l88<) 



GLEANTNGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



297 



condition; all were listless and inactive. The busy 

 roar of a honey season was never heard last sum- 

 mer. Twice I looked, to find a colony starving, and 

 ted them up. Two weak ones died. I raised one 

 batch of cells, but several queens never hatched. 



But I will not detail all the losses from pure neg- 

 lect. The middle of August found the prospect as 

 bad as ever. About that time I undertook a job at 

 which I knew I could make wages. It assumed 

 larger proportions than I thought it would, and in 

 the midst of it the biggest now from heart's-ease I 

 have ever known, with perhaps one exception, set 

 in. I seldom get any surplus from fall flowers, 

 when the hives are already nearly full. I have been 

 so often disappointed that I had ceased to look for 

 any thing from those sources. Now, when a boom 

 had come, my bees were not in a condition to take 

 advantage of it. Very few of them would go into 

 surplus arrangements, and many were too weak to 

 carry much into the hive at all. By dint of bard 

 work I think I saved about all the bees could gath- 

 er. I realized only about 400 lbs., comb and ex- 

 tracted. All the latter was taken from the brood- 

 chamber; and when I came to prepare the bees for 

 winter, quite a number of colonies were so weak 

 that I had to unite them, and some others were 

 weaker than I generally put into winter quarters. 

 I have not half the extra combs in the honey-house 

 that 1 shall need to feed them nextspring, if the sea- 

 son is the most favorable. My stock has run down- 

 in spite of a few swarms— lower than it has been 

 for five years— nine colonies lower than a year ago. 



Now, have I made or lost? Have I done right or 

 wrong? Is it best to get my eggs in more than one 

 basket, and thus have too many irons in the fire? 

 I believe 1 have done the best thing uneer the cir- 

 cumstances. I have lost in bee-stock, and made a 

 living. The loss will be felt in the future, that I 

 may have my victuals and clothes in the present. 

 If I could live without eating, and go barefoot, I 

 should be that much better off. But bread and 

 boots are necessities, and I must have them, even 

 at the expense of capital for future use. Forme, 

 then, situated as I am, it is better to have more 

 than the one resource (bees), even though that re- 

 source sometimes suffers by it. But if my situa- 

 tion were better— if I had a little surplus to help 

 me live for a season, it would be better for me to 

 stick to my bees through thick and thin. I should 

 certainly be better satisfied, for I like bee-keeping 

 better than any other occupation I have ever tried. 



ARE QUEENS INJURED IN SHIPPING ? A TESTIMONY. 



On page 22 Mr. Swinson revives that subject. 

 When I read Mr. Doolittle's article, page 749, 1888, I 

 thought, "That accounts for it." I bought an im- 

 ported queen of A. I. Root, in the summer of 1886. 

 She was still living and laying this fall; but never, 

 since I have had her, has she approached the aver- 

 age as a layer. In that respect she has been a per- 

 petual disappointment to me. I knew not what to 

 make of it until I read the article referred to. 



Geo. F. Robbins. 



Mechanicsburg, 111., Jan. 10, 1889. 



Friend R., I do not believe that you 

 would be any happier than you are now, if 

 you could live without eating, and go bare- 

 foot, as you express it. I think it is well to 

 have more than one resource for a liveli- 

 hood ; but at the same time it behooves us 

 to watch keenly, so as to be sure to make 

 the best of both or all of our resources.— I 



do not quite like your reasoning in regard 

 to that imported queen. You have good 

 proof, it is true, that imported queens are, 

 some of them, poor layers, like all other 

 queens ; but certainly the single instance 

 you mention does not go very far toward 

 proving that all queens that have crossed the 

 ocean are necessarily less prolific than oth- 

 ers. I believe that reports have been given 

 on these very pages, of queens that crossed 

 the ocean, and afterward took long trips by 

 mail, and yet furnished quantities of brood 

 that would compare with any home-reared 

 queen. Nearly half of the colonies in our 

 apiary are provided with imported mothers ; 

 and, as a rule, we have been in the habit of 

 expecting a little more of them in the way 

 of egg-laying, rather than less. Their 

 journey across the ocean certainly does not 

 permanently cripple them. 



SPECIAL DEPARTMENT FOR A. I. ROOT, AND HIS 

 FRIENDS WHO LOVE TO RAISE CROPS. 



SOMETHING IN REGARD TO BUSH LIMA BEANS IN 

 GENERAL, EROM PETER HENDERSON. 



R. ROOT:— I notice your continued efforts 

 to get at the facts about the new Bush 

 lima, that have been questioned by two 

 or three of our disappointed contempo- 

 raries who feel annoyed about not be- 

 ing fortunate enough to get hold of such a good 

 thing. That is human nature, and I must admit 

 that 7 would have felt any thing but pleasant had 

 we been left behind in such an important race, 

 particularly if we had had the thing first in hand 

 and failed to see its merits, as one of your corres- 

 pondents admitted to me he bad. Still, had such 

 been our misfortune I hardly think we should have 

 been weak enough to show our chagrin by decrying 

 it when it was being sent out by a rival firm. 



I notice what you say about having our Bush 

 lima cooked and tasted by your family, and that 

 you thought it had not got the lima flavor as much 

 as the pole limas. I am afraid you are in error 

 about that. We made a complete and exhaustive 

 test of it the other day. We had them mashed up 

 so that the size of the beans could not be seen, so 

 as to influence judgment. We numbered the sam- 

 ples, sent half a dozen of our clerks as tasters, and 

 the universal judgment was that there was no per- 

 ceptible difference, because dried limas of any kind 

 give but little of the rich lima flavor. 



Now, I will give some of our contemporaries, who 

 are claiming to have the large lima in bush form, a 

 chance. I will pay one thousand dollars for a single 

 bushel, or seven cents each for 15,000 beans, on 

 proof that the seed will produce the large lima in 

 hush form, as is done by our new bush lima. That 

 it will yet be done is probable, for there is no reason 

 that the large lima should not " sport" to the bush 

 form as the small lima has done. 



One of our near neighbors, William Elliott, one of 

 New York's well-known seedsmen, was sent about 

 a bushel and a half of large limas last fall, with a 

 dried specimen of the plant, which certainly showed 

 it in that condition to be a bush lima. I offered 

 him nearly $1000 for his bargain (?), but he laughed 

 me to scorn, for he thought there were many thou- 

 sands in it. But, alas! "the best-laid schemes of 

 mice and men gae aft agee." Mr. Elliott's " dwarf " 



