400 



GLEANINGS IN HEE CULTURE. 



Mav 



to lay. Excepting this one colony, those that were 

 in tlie fellar wei'e stronger colonics, and had not 

 coiisuiued so much honey as those out of doors. 

 Last summer, during swarming season, a swarm 

 came out and alighted on a currant-liush. While 

 papa was getting ready, another swarm came to 

 the same place; and, while putting them in the 

 hive, a third swarm came and went in with them, 

 mailing such a large swarm that papa had to put 

 on another story, and couhl liardly carry it to its 

 place on a wheelbarrow. Kuth Waite. 



Hiiickle> . Ohio. 



Tliat bees in cellar do coiisimie less stores 

 than Lliose out of doors is generally admitted. 

 It is not al\\a\s the case, however, that cel- 

 lar-wintered colonies come out stronger. — 

 Tliosf^ three sv.'arins must iiuieed have made 

 a rousing big colony. 



BEING TRUE TO OUR NAME.S. 



Pa says his first number of Glkanings and the 

 " first boy" came to his house about the same time, 

 so 1 was named after you. T will try to live so as to 

 be worthy of your name. I have never used any 

 profane language, and never will, and wish all lit- 

 tle boys would trj' to do the same. 1 never tell my 

 ma that I "won't," or "don't want to," when she 

 asks me to do any thing, for she is kind to me, and T 

 intend to be obedient, and helj) her all I can. 



I have split and corded ten cords of wood in the 

 last two weeks, besides having lots of time to play. 

 Hoy Gift helped me two half-days. Ma said she 

 would get me a new illustrated Bible as soon as J 

 got the New Testament read through. T mean to 

 read four chai)ters every day, but once in a while I 

 forget it. The bees are in the cellar yet. Pa says 

 there is only one colony dead out of loO. He is anx- 

 ious for the weather to get warm, so there will be 

 something for them to do, then he will put them 

 our. He says he has learned by sad experience that 

 bee-keepers generally put their bees out too early 

 in the spring for this climate. 



We got 40 eggs from 67 pullets yesterday. They 

 will lay about 90 dozen this month, and did lay 

 about 60 dozen last month. I heard pa say he 

 thought that bees that were about one-half Italian 

 and one-half black, and chickens half Brown Leg- 

 horn and half Plj mouth Kock, were the best bees 

 and chickens for business. Ernest Gii^i^, age 10. 



Star, A'ernon Co., Wis.. Mar. 27, 18S7. 



Yon must indeed be a dutiful son. If the 

 name '' Ernest '' implies all you tliink it 

 does, and all jou live up to, 1 must confess 

 that I liuve not been as " Ernest " as yon. I 

 would that all our little juveniles might try 

 to live as you do. Tlie boy who makes tlie 

 Bible his companion, as I think you do. 

 could not well be otherwise than " earnest " 

 in the sense which you give to it.— In regard 

 to taking bees out "of the cellar too early in 

 the spring, I would say that your papa has 

 come to the very same conclusion that Dr. 

 Miller has. 



HOW CHARLIE MADE TWO DEAD COLONIES GOMK 

 TO LIFE. 



My father has 36 swarms of bees now. I have 3. 

 The first one of my swarms was short of stores in 

 the fall, so I watched them. Oiie morning I went 

 out and they were dead. I l>ro\ight them in the 

 house and told mother to make some honey s.vrup. 

 She took some candied honey and a little water, and 

 put it on the stove till the honey was all dissolved. 



I I then took it outdoors to cool a little. When It was 



I about as warm as new milk I opened the hive, took 



: out the combs with the dead bees, and poured the 



warm syrup right on the bees and combs, i)Ut them 



back in the hive and shut it up, nail, d some wire 



cloth over the entrance, and set i hem down by the 



fireplace. In less than an hour they were cutting 



at the wires, and had raised a great hum. I then 



] put them upstairs, ajid gave them a chunk of 



honey that came out of a bee-tree which we found 



in the mountains, this being January 10, 1887. Jan. 



, 15th 1 found eggs and small larviv. Jan. 20th I put 



I them back on their sumyier stand. March 1st they 



i commenced bringing in pollen, and they are doing 



; nicely. 



j A DISABLED QUEEN THAT IS STILL A GOOD LAYER. 



j I have another swarm of bees that 1 bought of 

 j my father, Feb. 1, 1887, he supposing they were dead. 

 I I told him I would give 35 cents for the bees and 

 ; queen. He said, " All right." But they were not 

 ! dead. I transfeiTcd them into one of my hives. 

 : The queen has both of her hind legs and her left 

 j middle leg injured in some way, so they are of no 

 I use to her; but she is one of the best layers 1 ever 



saw. 

 I In the fall I had 5 swarms of bees, but now I have 

 I 3. I had one lose its queen, so I put 2 swarms into 1. 

 ! We have flowers here the la»>t of February, gen- 

 ; erally: but this season there were no flowers till 



March first. 



The api)le-ti-ees are in bloom. The- apple-blos- 



! soms came out April 5th; peach-blossoms, April 



I 10th ; strawberry, April 10th. All the summer birds 



: are here but orioles and wild canaries. Honey is 



selling at l2'/4 cts., extracted; comb, 15 cts. 

 If you wish, I will send cuts of my hive and my 

 ! way of feeding out of one hive into an other kind of 

 ; hive. Charlie H. Stewart. 



I Altona, Col., April 17, 1887. 



I Many thanks, friend Charlie. You have 

 I unconsciously struck up(^n the same point 

 ! suggested b> Wm. C. Greer, in the Juvenile 

 Department, page 811. I would advise you 

 to carefully read the answer, and see if it 

 does not conlirm some of >'our experiments. 

 The point you bring out is a good one ; that 

 is, we must not be too hasty in pronouncing 

 a colony dead, even though it has every ap- 

 pearance of being so. You seem to have 

 been a little wiser than your father, but it 

 is not very t)ften that boys have more wis- 

 dom, though they sometimes think they 

 have. Twenty-five cents is pretty cheap for 

 a whole colony of bees, is it not, even if 

 they are apparently dead? but twenty-five 

 cents would l)e a rather deai' price if you 

 found that it was impossible to revive the 

 bees. Another tiling. Charlie : You have 

 given us proof that a queen with both of 

 her hind legs disabled, and a middle leg be- 

 sides, is a good layer. I am glad of this, for 

 sometimes the legs of queens get injured in 

 transit through the mails, and customers 

 are inclined to kill them without even giv- 

 ing them a trial. Don't discard any queen, 

 friends, until you know by actual test that 

 she can not do good work. 



.\NOTHER .JUVENILE INVESTMENT IN BEES.— HOW 

 !|fl..50 WAS MADE TO BRING #8.00. 



A year ago last summer I picked berries. Papa 

 paid me the same for picking that he did other boys 

 and girls, so in the fall he said I had better invest 



