1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



will pay freiffht one way, reship the 15th of Sept., 

 with combs filled with honey lor winter use, if de- 

 sired, and give tha owner all the hoaey obtained 

 from the basswood flow, what swarms issue to be- 

 long to me, the honey to be extracted. I should 

 prefer the L. frame, but do not care what strain or 

 race the bees belong to. S. J. Youngman. 



Cato, Mich.. April 10, 188i. 



Friend Y., we do not have a bit of trouble 

 in shipping bees by the pound, even to Tex- 

 as, Florida, and other remote ])oiuts. AVe 

 do it, too, with nothing but the Good candy 

 — that is, honey and pulverized sugar. It 

 seems to me by all means the best way of 

 buying bees. especiaUij if your frames are 

 odd-sized. The express charge on nothing 

 but the bees and a light wire-cloth cage is 

 very much less than on a hive and heavy 

 combs, or even a nucleus. I do not believe, 

 however, it would be the best way to ship 

 bees to take advantage of the bassvvood- 

 bloom, unless the one who receives them has 

 plenty of empty combs to put them on. In 

 that case they would be all right. It just 

 now strikes me, that wired combs of i'dn. 

 would be very nice on which to ship bPes to 

 catch a honey-flow. They are very light, 

 very strong, and a case to hold say three or 

 four of them might be made so as to weigh 

 but little. If bees are to be shipped to meet 

 these honey-flows, it is going to be a prob- 

 lem to devise light packages to save express 

 charges. Your plan of having bees sent 

 you, to be sent back after the honey-flow, I 

 do not quitcllike, because it leaves the way 

 open for so much misunderstanding and dis- 

 satisfaction. I think I should rather buy or 

 sell right out. for a tixed price, and have it 

 done with. Taking bees on shares, or any 

 sort of a company business, does not seem 

 to turn out very well, so many unexpected 

 things come up. 



ten: and if I like them, I will say so in every letter, 

 ifnot, 7iot. Mahala B. Chaddock. 



Vermont, Fulton Co., 111., April 8, 1884. 



I am sure I am very much obliged to you, 

 my good friend, for your kind offer ; but I 

 am almost afraid that the friends who write 

 me such long letters will hardly feel ac- 

 quainted with you as they do with me, and 

 may be they wouldn't feel satisfied with 

 your answers, as you might feel inclined to 

 give them. I think the better way will be 

 for them to write directly to you. and you 

 can reply. We send tlie copy of the A 13 C 

 book, so that you may be well posted in re- 

 gard to the questions they will be likely to 

 ask. I am very glad you are in favor of a 

 standard hive, and it seems to me the Sim- 

 plicity bids fair to become a standard — or, 

 at least, to a great extent ; for almost all hive 

 manufacturers are now furnishing either 

 the Simplicity hive, or a hive on the jreneral 

 plan of tlie Simplicity, but perhaps with 

 some of their own modifications. Even our 

 friends who have so long adhered to the 

 closed-end Quinby frame are now, at least 

 some of them, adopting a hive that is, so far 

 I as dimensions are concerned, externally and 

 internally, the Simplicity exactly. The hive 

 noticed in this number, from O. J. Ilether- 

 ington, illustrates the point. Below we give 

 a picture of the Simplicity hive as it is made 

 by friend Viallon, Bayou Goula, La. : 



«»-— -^ 



A PROFFEK OF HELP. 



QUESTIONS ANSWERED FREE OF CHARGE. 



fWtSH you would send me those letters from be- 

 ginners to answer, page 245. I feel sorry for 

 ■ beginners, and would like to help them by tell- 

 ing them " how not to do it." I will not charge any 

 thing, but must be furnished with stationery and 

 stamps. I love to write letters and give people ad- 

 vice. I make this offer on trial, and If I get more 

 on my hands than I can attend to, I will beg you to 

 stop sending them. I ought to see a copy of your 

 ABC book, so that I can conscientiously recom- 

 mend it, if I think it good, and I believe it is, from 

 the reports I see in Gleanings concerning it. I be- 

 lieve I know all that any beginner need know about 

 bees, and I like to tell it. I sold a swarm of Italians 

 last Monday to a woman, end aftertelling her how 

 to do when they swarm, I gave her two copies of 

 Gleanings, and she seemed surprised that there 

 should be papers devoted exclusively to bee culture. 

 And when I began bee-work, fourteen years ago, I 

 did not know there was such a paper in the world. I 

 had the bee fever in its worst form, and I wanted to 

 ask hundreds of questions, and there was no one to 

 answer me. I am in favor of a standard hive. Will 

 it be tlje Simplicity? Two cjays ago I sent to you for 



simplicity hive as made bv friend viallon. 



Our friends will notice that friend V. makes 

 a bottom-board different from the cover ; 

 that is, it has only cleats on it, back and 

 front. My objection to thi^ is, that in our 

 locality it leaves an opening for toads to get 

 under, and we do not want any such chaps 

 under our hives. If we close up this open- 

 ing we shall have a bottom so near like a 

 cover that I have thought it best to make 

 them exactly alike, so they may be inter- 

 changeable. Aside from the bottom-board, 

 the bevel to exclude rain, on the upper edge 

 of the hive, is a little ditt'erent from ours. 

 The front and back are just as we make 

 them, but the sides are rabbeted, instead of 

 beveled. The question has frequently been 

 asked me why I don't have the Simplicity 

 cevers and upper stories sit on to each other 

 with a plain rabbet, as box covers are often 

 made. My objection to this in place of the 

 bevel is that there would then be a chance 

 for them to stick together ; whereas, with 

 our arrangement there can be no sticking, 

 even if there should be some variation in 

 hives and covers. 



