781 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Oct. 



that for bla(-k bees? I have owuod bees 31 years, 

 and since June 12th is ray first experience with 

 Italians. In the ABC book I saw your statement 

 that you did not know what propolis wax is gather- 

 ed from. It is gathered from the quaking aspen, 

 poplar-buds, and balm in-Gilead. Drops of wax 

 can be seen at any season of the year. The bees 

 bite it off with their mandibles, and lay it in the 

 pollen sack. James P. Keynoi.ds. 



Hydetown, Pa., July :{, 1880. 



WII.\T SII.\I.F. WE DO IN A CASE Of SEVEItE 

 STINGING? 



In your issue of Aug. l.'ith, page eor, you tell of a 

 ease of severe bee-stinging, where whisky was given 

 the credit of saving a child's life. I am willing to 

 give "honor to Avhom honor is due;" but as my 

 youngest child (30 months old) passed through a 

 similar experience one day last week, and recover- 

 ed without the use of any thing intoxicating, I 

 think it doubtful If it is necessary in such cases. 

 My baby was not unfrcquently stung last year, and 

 this without any unusual result; but on the day in 

 question ho trod on a rotten apple, and a bee stung 

 him under the foot. In two minutes he was swol- 

 len all over his body in an alarming maniior. White 

 blotches came out, accompanied by great itching; 

 he had also a difliculty in breathing. We laid him 

 on a lounge in as cool a room as we had, and fanned 

 him, applying hartshorn freely to the foot stung, 

 and in less than an hour the alarming symptoms 

 had subsided, leaving him intensely red all that day. 

 Now, why did it affect him so on that occasion? 

 Was it the extreme heat of the weather, or the con- 

 dition of the child's blood? or was the bee particu- 

 larly poisonous? Saaiuel U. Neave. 



Hughesvillo, Md., Aug. 31, 1886. 

 Very true, friend N.; but wlien ;i cliild or 

 a horse has received 50 or ](J0 stings on vari- 

 ous parts of the body, are yon sure your mild 

 treatment would have auswercdV I am free 

 to confess, that I am very much averse to 

 the use of whisky, or, in fact, drugs in gen- 

 eral, in cases of severe stinging' ; but if whis- 

 ky loill save a chiUrs life, theii we ought not 

 to hesitate about administering it. 1 would, 

 however, resort to other means lirst ; and if 

 life still seems to be threatened. I would 

 give the Avhisky. Perhaps Prof. Cook can 

 advise us. 



BEES and NEIGHBOUS, AGAIN. 



Barry bee-keepers are in trouble again. Tliey 

 sued my husband in June, about the bees, claiming 

 they are a nuisance; but when they found the bees 

 belonged to me we settled without any suit by 

 agreeing to either move the bees or put up a fence 

 or screen. We put up a screen of muslin and can- 

 vas. There is a large cider-house in town where 

 they make a great deal of cider, and also buy apples. 

 They have no screens to the windows, and lately the 

 bees have been pretty thick in the cider house; as 

 it was extremely dry, there was no honey in the 

 fields. This cider-man and others drew up a petition 

 to have all the bees moved out of town, asking the 

 city council to pass an ordinance to that effect. 

 Now, what had the bee-keepers better do? I un- 

 derstand they have about 200 signers already to the 

 petition. It was circulated lively on Sunday. We 

 have no saloons in town, but this man sells hard 

 cider, and has been tried more than once. There 

 were nien io town yesterday whg ^vpvp drunk on 



his cider. I should lik^e a hundred of your new 

 tracts, but they arc not broad enough to cover 

 nearly all the ground in our case. 



Barry, III. Mrs. M. A. Shepherd. 



My friend, you are striking on a great 

 problem. How shall we meet these great 

 things? If you should start out with a pe- 

 tition against cider-mills, and in favor of 

 bees, perhaps you could easily get more than 

 200 signers in a town that has no saloons. 

 In that case, I do not know how the council 

 could pass the ordinance you refer to; but 

 is that tiie best way to meet such questions V 

 You know the IJible says, "Not by might 

 nor by power, l)ut by my .Spirit." Can you 

 not put up screens of cliecse-cloth or mos- 

 quito-netting around the cider -mill? It 

 seems to me, my good friend, you liave 

 nearly the right spirit ; and with GocVs help, 

 even one intlividual is a majority. Is it not 

 so? 



THE SUPEUIOUITV OF ITALIANS AGAIN, OVER 

 BLACK BEES. 



The honey crop is almost a failui-c here. Good 

 colonies of Italians, however, have gathered about 

 45 lbs. on an average; but black bees have hardly 

 made enough to winter on. 



RABBITS FOR KEEPING DOWN THE WEEDS AND 

 GRASS IN THE APIARY. 



I have found the rabbits sold by Fradenburg to 

 be a valuable acijuisition to the apiary. Last year 

 I kept from 6 to 12 in an apiary of 25 colonies, and 

 they devoured grass and weeds as fast as they 

 appeared. This year I discarded them, and that 

 to my sorrow; for I have been annoyed not a little 

 with a rank growth of vegetation. Methinks I 

 hear you say, " Why did you not hoe up the 

 weeds?" Well, the bees seemed to prefer weeds 

 to slashing around with a hoe. I shall restock my 

 apiary next year with said rabbits. D. W. Moss. 



San Augustine, Texas, Sept. 4, 1880. 



BALLING QUEENS. 



I should like if yourself, Ernest, or some of the 

 many writers in Gleanings, would give the cause 

 and remedy of the above trouble. In my ten years' 

 experience with brown bees I never heard of or 

 experienced any thing of the kind; but since I got 

 all Italians, it has got to be almost a common oc- 

 currence. I have lost a good many fine queens by 

 balling, and, it may be, through my manipulations 

 —not by introducing queens, understand, but from 

 working with the bees. Give me the cause, and 

 how to prevent it. Are the Italians subject to it? 

 John H. Mullin. 



Oakland, Col. Co., Texas, Aug. 26, 1886. 



Bees ball queens for the simple reason 

 that they do not wish to accept them, and 

 by that means they propose to sting or 

 smother them to death. Wlien a queen is 

 found to be balled, remove the li;-.me to 

 which is attached tlie ball. With the 

 smoker in one hand send a few piifl's upon 

 the ball until you can seethe queen. Con- 

 tinue puffing smoke upon the bees so tena- 

 ciously clinging to the queen, until you can 

 pick her up by the wings. In doing this, in 

 all probability two or three bees will still 

 adhere to the queen. These you must pick 

 off one by one. In taking a queen out of 

 a ball of bees, a smoker is almost indispen- 

 sil'le, though I )iave done it without one. 



