1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



40^^ 



which are correctly spelled. I wish papas 

 would take hold and set their twelve-vear- 

 old daughters at work. When crowded 

 with business, it is to me one of the gi'eatest 

 luxuries to have somebody at hand to write 

 a postal or a letter for me ; and a nice little 

 girl who has the faculty to "catch on "to 

 whatever you tell her is one of (iod's best 

 gifts. 



THE UPS AND DOWNS OF TEN YEARS 

 OF BEE-KEEPING. 



FHIEND CONNELI-Y TKD.S US SOME OF HIS EX- 

 PERIENCE. 



DON'T know whether you should put nie in 

 Blasted Hopes or not. Hopes are all rig-ht; it 

 is the bees that are gone. I will start 10 years 

 ago, and tell you my luck. In 1873 I started by 

 having a new swarm in July. They were in a 

 half of a salt-barrel, with something like a barn- 

 door for bottom. They filled it full of comb, and so 

 heavy with honey we concluded not to carry it into 

 the cellar, so I made a bo.x large enough to hold the 

 half-barrel, and one foot higher. This space I filled 

 with chaff, and they wintered all right. I made me 

 3 hives, or, rather, boxes, one footsquare, to put my 

 new swarms in; bored an inch hole in top of hive, 

 and put one box on, intending to have the new 

 swarm go in and fill it, which they did; but when I 

 took it off one afternoon toward night they had all 

 gone back to the old barrel. My wife said, " Let us 

 have the honey to use,"' so we did. I think there 

 was 50 lbs. Thej' filled the three before fall, but no 

 increase; filled two ne.xt year, and one Sunday 

 afternoon in August my little boy came in and said 

 the bees were hanging in one l)unch on an apple- 

 tree. These I got in the remaiiiin^- box— the first 

 swarm I ever saw. 



In 1880 I had.5;^ to put in cellar. .My surplus aver- 

 aged 60 to 80 lbs. per colony, spring count, which was 

 in boxes one foot square. We cut out comb and 

 sold it in milk-pans at 15 to 20 cents per lb., never 

 losing one colony in winteringtill Dec. 2-1, 1880, when 

 our house burned, and left me with the old barrel, 

 which was the largest building left on the farm; 

 loss, over $2000. Well, neighbors gave us free board 

 till we got a house built, and in the spring I got the 

 bees out of the old barrel into an L. hive; and by 

 buying a few lbs. I had 60 last fall and 3000 lbs. honey, 

 mostly in sections; and when J. Wiltse says he can't 

 see any difference in the amount stored in 1 and 4 

 to 8 lb. boxes, it makes me laugh as much as it did 

 to hear Doolittle say he sold honey at 6 cts. Straight 

 extracted sold for 16 in our market; but some honey 

 one of our merchants got from Chicago was not 

 salable; he said they called it glucose h<^ey, and 

 traded it to me to feed a few swarms that were weak. 

 If that was a sample of extracted honey, I don't 

 wonder it sold low ; but our bees make a different 

 article. Well, some of them, late swarms, got short 

 of stores, and I lost 600 lbs. The winter was to blame, 

 as some had too much, and I was careless in not 

 dividing, and as bad as the man who let the cattle 

 get among his hives. Often, if we knew the cost, 

 we would be more careful; but I bought a few and 

 sold some till I had 60. I was wondering how I 

 should get honey and avoid increase; but the 20th 

 of May we had a wind storm about 40 feet wide. All 

 mj' hives under two rows of apple-trees went to 

 suck sap out of the roots; as the trees turned roots 



up, the hives went to smash. It then hailed half an 

 inch, and the 12 hive? that were left went to pick up 

 the bits that were left, but not till the storm was 

 over. Now I am down to 12 to start with, and a new 

 bee-cellar that I built last fall will hold 50 hives. 

 Now can I get it, and 3M0 sections which I have, full? 

 My chicken-yards, ten feet off, were not blown 

 down. My wife says the Lord wants to keep me 

 from getting stung; but as you are going to sell 

 hats that will catch all the stings, there is no fear. 

 I think I will risk them a while longer. 



You sec, I know how to winter. I think it was 

 the gas from the oil-stove that killed Doolittle's bees, 

 and not the heat. The temperature in my cellar 

 was from 40° to 50°. Not over ten quarts of dead 

 bees were on cellar floor. Bees should not be dis- 

 turbed in winter. I think honey from heart'sease 

 as good as any. I have had late swarms that had 

 nothing but buckwheat honey, and they witlte red 

 well; but I should expect, if I put theiiyin a potato- 

 pit, to find them dead, ^wo swarms in Simplicity 

 hives, belonging to a neighbor, upper-story full of 

 chaff, coffee-sack over frames, entrance open two 

 inches, came out as bright as a dollar. 



Ogden, Iowa. June 9, 1884. W. Connelly. 



_ -ma^^a^-^a- 



FOREST -LEAVES FOR WINTER PRO- 

 TECTION. 



A GOOD YIELD FHO.M APPLE-BLOOV. 



WINTERED my bees on their summer stands, 

 some packed in chaff, and some with no pro. 

 tection, save a woolen mat on the frames, and 

 the upper story filled with forest-leaves. All 

 came through safely, and in good shape. One 

 colony wintered in a common two-story Simplicity 

 hive, having for its only protection the upper story 

 filled with leaves. On the 24th day of May, inst., I 

 gave this colony 10 L. frames in upper story, putting 

 a zinc honey-board between the two sets of frames. 

 This afternoon I extracted 72 lbs. of as nice, thor- 

 oughly evaporated honey as ever was seen, and on 

 two days during the week it rained hard all day. 

 The other colonies gave a fair yield for friiit-blooni; 

 but this particular colony has given the best results 

 I have ever known, for the season. 



I have read the statement, that honey from fruit- 

 bloom, apples, etc., was not palatable; but I never 

 tasted honey of finer fiavor than this I have men- 

 tioned. Had all my colonies been in as fine condition 

 as this particular one, I should have had a pex'fect 

 bonanza. My advice is, for every bee-keeper to 

 take advantage of the yield of honey from fruit- 

 bloom, and be sure to have every colony up to full 

 strength, in order to start in well at the beginning 

 of the season. The spring in this locality has been 

 very cold; but by feeding I have kept brood-rearing 

 going on, and ray colonies are all ready now to take 

 in a good crop from white clover as soon as it shows 

 itself. Every thing now looks favorable for a good 

 honey-season, and I trust we shall not be disap- 

 pointed. I am prepared for a good yield, and also 

 to take matters as they come, and that, too, uncom- 

 plainingly. J. E. PoNU, Jr. 

 FoxVioro, Mass., May, 1884. 



I am glad to have another report showing 

 that the honey from apple-trees is of nice 

 quality, friend Pond ; and I wish that we 

 might do something that would enable us to 

 take better care of the honey from this 

 source. 



