254 



GLEANINGS IM BEE CULTUUE. 



Apr. 



it by burning rag-s first dipped in melted brimstone. 

 When it will do no harn, let in the sunshine. Most 

 of all, do not allow any decaying vegetable or ani- 

 mal matter to stay in it. Now, then, my masculine 

 friends, do not make your wives see to this. They 

 have enough to do; but tend to it yourselves, as you 

 value the lives of your dear ones. One may live 

 over a damp filthy cellar for years, and not pay the 

 penalty; but he can not tell how soon a day of reck- 

 oning may come. He may bury every child within 

 a week. If science teaches any thing whatever 

 plainly, it is that pure air, sunshine, and pure wa- 

 ter, are the best preventives of disease. Make the 

 air of your homes (cellars and all) as pure as possi- 

 ble. Under this head you want to look out for the 

 slop-drains, or about emptying the slops always in 

 one place. The safest way to manage sewer-gas is 

 not to have any This is the way at our home, as 

 told of last year. About drinking-water, in my next 

 letter. T. B. Terry. 



Hudson, O., March, 1887. 



Friend T., I am witli you exactly in every 

 word you say. Our cellar, where the steam- 

 pipes "are, contains notiiing whatever. We 

 got it up so liigh and dry, and put in so 

 many windows, that it is too light and 

 warm to keep any thing, so we just partition- 

 ed off anotlier part for our vegetables, etc., 

 and this part can be aired and dried and 

 sunned just as much as any other room in 

 the house. By having it warm, we always 

 have the tl(Kirs of the room warm. We 

 thought once we had got our cellar too high 

 and too dry, and so it is for a potato-cellar. 

 But I believe, especially after reading your 

 remarks, that we can afford to have a pota- 

 to-cellar somewhere else. 



Now in regard to looking after our cellars, 

 in a sanitary point of view: I have just re- 

 turned from a visit to Prof. Cook's. While 

 we were walking across the helds I was 

 speaking of the wonderful progress we are 

 making, and I asked him what he supposed 

 the outcome was going to be of our wells 

 of natural gas He said that it would 

 probably be beyond the conception of any 

 one living, and then remarked that the 

 next great stride to be made in science 

 would probably concern human health and 

 disease; and in answer to a question of 

 mine, he said that it seemed to him quite 

 likely we should soon have complete con- 

 trol of fevers, and diseases of kindred 

 character. Now, then, it occurs to me, 

 since reading your article, that perhaps we 

 are beginning the march by taking up tirst 

 the cellars that are under our houses. 



way is not to be reckommended, for the reeson the 

 bee is ap to strangel & coif, & waist the feed. 



OUB P. BEKTSON LETTER. 



FEEDIN OF BEES. 



I?! UM peaple thinks bees ken feed thairselves, 

 ^■j but that izzent sighcntiflck. Thay is diferent 

 ^J waze. 1 way is to feed them with a tea 



■^ spoon. A table spoon is too big; thay let it 

 run out of the side of thair mouth. Throw 

 your left arm around the bee's neck, while you 

 hold the tea spoon in the right, and hug him pirty 

 tite till he begins to gasp for broth, & then kwick 

 pore the spoonful of feed down his throte. This 



p. BENSON SHOWS HOW TER FEED A BEE. 



Next the simplissity feeder. Lookin at it with a 

 inexperienst i this seems like a good feeder. But it 

 izzent. You see the troubbel is thair is no place in 

 partickler for the bees to go in & out. Suppose the 

 bees start in for the feed, and a ro stands all round 

 the feed soze no more ken git in. Them that cums 

 next will stand Avaitin for a chants to git in, and 

 when the first wuns gits filled thay will turn round 

 and find the way all blocked up by the 2d wuns. So 

 eech 1 will wate out of polightness for the uther to 

 git out of the way, & neather ken git by the uther 

 & so thale jist stand thare and wate & the thing 

 woont wirk. 



That's the buty of sigents. Now a common man 

 wood hefto taik a simplissity feeder and giv it to the 

 bees to see if it wood wirk. But a grate Sighentist 

 like me ken think it oil out in a phue owrs & see 

 that it kant wirk, and then he doant need to try it. 



Then thare's the shuck feeder & uthers whitch 

 mite be good, oanly the bees hefto wirk in the 

 dark, and thay kant do that. Hwo ever herd of 

 a bee gethering hunny from clovur in the dark V 

 Thay doant wirk that way. 



The only propi)er way to feed bees is with P. Ben- 

 son's (thats me) patent, reversable, trantsparent, 

 youreeky bee-feeder. This consists as herein set 

 4th substanshelly as folloughs, viz, to-wit: 

 A feed chaimher (see A in the pickter) or its 

 eciuivolent, in comhinashen with a aper- 

 toor B, or a apertoor B in eombinashen 

 with a feed chaimber A, substanshelly, 

 or its equivolent and for the purpusses 

 set 4th, the whole to be constructed of 

 vitreous glass or its equivolent, and the 

 ;, apertoor B, so constructed that exit and 

 f entrance to the feed chaimber A, may 

 j be effectooally surceased through the 

 .) apertoor B, by means of the thum of 

 the operrater, preferably that of the 

 "right or left hand, plaist upon the aper- 

 p. BENSON'S toor B. 



"^vEBSABLif To opperate the feeder, the apertoor is 

 ^ YorlTKEKY'^ left open a sufflshent lenth of time for a 

 BBE-FKKUEB. gulHshent uumbcr of bees to enter the 

 feed chaimber A, then the opperator poots his 

 thum on the apex of the mouth of the apertoor till 

 the bees are seen to have filled thairselves and ar- 

 rainge themselves in a boddy at the apertoor to git 

 out. The thum bein removed thay rush 4th in sitch 

 a boddy as to carry all before them, when a noo 

 force enters as before. P. Benson, A. B. S. 



