504 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 



end of which was a curl, and papa says that they 

 kill people. Gkacie Paddock, age 9. 



Luck}- Queen, Oregon, May 29, 1889. 



We are a little curious to know more 

 about that " poison thing " which you men- 

 tion. Ask your papa the name of it, and 

 tell us in your next letter. 



THE CriAPMAN HONEY-PLANT; HOW TO GET THE 

 SEED FROM THE BALLS. 



I want to ask you how to hull the seed out of the 

 chaff of the Chapman honey-plant. Wc don't know 

 how to get the seed out of the chaff. The bees work 

 strong- on the halls. I was a bee-man all last sum- 

 mer. Pa has been sick. We grot 27 swarms; 1 went 

 to the woods. We got 85 lbs. of honey last summer. 

 It was a poor season for bees here. 



Montieello. Ind. Howard Whitcher, age 11. 



It is a very difficult matter to get the seed 

 out of the hulls, without a machine. The 

 only machine we know of is owned by Mr. 

 Chapman himself, of Versailles, N. Y. He 

 has described it in one of our back volumes, 

 but you might write him in regard to it. 



no calf to kick over hives. 



1 am ten years old. I like to read the letters In 

 Gleanings. I lo%'e to go to school. AVe have a 

 dear good teacher. She is not cross, as that other 

 boy said his teacher is. We keep several hives of 

 bees, but we have no calf to kick them over; but 

 we have an old horse. He got near them, and they 

 began to sting him. He ran away, and hid behind 

 the stable; but the bees soon found him and stung 

 him very badly. George Tegmeier. 



Carpenter, 111., Mar. 29, 1889. 



POLLEN FROM PUSSY WILLOW. 



1 will write you about bees. The first pollen I 

 saw our bees fetch in was the first of March. It 

 was from what we call pussy w T illow. We have 120 

 swarms of bees. We have not lost very many yet, 

 but we have doubled some that were too small. We 

 have had two fertile workers. The way we get rid 

 of them is to put a heavy swarm with them that 

 has got a good queen. 



SWEET POTATOES. 



We tried Mr. Root's plan of cutting sweet pota- 

 toes in two, and they all rotted for us. 



Chas. Chapman. 



bees in germany. 



My father has two apiaries, one in Germany and 

 one in this city. I was in Germany two years ago, 

 in Ottersberg, Hanover. I noticed that there are 

 more bee-keepers there than in any place else. The 

 hives they have there are made of straw, which they 

 claim are the best. I have also seen the Graven- 

 horst " bogenstulper." My father keeps his bees 

 on Simplicity frames. He has a house apiary large 

 enough for a hundred of these hives. He has the 

 light hives like the Simplicity hives, in Germany. 

 My father has your A B C. T love to read it. Our 

 bees are all gathering pollen, and we are going to 

 move them to the country about Aprill5. 



Jersey City, N. J. Anna Blanton age 11. 



SAWDOST.PACKING AROUND THE BEES,. 



My sisters, two of them, tried to keep a hive of 

 bees through the winter. Papa had a sawmill then, 

 and they went down and.'got some'sawdust and put 

 it all around the hive and, covered it up, and they 

 kept them through the winter, and in the summer 



papa sold the bees. One winter day my sister and 

 I went out where the bees were, and they were on 

 the ground, frozen, and we took them into the 

 house and laid them on the stove-hearth. After a 

 while the house was just full of bees, and we open- 

 ed the door and let them out, and they went back 

 to the hive again. Nannie McCrory, age 11. 



Marysville, Ohio. 



The bees went back if they did not get 

 chilled before they reached the hive. 



A MOUSE IN A BEEHIVE, AND WHAT THE BEES DID 

 WITH HIM. 



When pa set his bees out of the cellar, there was 

 a mouse that had a nest in the mat on top of the 

 hive. Pa tried to catch it,' but it ran down in the 

 hive. Pa said that they would make it hot for him 

 in there. Pa waited a little while, and we went 

 back to the hive and found the mouse in his nest 

 almost dead. Pretty soon he died, and I picked 16 

 stings out of his skin. Our bees are in a fine condi- 

 tion. We put 60 swarms in the cellar last fall, and 

 they all wintered well except four, whose queens 

 died. George W. Rice, age 12. 



Boscobel, Wis., May 19, 1889. 



now PAPA WINTERED his bees. 



Pa takes Gleanings and has the A B C. He has 

 40 colonies of bees, which wintered nicely. He win- 

 tered five in chaff hives on summer stands, and IJ5 

 in the cellar. He has a tile pipe put in the ground 

 7 ft. deep, which goes out to the road about 100 ft. 

 This brings in the pure air. Then he has a pipe 

 that runs from the bee-cellar to the stovepipe. On 

 the end he has a large tin, shaped like a funnel. 

 This draws all the impure air up the pipe, and 

 through the stovepipe outdoors. The bees that 

 were left on sumiru r stands began bringing pollen 

 from skunk-cabbage, April 7th. This was the first 

 that we have noticed. Addie Flanders, age 9. 



Boston, Ont. 



THE TARANTULA, AND THE EFFECT OF ITS BITE. 



Mr. T. G. Ashmead, in March 15th Gleanings, is 

 quite right about tarantula nests. There are lots 

 here. We have a little black and white velvety spi- 

 der that lives a good deal in houses and buildings. 

 They jump and bite. One bit me on the finger the 

 other day, and my finger, thumb, and wrist swelled 

 up in about half an hour. It did not hurt much at 

 first, but got very painful, and hurt me all up my 

 arm. I have been having it doctored for two weeks, 

 and now it is getting better. It broke and discharg- 

 ed a good deal. We have a hive that swarmed 

 twice, and went back. I was glad to see papa's let- 

 ter in the last Gleanings. I would tell you how he 

 got swindled by a New York firm, only you have so 

 much to attend to. All the swarms we have had 

 this year seem to be wasting a good deal of wax. 

 The ground is white outside with the little flakes. 



Lytle, Tex., Apr. 23, 18i>9. Walter Hailes. 



" JUMP OFF, JOE," ETC. 



We came from Nebraska. There is hardly any 

 thing there but wide prairies; but in Oregon there 

 are lots of things to write about. There is a large 

 creek called "Jump Off, Joe." It Hows through a 

 corner of papa's farm. It is very pretty, there are 

 so many rapids in it.nOn the other side of it the 

 bank is thirty or forty feet high, straight up and 

 down. From the top of the bank. Red Mountain 

 begins. People say, that in the summer a great 

 many rattlesnak.es come out of the ground. 



