]88(i 



GLEAXIXCS IX CLE CULTUUE. 



227 



THE HONEY-PLANTS OV GEORGIA, AND HOW SOON 

 THE BEES BEGIN TO WORK THERE. 



There are lots of honos'-beariug trees and plants 

 here. Among them are the honey-locust, persim- 

 mon, black gum, sourwood, and others. The cotton 

 plant produces some hone.v. 



Bees beg-in to bring in pollen from the 10th to the 

 15th of February. Our bees are in good condition, 

 with plenty of honey. We had lots of cold weath- 

 er last fall. The thermometer has been down to 16 

 above zero, and as many as three mornings togeth- 

 er, below :iJ. Florence E. Kellev, age 13. 



Harmony Grove. Ga. 



SHALL AVE SELL HONEY TO SALOON-KEEPERS ? 



Raising bees lias been very profitable to my fath- 

 er. Unfortunately, he has to sell most of his honey 

 to bar-rooms. Well, I suppose they might just as 

 well use honey as sugar. There is ho law to pre- 

 vent the use of liquor. My father has P4 hives. No 

 one in the neighborhood has as many. 



Lou Friend, age 13. 

 Chester, Va., Feb. 8, 1885. 



Friend Lou, there is a moral point involved 

 in your letter. Of couise, I would not dic- 

 tate for your fatliei', but 1 think 1 would sell 

 the saloonists none of my honey, providing 

 they intended it for use in their traffic. If 

 they intend it for an honest purpose, I do 

 not" know that I should hesitate to sell them 

 all the honey they wanted. Ernest. 



HOW THE CIIKOMOS AS PRIZES ARE APPRECIATED. 



I received a lovely panel ehromo from you; many 

 thanks for it. Brother Fred has his bees packed. 

 He has the hives set in big boxes, and chaff around 

 the hives. He has a house-apiary. I like to work 

 with bees, but do not like honey. The first swarm 

 Fred ever had, he had in a box hive, and soon he 

 sent and got one of the Simplicity hives, and trans- 

 ferred theni into it. He likes the Simplicity better 

 than any other style of hive. 



Woodstock, Ohio. Nettic H. Cranston, age 11. 



catching swarms in hives tied to a tree. 



My papa has 10 stands of bees, and loves to work 

 with them. I will tell you how he caught three 

 good swarms. He teok the stands that other bees 

 had died in, and which had old comb in, and tied 

 them up in trees, and the bees went into them. 

 Papa lost one gocd stand of bees which h d 17 lbs. 

 of honej-. He thinks they froze to death. New 

 Orleans sugar is very good to feed them in winter. 



Smithville, Mo. Estella Jenkins. 



Thank you, little friend, for the item that 

 you give. If you could get the bees to go 

 into the hives thus prepared, and the hives 

 could be raised or lowered easily, it would 

 be a cai)ital plan for catching swarms ; but 

 I should be afraid that the bees wotdd not 

 always go where we wanted them. 



Ernkst. 



A .JOB at feeding SECTIONS; HOW TO PACK 

 HIVES FOR WINTER. 



Pa has a lot of bees which were flying about two 

 weeks ago, all living and doing well. Pa has about 

 completed a new building, and machinery for mak- 

 ing hives and one-piece sections. When school is 

 out, my pa offered me a job to feed the section- 

 sander with buckeye sections. I like to see them 

 come through on the other side. They look beauti- 



ful and tvhite. Pa has promised to let me pull the 

 rope for ll.o £rst time on the big engine-whistle 

 that is now in the new building. In the fall, com- 

 ing on winter, we took fence boards and stakes. 

 We drove the stakes along in a row close to the 

 hives, and set the hives close together. Then we 

 took clover straw and put it in between the hives 

 behind, and boarded the whole around the outside. 

 Ada, O., Feb. 23, 1886. Ray Murray. 



BEE-KEEPING IN FAR-AWAY IRELAND, AS REPORT- 

 ED BY A JUVENILE. 



Father has given me leave to write jou about his 

 bees. He was in America for some time, and came 

 home twelve months ago, and commenced bee-keep- 

 ing about April, by buying eleven straw hives of 

 bees, and ho drove them out and put them and 

 combs into wooden hives, what he calls eight-frame 

 Langstroth hives. He has twenty of them now. 

 There is nothing but straw hives about here, and 

 all black bees. Father has had several Italians 

 from America, but the most of them were dead. 

 He has si.x living; they were about 14 days coming. 

 He got three on November 30, but two of them were 

 dead. 



There was a great buzzing in swarming time. 

 Father clips the queen's wings, and when a swarm 

 goes off he catches the queen and puts her into a 

 cage and moves the old hive away and puts the new 

 one in its place, into which the swarm goes when 

 they miss the queen. He then lets the queen in 

 with them, and puts the hive in its place, and the 

 old one back. It is very nice to see them rushing 

 into the hive. 



Last season was good for honey, but father did 

 not get much. He says he was too late in starting. 



We have hardly any winter here at any time. 

 Primroses, wall-flowers, etc., are out in bloom now, 

 and every thing is looking very green; but we have 

 a great deal of rain at all seasons, which father 

 thinks will bo a great drawback to successful bee- 

 keeping in this country; but he is going to keep 

 nothing but Italians, as he thinks they are the best. 

 They are a very pretty bee, and I like them, for 

 they seem quiet, and do not sting so much as the 

 black ones. Father gave me a swarm which he took 

 out of a chimney where it had been for some time. 

 My sister has a hive too. The swarm came from 

 somewhere, and settled on a bush close to the other 

 bees, and father put it into a hive and gave it to 

 her and we are very much pleased with them. 



Charlotte R. Turner, age 10. 



Revlin House, Donegal, Ireland, Jan. 6, 1886. 



from 35 to 51, AND 2900 lbs. of honey; report- 

 ed BY A juvenile. 



Jfy father wintered 25 colonies during the winter 

 of 188,5, and they increased tool. He took off 2900 

 lbs. cf comb honey, and last fall he doubled them 

 back to 45. He has seven of them out of doors, and 

 the rest in the cellar. Father makes his own hives 

 and sections. He uses the Langstroth Simplicity 

 hive. He is going to make about .5000 sections this 

 winter. He is going to give me ten cents a hundred 

 for all I nail tegethcr. Father takes Gleanings, 

 and thinks it is a good paper. I claim the Juvenile 

 Department, and I like to read the letters. I have 

 one colony of bees. They made me 100 boxes of 

 honey. I like to help father among the bees, but I 

 don't like to have the bees sting me. I got stung 

 six times at one time last summer. Father went up 



