18&4 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



417 



BEES HANGING OUT IN THE RAIN. 



My pa has 13 hives, all working- nicely. We take 

 Gleanings. It is raining- to-day. Some of our bees 

 were out to-day, and got so wet they could hardly 

 crawl. I saw a worker chasing a drone; it was real 

 funny to see him. Harry Reavis. 



Itasca, Te.\-., June 3,1884. 



I believe, Harry, that modern bee culture 

 dispenses with lianging out, or, at least, 

 pretty much all of it, unless the weather 

 should be extremely sultry, at a time when 

 they were not gathering much. I, too, have 

 known ])ees to cluster outside on the old- 

 fashioned box hives, so long that they got 

 drenched during heavy storms, and died. I 

 presume the occasion of it was, that they 

 had got their hive conii>letely tilled, and their 

 owner gave them no more room, I hope no 

 one ^\■ho reads this will be guilty of any such 

 wastefulness ; not only because" of the loss of 

 honey, but for the sake of the poor little bees 

 that had no home big enough to shelter them. 



HOW long will a swarm hang if not cared 



FOR? 



Pa had 3 swarms in the spring, and in the fall he 

 had 14, and the first one went off; 2 of them were so 

 weak he had to take them up; but as he had only 

 box hives, he could not transfer them. We did not 

 sell much honey, for it was a poor honey season. 

 Last fall a small swarm of bees came and alighted 

 in one of our trees, and they were up so very high, 

 and there were so few of them, that we did not do 

 any thing with them. They stayed right there, 

 scarcely any of them leaving, until they eitlier 

 starved to death or froze. 



Katie L. Swan, age 13. 



St. Catherine, Linn Co., Mo. 



Friend Katie, you have furnished us a val- 

 uable fact. I know swarms sometimes build 

 combs, and store honey right where they 

 clustered, if not taken down and hived; and 

 if they should come out late in the season, 

 when no honey Avas to be gathered, I pre- 

 sume they might starve, just as you say 

 yours did. Were you not sorry for the poor 

 little homeless fellowsV 



a pole, by putting a dark-colored stocking on the 

 pole, and so we tried it. I had ii cents for each 

 swarm I caught; I think it a very nice plan. 



Papa is fond of his colts, and has some pretty 

 ones. I help him water and take care of them. One 

 is mine. His name is Rob Roy. I can drive him in 

 a sleigh. He is two years old. I have got a trio of 

 Seabrights; they are spotted gold and black; one 

 has begun to lay; has laid six eggs. I have a black 

 kittle; I call his name Blackie, and I like him, he is 

 so cunning. Abbey E. Free.man, age 14. 



Lancaster, N. H., Feb. 27, ISW. 



A LETTER FROM ONE OF OUR NEW-HAMPSHIRE 

 JUVENILES. 



I know how to pity the little girl who got stung on 

 her ear, for I got stung on my tongue by eating 

 honey that had a sting in it. It was one day in the 

 summer when we were taking out honey. 



We had good luck with our bees last summer; put 

 lit swarms into the cellar. I like to watch the bees 

 bring in pollen and honey, they look so pretty. My 

 swarm gave me one new swarm and 76 lbs. of honey. 

 I sold my honey for 25 cts. per lb., and it brought 

 me $19.00, and I sold my new swarm for $.5.00, and 

 so I received from my one swarm of bees .1S24.00, and 

 have got my old swarm now. 



We raised some buckwheat last summer, and the 

 bees worked on it; it was full of bees. We could see 

 them flying back and loi-th laden with pollen and 

 honey. We raised a good deal of white and alsike 

 clover, and the bees got a good deal of honey from 

 that. We cut out a number of queen-cells last sum- 

 mer, and in one of them we heard the queen making 

 a little noise, aud so I took it and put it in a box 

 with some bees, and kept them in the house, and 

 the queen hatched, and we put it into a hive. 



I i-ead in the Jitventle about catching swarms on 



TWIN LETTERS FROM TWIN BEE-KEEPERS. 



M Y PA Has 1 sWarM oF BEEs. ThEy 

 LI Ton a Ti?EE ClOse by ThE hOuSe. 

 WHEN Pa VaME tO DiNNER He hIved 

 THEM. 1 HAVE .1 tWIx SisTeK. gnE 

 WaNt^' To wEit£ SOmK Too- is thiS 

 wORJ'if A BoOKV Ora PRiEd. 



WE liKe our BEEs', but tHEY builT 



thEIr CoMbS across the fraMes. Pa 



WAxTs' TO Know W/f EthER it caa-bE 



straIghteneZ>. ora And / read i^ the 



I FIRST rEAdeR. "^'E are six yEaRs OLD- 



CoRa Tried. 



moNtPeLiER, OHIO. 



HOW EDWARD HIVED THE SWARM WHEN THE HIRED 

 MAN WAS AFRAID. 



Last summer it was my work to watch the bees, 

 to see if they would swarm. One daj- pa and ma 

 and my two older brothers were gone away, and the 

 bees swarmed, and I ran aud told the hired man, 

 but he was awful afraid of bees ; but he put on a 

 veil, and then he got them off the tree, and he and I 

 hived them, and they did well. I have a little brother 

 3''2 years old. He likes to fire up the smoker for Pa. 

 I have only one sister; she is 9 years old. She likes 

 honey and so do I. Edward J. Shaver, age II. 



JACOB'S REPORT. 



Pa has lots of bee books and papers, and I like to 

 read them. He got a bee-hive from Mr. J. W. Por- 

 ter, of Charlottesville, and he thinks of trying one 

 hive on Mr. Heddon's plan, and see which he likes 

 best. We got lots of honey last year, and nearly all 

 in 1-lb. sections. Pa sold all the honey he had to 

 spare, at 20 cts. a i>ound, and could sell more if he 

 had it. We did not have any bees to gooff in the 

 woods. Pa won't let us make a noise with pans and 

 horns, as some people do when the bees swarm. He 

 ; says he doesn't want them scared off. 



J.\coB D. Shaver, age 12. 



AND STILL another REPORT FROM THE SHAVER 

 1 FAMILY. 



I read Gleanings, but have not seen any names 



in it from this countj', so I thought I would write 



j and tell you about our bees. Pa looked at all his 



j bees a lew days ago, and he says that, so far, they 



j have wintered finely. He winters on the summer 



I stands, with corn-fodder around them. Pa has all 



his bees in Langstrotli hives except 3. They 



swarmed so much last summer that he did not have 



enough hives, so he put 3 swarms in old-fashioned 



beehives; he will transfer them next spring into 



other hives. Pa talks of building a shop next tall, 



then I can help make hives. 



Samuel W. Shavf.r, age 14. 

 North River. Va., Feb. 29. I8.S4. 



