GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



where there are no sheep kept in the vicinity of 



said crops of clover? Is there any possibility of the 

 white clover ever returning again without the re- 

 turn of the sheep? I think not. If there is anybody 

 else who can produce any evidence to the contrary 

 I should be pleased to hear from him through 

 Gleanings. I feel considerably interested. 



Alfred J. Fisher. 

 East Liverpool, Ohio, Dec. 12. 



Forty years ago I was a boy of six, and am not 

 able to remember accurately just when the first num- 

 ber of the magazine came to our house ; but I am 

 pretty sure it began with the first number published. 

 At least it was when Gleanings was a baby, and 

 from that time until the present we have never 

 missed a number. As soon as I was old enough I 

 went into the business with my father; and at his 

 death, eleven years ago, I had the subscription 

 transferred to myself. " Uncle Amos " is a house- 

 hold word with us. We would feel as much lost 

 without the visits of our bee paper twice a month 

 as we would without our bees. Our children have 

 been brought up on bread and honey, and are a 

 healthy pair of young people, and a credit to the 

 diet. 



While not exactly one of the original subscribers 

 myself, you see I was brought up right with the 

 magazine, and hardly know where to draw the line, 

 especially as the change was so slight from my 

 father, C. H. Longstreet, to your present subscriber 

 and friend — 



Coronado, Pla., Sept. 9. H. C. Longstreet. 



I have subscribed for Gleanings ever since the 

 first number was published, when the windmill fur- 

 nished the power, and when " Novice " made some 

 yf his engravings vnth a saw. Before me lies Vol. 

 I., No. 1, headed: 



"Novice's Gleanings in Bee Culture; or, how 

 to Realize the Most Money with the Smallest Expen- 

 diture of Capital and Labor in the Care of Bees, 

 Rationally Considered. Published Quarterly. Me- 

 dina, O., Jan. 1, 1873." 



I have every number published since then, and it 

 has been one of the chief pleasures of my beekeep- 

 ing life to read and study Gleanings. 



On Dec. 30, 1898, when Gleanings was 25 years 

 old, A. I. Root presented me with a glass dodeca- 

 hedron, which still adorns my writing-desk. 



I may say that I have been a constant subscriber 

 to the American Bee Journal since the beginning of 

 1871, and therefore used to read and enjoy " Nov- 

 ice's " articles in that paper before Gleanings was 

 born. May he continue for many years yet to in- 

 struct and cheer those who have known him so long. 

 Wm. Muth-Rasmussen. 



Independence, Inyo Co., Cal., Aug. 26. 



I took Gleanings for many years when first pub- 

 lished. I was then living in Brookfield, N. H. I 

 moved to Boston, and dropped beekeeping for 16 

 years. I moved here three years ago, and had bees 

 again within a week. I have had bees upward of 

 35 years. I never knew a year but that I had more 

 or less comb honey. Our great flow in Woburn is 

 in August and September. 



With a protected hive having a cap covering all 

 the supers, a queen that will keep ten frames prac- 

 tically full of brood all the time so the hive is boil- 

 ing over with bees, I have never failed to get honey. 

 Sooner or later there will be a flow, and ten pounds 

 a day is nothing for such a colony. I have had as 

 high as seven from goldenrod in September in New 

 Hampshire. Massachusetts is an old settled country ; 

 and if the editor lived here he would write some 

 very different articles. Shrubbery and hedges like 



sumac and clematis and many others cut a big 

 figure. Our town raises more squashes than any 

 other in Massachusetts, and lots of beautiful honey 

 comes from them. There are not a dozen basswood 

 trees in town, and only goldenrod enough to tinge 

 the clematis (cultivated, not wild). Creeping Jenny 

 grows everywhere, a great yielder of fine white 

 honey. My best colony last year gave 70 lbs. in 

 August and September in sections, and according 

 to appearances now it will beat it this year. 

 Woburn, Mass., Aug. 30. E. C. Newell. 



I am only a boy yet, 60 years old ; but I kept 

 bees when I was 17. The first bee book I ever read 

 was an old one my father had — The American Bee- 

 keepers' Manual, written by T. B. Miner in 1849. 

 It marked the change from the straw and log gum 

 to a square box with a small box on top. The 

 next after that was a book written by Moses Quinby, 

 I think; but my start in beekeeping was due to a 

 neighbor who sold his place and wanted me to take 

 his bees on shares. I think there were 14 colonies. 

 The hives were 14 inches wide, 14 inches deep, and 

 about 20 inches long. The whole back was a door. 

 The bees' part was 12 by 12 inches square, with 

 glass in the back. On top of that were placed two 

 boxes, 6 by 6, and 12 inches long, with glass in 

 the end, all home-made ; and I still have two hives, 

 with no bees in them, that I made in 1879. 



I knew of Mr. A. I. Root 40 years ago, and I 

 think I also read Gleanings from the first. 



I have never been a big bee-man, nor kept bees 

 all the time, as I have sometimes been where I 

 could not; but whenever I could I had them, and 

 now I have nine colonies in our back yard in the 

 city of Hudson, and I love the little scamps as well 

 or better now than I did 40 years ago; and I re- 

 member as a boy I used to love to take a book or 

 paper and sit among the hives, and read, and hear 

 the bees hum. It was music; and how I used to 

 •watch them pile in ahead of a shower 1 



Hudson, N. Y., Sept. 1. H. C. Niver. 



I am not certain, but I think I read Gleanings 

 from nearly if not quite at the start, as I had the 

 old American Bee Journal when published by Sam- 

 uel Wagner, Washington, D. C, and A. I. Root 

 wrote for it under the name of "Novice;" and those 

 pieces written by him were the first looked for. I 

 have been a subscriber a large part of the time 

 since Gleanings has been in existence, and have 

 kept bees since June' 22, 1856. I have 19 colonies 

 at present, and have had Italian queens from differ- 

 ent breeders. I introduced two queens this year 

 from a breeder who advertised four and six banded 

 bees ; but the first queen produced very fine three- 

 banded ones, and it is not quite time yet for eggs 

 to hatch from the second one. 



This section is not very much of a honey country; 

 80 to 90 lbs. is as much as I have ever taken in 

 surplus of honey in any year. In all the 56 years 

 I have kept bees, 500 lbs. is as much as I have 

 taken in comb and extracted honey in any season 

 from 12 to 15 colonies, spring count. I have always 

 been able to sell all my honey at home, as people 

 knew for quite a distance that they could nearly 

 always find honey, either comb or extracted. I usu- 

 ally get from 20 to 25 cents per lb. for comb honey, 

 and 20 for extracted honey put up in jelly-tumblers. 



One thing more. I am a believer that queens 

 mate two to five miles, quite often, from home, as no 

 one less than five miles from my farm has ever in- 

 troduced any Italian queens; and bees in three dif- 

 ferent yards, 1^ to 2% miles apart have become 

 mixed with Italian blood. If not from drones from 

 my small apiary, how then? 



George S. Wheeler. 



New Ipswich, N. H., Sept. 25. 



