1886 



(^Leanings In bee cultuue. 



si: 



slope, as it should be, every shower we have washes 

 out the bottom of the hive, carrj'ing- ott' all filth 

 which may have accumulated uuderneath, aud 

 which, at the same time, makes it very unhealthy 

 for the larvte of the bee-moth, which, by the way, 

 can find no lodg-ing-phice inside the hive. 



Another item is the saving- of lumber; and I 

 think, taking all things into consideration, I shall 

 never use another hive in my yard, with a bottom- 

 board. 



HONEY AS A CURE i'OR ERYSIPELAS. 



A neighbor lady tells me that she completely 

 cured a case of this disease with honey, after the 

 doctors had g-iven her child up and said it could not 

 possibly get well. The way she applied the honey 

 was by saturating a sheet with honey and wrapping 

 the patient in it; but it was a very bad case, and 

 the disease had spread all over the child's body. I 

 suppose all that would be necessary would be to 

 cover with a cloth the parts affected, saturating it 

 with honej'. The above may prove of value to 

 some of jour readers, as erysipelas is sometimes 

 very hard to control. M. Broers. 



Gonzales, Te.x., Sept. 20. 1886. 



riieiicl B., this subject is not new, and a 

 good many have used hives without bottoms 

 to a considerable extent, myself among the 

 number ; but when your bees unexpectedly 

 get on to a robbing raid you may wish pret- 

 ty vehemently you had got tight bottoms to 

 all of your hives, and entrances that could 

 be closed safe and tight. Perhaps in your 

 warm climate there is not as much need of 

 bottom-boards in general as there is here. 



SOME EXPERIENCE ■WITH THE 

 BLACK BEE. 



FROM AN ABC SCHOLAR. 



T3FOU say in Gleanings you are not bothered 

 I^Qm^ much with moths or worms. Well, I have 

 ^^ had a great deal of trouble, and can hardly 

 -*■ keep them from destroying my strongest 

 colonies. I have one especiallj' that has 

 been losing the young bees for about two months 

 past. I went a month ago to see friends Nehel 

 & Son, of High Hill, Mo. I asked them why 

 I was losing so many young bees, and they could 

 not account for it. I guess from the questions I 

 asked them about bees they thought I was too 

 good an A B C scholar to let moth get in my hives; 

 so after coming back home, and still continuing to 

 study the ABC book, I at last found out by it 

 that it was moths. Well, I went to that hive yes- 

 terday and just tore the combs apart. I found 

 some moths, to be sure. I tore out combs with 

 moth-worms in them to the amount of a gallon. 

 I am having trouble this morning with robbers. 

 I have four out of the si.x now that I can go 

 through and take the moth-worms out. 



The season started in well for honey, but it was 

 very dry the latter part of summer, so that now 

 my bees are not making any more honey than 

 they are consuming, so I have to feed three of 

 them for winter. Since starting in with bees I 

 have become enthusiastic in bee culture; and to 

 say I like the ABC book and Gleanings is 

 putting it very mildly indeed. There are some 

 writers I have learned to especially like alreadj', 

 such as the writers of Our Own Apiary and Banner 

 Apiary, and Doolittle and others. I expect to build 



hives this winter, and think I shall adopt the chaff 

 hive for lower story, and Simplicity above. There 

 are a great many people here who have bees, but 

 they get very little honey from them, because they 

 keep them the old way; but I think a great many 

 of them will soon adopt the modern plan. I am 

 trying to work up an interest, and to get them 

 to take Gleanings and get them an ABC book. 

 I think they will come around after awhile. You 

 can consider me your agent here at this place. 

 The future will have to tell how good an agent 

 I am. J. W. KousE. 



Santa Fe, Monroe Co., Mo., Sept. 3, 1886. 



Accept our thanks, friend Rouse, for 

 your kind words, and also for your kindly 

 interest in our behalf. In regard to moths, 

 you have doubtless learned ere this, from 

 the reading of your A B C book, that 

 Italians are a sure preventive of their rav- 

 ages. We have only one colony in our api- 

 ary where there are moth, and this is a col- 

 ony of black bees wliich we recently pur- 

 chased of a neighbor. What shall we do 

 about it y We will give them an Italian 

 queen and a frame of young Italians. 



CALIFORNIA. 



NOT " A BEE KEEPERS PARADISE.'' 



Tjp FTER being in Southern California for three 

 sJoIl^i nionths, and without seeing Gleanings, I 

 j^l? feel as though I had lost my best friend, and 

 "*^^ art losing all track of what our eastern bee- 

 keeping friends are doing. Southern Cali- 

 fornia is supposed to be the "bee-keeper's para- 

 dise;" but it is far from it in many respects. I 

 have not yet visited any of the large bee-ranches ; 

 but from observation, and conversation with expe- 

 i-ienced bee-keeperS, I have concluded that a good 

 location in the East is preferable to this country. 



First, though they can probably get twice as large 

 a yield as we can east, yet I think that, with less 

 work, I can make a colony pay better east than 

 here; for here they consider 3 to3!2 cts per lb. a 

 fair price for good extracted honey, while really 

 for the same grade of honey we can usually treble 

 that price. 



Second, while California white sage has had a 

 good deal said as to its excellent quality, I have 

 not yet tasted of California honey that beat oUr 

 pure white clover, extracted, either in taste or beau- 

 ty. Again, the bee-keepers of this county have had 

 a lawsuit with the fruit-men (especially the grape- 

 men), in which the latter Claimed and proved that 

 the bees injured their fruit, and came out victori- 

 ous. It is said here that the bee punctures the skin 

 of the fruit, without any aid from other insects. If 

 I am not mistaken, most of our leading authorities 

 say the skin is first punctured by other insects. 



What do the latest e.xperiments prove ? Do they, 

 or do thej' not puncture the fruit ? 



The fruit-crop in this part of California is very 

 light this year. Peaches and nectarines were not 

 more than a fourth of a crop, while the orange 

 crop is light. Apricots and grapes are about the 

 only good crops. The people here now are very 

 busy picking their raisin grapes. A. M. Patten. 



San Bernardino, Cal., Sept. 28, 1886. 



Friend P., there is still a good deal of con- 

 troversy in regard to bees puncturing grapes; 



