1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



415 



\M 



Every girl or boy. under 15 years of 

 ape. who writes a letter for this depart- 

 ment, CONTAINING SOME VALUABLE FACT, 

 NOT GRNKRALLY KNOWN. ON BEES O't OTHER 

 MATTERS. Will receive one of David Cook's 

 excellent five-cent Sunday-school books. 

 Many of these books contain the same 

 matter that you find in Siinday-sohool 

 books costing from Sl.OO to 81.50. If you 



, ^^j — t ,^_ 'e us the 



-je same 



twice. We have now in stock, six different 

 hooks, as follows: Silver Keys, Sheer Oft, 

 The Giant Killer, The Roby Family, Res- 

 cuedlfiom Egypt, and Ten Nights in a Bar- 

 Room. 



'■ A chiel's amang ye takin" notes; 

 An' faith, he'll prent it." 



SEEE Ave are, little friends, in the 

 midst of l)ees. honey, clover-blossoms, 

 strawl)erries, and Mowers. Speaking 

 of strawberries reminds me tliat they 

 are what I take for medicine. Don't 

 you all think strawberries are good med- 

 icine ? I do. You see, when so many 

 clerks kept coming to me with so many 

 questions from morning to night, all day 

 long, I used to get kind o" confused some- 

 times. For instance, when 1 would be dic- 

 tating a letter to some of you for the short- 

 hand writer, one of the book-keepers would 

 want to know about some letter ; then the 

 express clerk would come and want to know 

 what this man wanted. lie just says he 

 wants •• skeps.'"" Then some other' man 

 writes that he wants a bee-hive with '' slides '' 

 in it. I would tell one of them, that if a 

 man asked for a skep he meant a hive, and 

 that the other fellow meant movable frames. 

 Then somebody would say that they wanted 

 more wax in the wax-room ; some more tin 

 in the tin-room ; some more twine in the 

 sample-room, and some more paper in the 

 press-room ; and pretty soon I had forgotten 

 where I left otf, and tlie st(M-y I was dictat- 

 ing, and then my head would feel kind o' 

 twisted like ; and after a while I wanted to 

 go outdoors and get out among the bee-hives; 

 but the purple basket was full of letters that 

 must be answered immediately. One man 

 wanted his money back, because he could 

 not wait any longer. ^Vnother one said our 

 clerks had written him three times that his 

 hives should go next week. Then the boy 

 from the station brought in three telegrams, 

 to be answered at once. 



Well, the folks said I would get sick if I 

 worked so many hours, and had so many 

 cares ; but I told them, that if they would 

 give me plenty of nice strawberries, some 

 nice bread and butter, and a pitcher of milk, 

 I would not get sick. So tliey did, and now 

 there is plenty of wax in the wax-room, tin 

 in the tin-room, and ever so manv tons of 



paper in the press-room ; the clerks' ques- 

 tions have all been answered, and the man 

 who wanted his money back was written to 

 that his goods were all shipped the dayl)efore, 

 audi am feeling real well, and hai)pier than 

 I have any riglit to this bright June after- 

 noon. 



Now if you will excuse me, I will go and 

 see if that was so, that the clerks had written 

 to a man that his goods would go three times 

 '' next week.'" 1 am really afraid that he is 

 at least partially right about it ; but I am 

 sure that it was not because they meant to 

 deceive him in the least. 



SEVEN LOST OUT OP 24. 



Pa boug-ht 24 hives of bees in the fall, but the 

 winter has been so severe that 7 of them died. Pa 

 makes bee-candy out of white sugar, and feeds it to 

 the bees. Cyntha Weese, age 10. 



Lynn, St. Clair Co., Michig-an, March '2, 1884. 



EVA'S REPORT. 



My pa has 93 swarms of bees. He took 100 swarms 

 out alive this spring. We bought a barrel of sugar 

 to feed the bees. They have gathered some honej' 

 this spring from the apple-blossoms. 



Eva Farrington. 



Strawberry Point, Clayton Co., la.. May 26, 1884. 



A DUCK-CREEK BEE-KEEPER. 



I have one colony of bees, my mother has one, and 

 my father has five. I live in the oil region, on Duck- 

 Creek valley. I have two brothers and one sister. 

 Father sent to Maryland and got two swarms of al- 

 bino bees, and received them on the fourth day of 

 July. This spring one swarm died. 



A CURE FOR DYSPEPSIA. 



I will inclose a recipe for djspepsia. It has cured 

 my father. I think ever.vbod.v should know it. One- 

 half teaspoonful of salt dissolved in a glass of warm 

 water, to be taken before breakfast. 



S. H. Patox, age 10. 



Mackburg, Ohio, May 23, 1884. 



MY OLD HOME. 



Three years ago mj- mother and I moved to Waka- 

 rusa, Ind., from my pleasant old home in Guilford, 

 Medina Co., Ohio. It was the nicest place I ever 

 saw. I used to go fishing with my little cousins 

 Eddie and Henry. J used to think it was the nicest 

 thing in the world, when Uncle Peter used to climb 

 the chestnut-trees and shake the bright brown nuts 

 off, and my cousins and I pick them up "on halves; " 

 and what nice times we used to have making mai)le 

 sugar and molasses! We used the old horse and 

 sled, and gathered the nice sweet sugar-water. 



C. W. Locker. 



Wakarusa, Elkhart Co., Ind., May 17, 1884. 



BEE-STINGS FOR SALT-RHEUM, ETC. 



We had 42 stands of bees last spring, and got ;?250 

 lbs. of honey, and sold a good deal of it. I make 

 section boxes, and help mamma nail frames for the 

 hives. I do not like extracted honey so well as the 

 section honey. The section honey is prettier than 

 the extracted. Every summer papa takes honey to 

 Bradford and Buda, and has a real long ride. He 

 keeps his bees in the cellar in winter; he has it 

 pretty lull, with the other things. Our cellar never 

 freezes. 



Mamma has salt-rheum a good deal, and has 

 found that bee-stings will cure it. In the suinnier 

 she works with the Ix-cs a good deal ol tlic time. 



