1886 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



B9 



iug wiud and rain. A hive thus made I 

 should call '' Simplicity," no matter what 

 dimensions the frames are. 



A LITTLE GIHL WHOSE ORANDMA HAS 5~' VOIA)- 

 NIES; CANARY BIRDS. 



I am staying- with luy gnindrua this winter, and 

 going to school. My grandma has lots of bees. She 

 has 52 colonies, 42 in the cellar and 10 outdoors, 

 packed in leaves. I helped to rake the leaves to 

 pack them in. The bees did not make much honey 

 last season. We have a pair of nice canary birds, 

 and they arc just beginning to sing. I feed them 

 every morning before I go to school. 



Nellie G. Martin, age 11. 



Grandview, Iowa, Jan. 7, 1886. 



Sister Maude has a canary bird something 

 over a year old. You just ought to see how 

 saucy he can be. Why, he seems to have a 

 particular spite at me. When he sees me 

 coming he will begin to scold and bristle up 

 for a figlit. How he does delight in pecking 

 at my linger! and he can hurt too. Some- 

 times we put before him a looking-glass. 

 Do you think he admires himself? not a bit 

 of it. He thinks it is another bird, and the 

 little "• goose " will light at his imaginary 

 foe for nearly half an hour sometimes. 



Ernest. 



KROM 2 TO 10, AND CO LBS. OF HONEY; TIERING 

 DOWNWARD. 



My papa had two box hives of bees in the spring, 

 and he transferred them as the ABC book said, 

 and had vevy good luck. He increased to ten hives; 

 got about HO lbs. of honey from them, and made two 

 nuclei. Thej' did very well and papa fed them. I 

 like to see the bees take their feed. Papa has 

 packed eight of them in sawdust, as James Heddon 

 says, and one as Cyula Linswik says, and one is not 

 packed at all. The one that he packed as Cyula 

 Linswik said, came out of a hole there was in be- 

 tween the chamber floor and the wall below, and 

 papa sawed out a piece of the floor Avhere they were, 

 took out the bees and honey, and gave the honey to 

 a man. Papa fed them vrith sugar sjrup, and they 

 are in good shape now. He tried some in two other 

 houses, and could not got them. They l)uilt the 

 comb down between the walls, and carried ofl:' some 

 of the feed down there. Papa got stung once, try- 

 ing to got them out of the house. 



My brother wrote about papa buying the bees at 

 auction. There was a man who bought a hive of 

 bees when papa did, and put them up high under 

 an old shed. They did not swarm, but built comb 

 on the under side of the hive. They have been 

 there two years now. Papa went to see them last 

 summer. They had as much comb under the hive 

 as they did in it. The comb under the hive was 

 covered with bees, and the man said the bees cov- 

 i»red the comb the fall before that way, and they 

 wintered so last winter, only they kept working up 

 into the hive through the winter, but did not all 

 get up until spring. Belle M. Wanzer, age !•. 



Litehfteld, Ct., Dec. 10, 1885. 



.MOVING BEES IN A SPRINGLESS WAGON OVER A 

 ROUGH HOAD. 



Mr. Ernest R. Root t—As you have charge of the 

 juvenile department I shall address you instead of 

 your father. As I was named after you, I think 

 you will be more apt to give room to my report, if 

 report you call it. I swpp ).se I was named after you. 



I am eleven years old, so you will know whether 1 

 was named after you or not. My papa is taking 

 Gleanings; and of the dozen papers he is taking, 

 I am quite sure he likes it best. Pa is much inter- 

 ested in bees. The Kev. Granville Houchins, who 

 is going to assist pa this year in bee-keeping, says 

 pa has the bee-fever. Mr. Houchins has had much 

 experience in keeping bees. He is a preacher and 

 a school-teacher. I am going to school to him now. 

 Mr. Houchins has an A B C book that your father 

 wrote. Pa has " Quinby's Now Bee-Keeping." 



Jlr. Houchins and pa bought 19 stands of bees out 

 on Flat-Top Mountains, about 25 miles from here, 

 and the way is verrj rough. The bees were in hol- 

 low-log gums. Now, the way they got the bees 

 home is what I wish to report. They hired a heavy 

 two-horse wagon, without sp/niys, as they could not 

 get one strong enough loiUt springs to bear the bees 

 up over the rough roads. The wagon-bed was not 

 large enough to hold all the gums, so they took out 

 the hind gat? and laid some long plank in the bot- 

 tom of the bed; then they turned the gums bottom 

 up and tacked some old cloth on the bottom of the 

 gums. They filled up the wagon-bed with the gums, 

 after they had put some straw in first; what gums 

 were left they put on the ends of the planks that 

 were put in the bottom of the bed, and which were 

 longer than the bed. Then they put some plank on 

 the sides, and fastened all in with rope. Mr. Houch- 

 ins thought the bees would smother, so he got an 

 old wire fly-trap and cut it up in small pieces; then 

 he cut some pieces out of the old cloth he had nail- 

 ed on the mouth of the gums, the same size of his 

 wire pieces; then he sewed the wire pieces over 

 the hole. This was to give the bees fresh air. 



AN original SUBSTITUTE FOR WIRE CLOTH. 



He did not have wire enough, so he got a lot of 

 goose-quills and cut the ends off so as to leave them 

 hollow; then he cut beards on the quills, on each 

 end, commencing in the middle; then he put the 

 ouills through the cloth. The beards would not 

 allow the quills to work out. The quills were to 

 give the little fellows breath. The bees were three 

 days and nights on the road, owing to the bad 

 roads, rainy weather, and high water. They all 

 came through all right e.\ccpt one hive, and it only 

 had two or three dozen dead bees in it. This was 

 because it was not quite so well ventilated as the 

 others. Ernest B. Hughes. 



Pipestem, W. Va., Dec. Ill, 1885. 



Your father must be one of the old origi- 

 nal subscribers of Gleanings to have named 

 you after me. Let me see : Gleanings is 

 18 years okl this month— just the age of Blue 

 Eyes, and I at the time was 10 years old. I 

 declare, it makes me feel old, and yet I hope 

 1 shall never be too old to be young. — Your 

 father certainly did well to move 15» swarms 

 2) miles over a rough mountain road on a 

 wagon Avithout springs.— You have a ver>' 

 original substitute for wire cloth, but iit 

 what respect do the bearded goose-quills as- 

 sist in the ventilation? I should think that 

 small holes through the cloth woukl answer 

 equally well. Perhaps I do not '' catch on " 

 to the idea. Ernest. 



has lost ONLY ONE SWAHM IN SIX YEARS. 



My pa has 55 swarms of bees. He has lost but one 

 swarm of bees in six years. We got over a ton of 

 comb honey this year. I help with the bees what 

 I cm- I have a little brother six years old, {Je 



