17U 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mak. 



SPEAKING IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE THAN YOUR OWN. 



I hurt ofifen of your bees. I would like tow no how 

 you arc flxt in bees. Pleas and write me about your 

 price list of your books or hive boxes. I start over 

 two years with bees, and I got plesner with them. 

 And my address Is in Reading postoflic. 



Reading, Pa., Dec. 30, isas. Ernst Druste. 



I wonder how many of the I'riends have 

 tried telling something they wanted to tell. 

 in a language foreign to their own. How 

 quaint and odd the ideas sound ! Here 

 comes a little note fiom a friend who loves 

 the bees ; and although his words sound odd- 

 ly and stratjgely to us, >et we know that it 

 is a kind heart that prompts them. I am 

 glad to know, my good friend, that you find 

 pleasure in working with bees. But I do 

 not believe there is one among us who could 

 have told it much better than you have done, 

 even if you are evidently not very familiar 

 with our language. 



THE CONTROLLABLE HIVE. 



I have had some circulars sent to me, and I thought 

 that they would make ycu smile if you could see 

 some of them. I know that Mrs. Cotton would not 

 send you one, so I will do so; but I think there must 

 be much exaggeration in her circular; and if it 

 is not ia the circular, it is in the bees she sends out. 

 1 have one of her hives. 1 put a swarm of bees into 

 it, and they did not do well. I transferred them in 

 August, and put them in a chaff hive, and they did 

 more work in a week than they did in six weeks in 

 the Controllable hive. If I were to have my choice, 

 give me a good half-breed. I began last spring with 

 three swarms that I wintered. I now have 13 good 

 strong colonies, and I took from the three. 100 lbs. 

 of good comb honey, made in boxes. I have made 

 up the 500 sections that you sent, and I broke only 

 six of them, and I thought that was good. 



Taunton, Mass., Jan. 28, 188-i. E. W. Staples. 



Or lietters from Those Who Iiave ITIade 

 Boe Culture a Failure. 



MRS. COTTON AND HER'ADVERTISEMENT. 

 HONEV bf;es. 



THE NEW SYSTEM OF IIF.E-KEEPING. 



} VERY one who has a farm 1.1 lmhI.h ,:m keep Bees-on m; 

 plan with good pi 



undi-ed dol- 

 iic hive of lieesin 

 West Ooiliani, Me. 



lars profit from sale of box li..iiii 

 one year. Address MRS. LIZZU; ( > 



I inclose an advertisement clipped from the Prov- 

 idence (R.I) Daily Journal. Is there no stopping 

 the fraud? Now, it would be impossible to tell how 

 many poor people, hoping to iucrease their income, 

 have sent to Mrs. C, to their sorrow. The inclosed 

 advertisement has appeared sevcal times; she also 

 had an advertisement in the Journal last year. 



A. C. Miller. 



Barrington, Bristol Co., R. I., Feb. 14, 1884. 

 Friend M., 1 know that many are disap- 

 pointed in sending to Mrs. Cotton, but there 

 are others who have succeeded very well 

 with her hive find instructions: in fact, I 

 have aimed to give both sides of the matter 

 through our columns. The point under di.s- 

 cussion is, whether it is a fraud to charge 

 ^^4.00 for a sheet of paper giving drawings 

 and directions for making a hive, or not. I 

 should call it a fraud, Itut others think dif- 

 ferently. As the book which she includes 

 witli the $4.00 is sold for a dollar, the purchas- 

 er really pays SiiOO for one sheet of paper. 

 It is we'll known that her process is nothing 

 particularly different from what is already 

 known and in use. 



fi THINK I can give you a good report for Blasted 

 Hopes, as mine have been blasted from the 



' beginning. In 18TG, I think, I bought a swarm 

 of black bees in box hive; 1878 I bought 4 more of 

 same description. I have bought lots of Italian 

 queens, and raised more from pure stock; bought 

 an 8 or 10 dollar imported queen of you, which was 

 of no use to me, as queens raised from her were all 

 poor things, no matter how raised or used. Her 

 stoek has never given more than a few pounds of 

 honey, and was never very strong (and is now dead). 

 But don't think I blame you for this. I have spent 

 hundreds of dollars in different ways for my bees; 

 have had as high as 35 swarms, but now have lost all 

 but 7, and those left are in poor condition, and I 

 guess will go before spring. 1 have never sold $1.00 

 worth of be€ s, and not honey enough to pay for a 

 tenth of the sugar I have fed them. 1 have spent a 

 very large part of my time on them, hoping to reap 

 some reward after a while. I don't think my failure 

 due to poor management, for I had hives running 

 over, full of pure Italians of different strains, all 

 through the honey season of each year, time and 

 again. I have used every thing possible to aid the 

 bees, but no honey, and I am convinced that the 

 trouble, and the only trouble, is that this region 

 does not produce any honey, and that even Doolittie, 

 it placed here, would not raise 200 lbs. of heney per 

 year. I am sick of keeping bees here for profit, and 

 will sell my combs and fixings in spring. I am not 

 robust, so I had hoped to make something from 

 bees, but it has been the opposite, with a vengeance. 

 And now I will tell you something about my 

 troubles in selling honey this fall, as you know I 

 sent to you for labels, tumblers, etc. Well, I got 

 some of the finest extracted honey from a friend in 

 Vermont; also some from two bee-men in Ohio and 

 Wisconsin, it was splendid pure honey. I put it up 

 in 1-lb. tumblers, labeled it nicely, telling all about 

 It, guaranteeing it to be pure and of superior qual- 

 ity, wrapped each tumbler in nice paper, and start- 

 ed out. 1 left a tumbler at each house, stating that 

 I would call again in a few days. 1 sold for 22 cents 

 in tumblers, and 18 cents loose. I worked hard for 

 6 or 8 weeks in trying to sell, but, no; people 

 would not buy, do what I would. I lost none of the 

 tumblers, which I left, biit nobody seemed to want 

 honey, and I don't believe would have taken any to 

 speak of, even if sold at 10c. per tumbler, and this 

 in lively towns of SCOO inhabitants, without competi- 

 tion either. I sold, perhaps, 200 or 300 lbs. in all in 

 this way. I shipped 500 lbs. in kegs to Boston, after 

 getting discouraged, and got 2c. less per lb. than I 

 paid. I have 100 tumblers full on hand, and am 

 likely to keep them, as nobody likes honey here- 

 abouts. 



Now, friend Root, tell me why I failed to sell. If 

 you can. Comb honey did not sell any better. It is 

 a mystery to me, as I had not the least doubt but 

 that any thing so fine as this honey was would sell 

 like fun. F. 



Worcester Co., Mass. 



Friend F., I am inclined to tliink your 

 worst trouble was, you had not built up a 

 trade on extracted honev. Friend Ilutchin- 



