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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



JULY 



iiig certain times of the year, wlien there are 

 no drones either early in the spring or late 

 in tlie fall, we sometimes wait two or three 

 weeks, or even a month, before the yonng 

 queen becomes fertilized. Late in the fall, 

 it is our practice to wait a little longer on 

 young queens than we would where the es- 

 sential conditions are present; that is, " if 

 the season, flow^ of honey, flight of drones, 

 etc., are all right.'' 



PROF. COOK IN REGARD TO DRINK- 

 ING-WATER, SEWAGE, ETC. 



HE TEI.IiS US SOMETHING OF HOW GREAT IS THE 

 DANGER. 



T DO think you are entirely correct on the drain- 

 (^ age, or sewerag'e question. I should seriously 

 ^t dislike to use water in a well dug wholly in 



'*- land or g-round that was even many feet from 

 a soui'ce of contagion. I know of an epidemic 

 of typhoid fever which desti'oyed two bright young 

 lives last summer, and nearly cut short several 

 more, and clearly from just such a cause. That the 

 germs may be passed through porous soil for a 

 long distance is positively proved. That such 

 germs may also be stored in such soil, constantly 

 threatening life, although their presence is un- 

 known and unsuspected, is equally true. But when 

 a person's constitution, through some lack of vigor, 

 is susceptible, they then lay their fatal grip upon 

 him, and he becomes a victim to these same un- 

 wholesome wells. There are two points of vast 

 practical moment. 1. Get water from some strat- 

 um which is well underneath a stratum of claj'. 

 This may rccjuire a deep drive, or bored well. The 

 drive-well patent has now expired. 3. So arrange 

 privy-vaults and other sources of tilth and conta- 

 gion, that the matter shall all go on to the soil and 

 enrich it, and not possibly, by any mf-ans, into our 

 wells to poison us. 1 might add another point: Be 

 sure that no drain can befoul the cellar air, and 

 thus bring diphtheria to our homes. These three 

 points are the first I should look after in entering 

 a new home. A. ,T. Cook. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



A BEGINNER'S TWO-YEARS' EXPERI- 

 ENCE. 



SOME NOTES FROM A SOUTHERN JOURNALIST; 



HOW HE KEPT BEES; THE RESULT AND THE 



MORAL OF THE MATTER. 



■JTp BOUT two years ago I became so worn down 

 gfl^ with editorial and similar work at the desk, 



jrI? having been at it for something like 2.5 years, 

 •^^^ that I concluded to stop for a season and 

 take to the " poetry of labor" and try the 

 " catching enthusiasm " of the busy bee. I had oft- 

 en read about bee culture during my editorial ca- 

 reer, and, in fact, had a copy of the ABC book, 

 which I received from you some nine years ago 

 for advertising in a newspaper I was then editing 

 and managing. The long-continued and hard work 

 of the kind mentioned had very much worn me 

 down, so that I became at times so weak I could 

 scarcely hold my arms over the desk to examine a 

 newspaper. I frequently had palpitation, and had 

 to take stimulants of some kind, often to enable me 

 to go through the day's work. Being nearly 50 



years old, I knew I should not be able to hold out 

 much longer unless I took a rest, and so last Octo- 

 ber, two years ago, 1 resigned the position I then 

 held as manager of the advertising department of a 

 large patent-medicine firm, and commenced to read 

 about bees. I bought every book I could get on 

 bee culture, several old volumes of Gleanings, and 

 these I read and re-read until I was a walking en- 

 cyclopedia on bee culture, as I thought. In the 

 winter I procured an old gum of hybrids, bought 

 for Italians; and, having ordered and received 

 hives, and every thing I needed, from A.I. Root, all 

 of which gave the utmost satisfaction, I set about; 

 and, being naturally a mechanic, I placed all the 

 goods, hives, frames, crates, etc., together; and, 

 with the hives neatly set out in our beautiful side 

 yard, 30 x 80 feet, and painted white, the whole, to- 

 gether with neatly arranged vines, flowers, etc., 

 formed a picture of surpassing beauty. I had ten 

 hives and an old gum which I was to transfer to 

 movable frames. 



About this time I bought two colonies of Italians 

 in shipping-boxes; and the gentlemen who sold 

 them to me candidly wrote me that two colonies 

 were enough, and that he did not desire to sell me 

 any more. I placed those two colonies in two Sim- 

 plicity hives, and the gum I transferred, making, as 

 I know now, a rather unworkmanlike job of it; but 

 I was intensely interested in bees, and I intended to 

 make it a success. In fact, the bee-business took 

 possession of me. I could sit by the hives for hours 

 and admire the beauties as they worked, and I nev- 

 er tired in being in the apiary, where I stayed and 

 worked, until, from the pale desk-man, I became as 

 brown and sunburnt as an Indian. But I didn't 

 mind the sun-burning— I was " in for the war," and 

 intended to serve it through and make honey, bees, 

 queens, etc. 



Well, the first spring and summer I had to feed 

 those bees through the entire season, adding sever- 

 al swarms, and also four other colonies which I 

 bought. I worked and fed, and looked daily to see 

 the sections filled out with honey; but, alas! thej' 

 did not fill, and so the season went through without 

 a single section being filled out, and I was out of 

 pocket S<150 for bees and fixtures, and $25.00 for 

 sugar fed to the bees. Total loss $17.5, and a whole 

 year's work gone for nothing, which would have 

 netted me at least .$1800 if I had been working as I 

 did the last year of my desk experience. But not- 

 withstanding all this I did not lose faith in the bees; 

 and when winter came on I packed my favorite 

 hive well, packed partially the others, and so the 

 year closed, as we went into winter quarters. 



During the next winter I read and re-read again, 

 and procured several other books on bee culture, 

 determined to make it a success the next season if 

 possible. It is true, I remembered the sweltering 

 days spent in the apiary the year before, as well as 

 the loss; but the thing that I was after was not to 

 be beaten out by my ill success the year previous, 

 and so I reasoned the cause pro and con, and I at 

 last came to the conclusion that the reason of fail- 

 ure last season was not so much that the season 

 was rainy, and then too dry, but that I started with 

 too small colonies, and resolved that the following 

 spring I would "take time by the forelock" and 

 have strong colonies to begin with. Early in Feb- 

 ruary I commenced to feed those colonies, which, 

 with the beginning of the second year, amounted to 

 ten, or at least those which showed that they had 



