356 



GLEANINGS IN BEE (CULTURE. 



May 



my reading- of bee-literature (which is quite limit- 

 ed) I have not come across any thintr like it, and I 

 should like to have your opinion. H. L. Doty. 



Salem Center, Ind., Jan. 3S, 1887. 



Friend D., I have sometimes thought that 

 it was harder to decide just what a man who 

 takes charge of bees is worth, than in almost 

 any othei- occupation. For instance, a man 

 who is sharp, keen, and skillful, might, witli 

 our 200 colonies, raise 1000 queens in a ;vear, 

 while another, equally honest, and working 

 equally hard, might not raise more than one- 

 fourth that amount. If the latter man is 

 worth a dollar a day. the other would be 

 wortli four dollars, and 1 presume almost as 

 great a difference would be found in the 

 production of honey. It has been said, that 

 no one knows the possibilities of a single 

 colony of bees in a single season, and I 

 should say that no one knows the possibili- 

 ties of a single man in a single season. We 

 do know to our sorrow, however, that there 

 is an abundance of meu who do not accom- 

 plish enough to pay for the wages they re- 

 ceive, and these ;ire they who are going 

 about from place to place, hunting for a job. 

 Within the last hour I liave employed a man 

 to assist in our apiary, and I told him we 

 would pay him whatever we found him to 

 be worth." I have just unloaded a load of 

 bees wliicli we are to buy of him ; and he 

 drove off, saying, '' Look the bees over when 

 you get ready ; and when I come around, al- 

 low me what you tliink 1 ought to have for 

 them.'" It seems to me this is a very fair 

 way to decide any of these dithcult matters, 

 especially where we have jiot seen the man 

 work, and do not know wiial he can do. 

 Tliese bees we have not overlinuled and ex- 

 amined yet, therefore we can not tell what 

 they are worth to us. In the latter case, of 

 course we want to deal witli men whom we 

 feel sure are disposed to l)e fair. Working 

 on shares is always a complicated business ; 

 and al)Out all that we can say is, arrange it 

 In any way that you can agree upon. 



THK "BOY BEE-KEEPER" KEPOKTS AOAIN. 



It has been many days since the "boy bee-keep- 

 er** last appeared in your columns, and you and 

 many of your readers may now scarcely recall 

 bim, so far have we drifted from our Georgia 

 home at Hawkinsville, where our venerable sire 

 still holds the fort with the g-entle golden-banded 

 Italians. We ob.serve witli especial interest the 

 bees and tlowers of every section we visit; and the 

 result in this State has not lieen all we had cause to 

 expect. We have wandered seurchiugly through 

 woods and groves where the zephyrs came to us 

 laden with the perfume of many flowers, and found 

 a few small black and one yellow-banded bee to 

 reward our pains. This only shows how that most 

 delicious and wholesome of sweets is permitted to 

 "waste its .sweetness on the desert air," for no 

 section of the country has given more abundant 

 yield than some i)()rtions of Florida, whore the in- 

 dustry has been pro]ierly introduced and scientiflc- 

 all3' pursued; but we And largo areas of almost total- 

 ly unoccupied territory. We shall make some prac- 

 tical tests in regard to this immediate field, and will 

 probably, with your permission, give something of 

 the result to your readers. Chas. R. Mitchell. 



Ocala, Fla., Apr. 16', 1887. 



EASINO DOWN A SWA KM. 



I see some details of how some parties manage to 

 get down swarms from higli trees. ] go up the tree 

 and take a line stout enough to bear the swarm, 

 throw it over the next limb above the swarm, then 

 bring it down and tie to the limb holding the swarm. 

 1 then saw otf the limb with the liees and let them 

 down over the above-mentioned limb. If no limb 

 is convenient, I let it down hand over hand. By 

 having the line to bear on I can ease the limb down 

 without any jar when sawing otf. Wm. Hall. 



Romance, Wis. 



Very good, friend H. Your plan for tak- 

 ing down a swarm will work all right if you 

 have a limb above the one upon which "the » 

 swarm was clustered, and if there are no 

 limbs below to ititerfere in e;ising the swarm 

 down. We have never yet succeeded in 

 making a swarm cluster just where we de- 

 sired it to. A perfect method of taking 

 swarms down slioidd be one that would be 

 applicable to all conditions, and to anv 

 heiglit. 



MOKE ABOUT THE COLONIAL EXHIBITION — A COK- 



KECTION. 



On page 35a Ernest seems to think the honey-ex- 

 hibitions at the C. & T. E., made by the British Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, and that made by the Ontario 

 R. K. A. were one and the same. To think so would 

 be quite a mistake. Our friends in Britain held 

 their exhibition (if my memor.v serves me) from 

 July 30 to August 4. Then it was removed. Ours 

 was placed in position about the middle of Septem- 

 ber, remained open until the close of the exhibition, 

 on the 10th of November, and was held in quite a 

 ditterent building— one erected expressly for our 

 exhibits. It was occupied by our honey only. Yes, 

 the colonial was lighted b.v electricity by night, and 

 there were three arc lamps in our honey-building, 

 and, as you may well imagine, the effect was ver.y 

 pretty. I am really sorry, Ernest, that you were 

 not there to see it. Thanks for your kind remarks 

 about our honey-shows. You are right about ex- 

 hibitions lielping sales. A lot of granulated honey 

 in glass educates the people remarkably. The pho- 

 tographs shown by Mr. Abbott were of British hon- 

 ey. S. T. Pettit. 



Belmont, Ont., Can., April 6, 1887. 



Thanks, friend P., for the correction. We 

 did not know before that the exhibitions 

 were held in two different buildings, and at 

 two different times ; in fact, in looking the 

 matter up we did not notice but that they 

 were one and tlie same exhibition, all held 

 in the same building. We sliould have very 

 much enjoyed taking a view of the honey- 

 displays. * 



FlMiTHEK EXPLANATION IN KEOAKI) TO THE OAK- 

 GKOVE APJARY. 



You don't know how much good it did me when I 

 got Gleanings of March 1st. 1 opened it and found 

 a picture of my apiary. I will now explain it some. 

 The ghl with the light dress is in>- sister. The little 

 boy, as you call liiiii (he is alinost as big as I am) is 

 mj brother, and the other girl is my cousin from 

 Nebraska. You ask why I put the hives on stilts. 

 They are only H or 10 inches high. They look higher 

 than they are. I put them that way l)ecause the 

 frogs eat so many bees at night. The young bees 

 never get chilled here when they fly out. The 



