I do ; but it gives me a feeling of 

 pleasure, just as it does you, in this: That 

 these new tilings are really what they are 

 represented to be, and that they are certain- 

 ly superior to the common kind we have 

 been selling." 



THE SEED CATALOGUES OF THE 

 PRESENT AGE, ETC. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT ECONOMIZING EXPRESS 

 CHARGES. 



IT is indeed a treat to any one who loves 

 d gardening, to look over the beautiful 

 l|[ catalogues that are now sent out yearly 

 A in the months of January and Febru- 

 ary. It gives one a glimpse of the prog- 

 ress that is being made, and also of the im- 

 mense business done in just this little matter 

 of requisites for the garden. When visiting 

 Matthew Crawford last fall, while he was 

 busy with a customer I began to look curi- 

 ously at some little plats of various kinds 

 of vegetables. They were well cared for; 

 and the wonderful crops in these little 

 patches excited my curiosity. When 1 ask- 

 ed for an explanation, friend C. spoke some- 

 thing like this : 



k " Mr. Root, when I get a bright new cata- 

 logue that evidently cost the seed-grower 

 quite a little sum of money apiece, I have al- 

 ways had a sort of feeling' that he deserved 

 at least a little encouragement from every 

 one who received it ; therefore I mail a lit- 

 tle order for onion seeds to our friend 

 Maule ; buy some new wax beans of Bur- 

 pee ; a few packets of Henderson, and so on ; 

 and if I get the seeds, of course I must give 

 them a little plat of ground. These great 

 red onions that you are admiring here were 



THE NEW SYSTEM OF PACKING. 



Now, the above may not have been exact- 

 ly friend C.'s words, but they are the sum 

 and substance of them, and I do think that 

 every one of you who receives one of these 

 beautiful illustrated catalogues, with their 

 colored plates, ought to send the proprietor 

 at least a small order for seeds, by way of 

 encouragement. If you pay 10 or 25 cts. for 

 the catalogue, you need not make an order 

 unless you choose ; but where it is sent you 

 free, I think you can pick out at least a few 

 simple things that will be worth all they 

 cost you, and at the same time prove an en- 

 couragement to the one who expends so 

 much money in getting up the catalogue. 



But I started out to talk about a new 

 cheap packing for sending seeds, plants, 

 etc., by express. We found it figured in 

 Henderson's new catalogue of the present 

 year. The cut explains it. 



You will notice, friends, that it is simply 

 a common market basket, without a handle. 

 Over the top is a piece of oil cloth, hemmed 

 around the edge so as to permit running in 

 a sort of puckering-string, to draw it up 

 securely under the topmost hoop of the bas- 

 ket ; and for additional safety, two stout 

 cords are put around the whole, to which is 

 hooked a handle to carry it by. The whole 

 apparatus weighs only a pound, and it will 

 carry a lot of seeds, plants, bulbs, or any 

 thing else, just as safely as a great heavy 

 box that weighs 10 or 15 pounds; and who 

 has not paid a big lot of express charges on 

 a heavy box when the box was not needed 

 at all ? Why, hundreds of our patrons send 

 us beeswax in great heavy boxes, when a 

 light cloth bag would answer every purpose 

 in the world. Now. I do not think beeswax 

 should ever be sent by express at all. It 

 may be, however, where you are short of 

 money, and have the wax, and want some 

 foundation by express, you decide to do it ; 

 but if so, do hot, I beg of you, put it in a box. 



