490 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



tobacco because of what they read in regard 

 to it in Gleanings. I am glad indeed to 

 know rf a preacher who has given it up, but 

 I am sorry to hear of any pieacher who has 

 been using it at all.— So "you hoe cabbages, 

 do you, and are not yet eight years old ? Tell 

 your papa that he ought to be' happy in hav- 

 ing.such an enterprising little girl. 



SOME KIND WOKDS FROM A .JUVENILE. 



Papa keeps bees and takes Gleanings. He com- 

 menced with 7 colonies in the spring-, and we have 

 24 now. Two swarms went to the woods after we 

 had hived them ; one of them was mine. Papa sent 

 to 3'0ii for his extractor, and it came yesterday eve- 

 ning-; we are perfectly delig-hted with it. My little 

 l)lue-eyed sister was the first one to extract honey, 

 and she thought it fine fun. I love to read Glean- 

 ings, hut 1 have never seen any thinj^ said about 

 holly being- a good honey-producer. Our bees work 

 on it finely. Claudia Boles, age 10. 



Church Hill, Miss., June 3, 1884. 



Holly was reported in our last number for 

 the first time, my little friend. Glad to hear 

 further from it. 



NELLIE AND HER AUNT, AND THE DOUBLE SWARM. 



My g-randpa is a great bee-koepei-, and he is gone 

 to-day, and my aunt Cetta and brother and I had to 

 hive the bees. One swarm came out, and another 

 swarm that was g-oing- to swarm heard them, and 

 it came out, settled in the same place, and four 

 stung aunt Cetta on one arm, and it swelled up 

 big. We got them divided all right. We got a 

 queen in each hive. Nellie Lapping. 



Floyd Knob, lud., June 4, 1884. 



You leave out one important fact, Nellie ; 

 that is, that bees often hear a swarm, and 

 are induced to come out in consequence, 

 where they would not otherwise ; therefore 

 it is well to keep this in mind in caring for 

 swarms. Get them settled and hived as 

 speedily as p<»ssil)le,and have things in read- 

 iness, so that swarms, should they start out, 

 may he quickly cared for. 



looking OUT FOR MISHAPS. 



Pa wintered a few late colonies in the cellar. In 

 the spring the drain got stopped up, and the water 

 came in level with the bee-hives, so that we had to 

 move them earlier than we would have done if it 

 had been dry. Bees we wintered outdooi'S did well. 

 We have over 30 colonies of bees, of which a part of 

 them are in old-fashioned hives, but pa likes the 

 Heddon hive the best of all. The bees are swarming 

 fast. It keeps pa busy climbing trees, but he says 

 he will clip their wings next year. The bees have 

 made a great deal of honey already. Pa says he 

 nev^r saw so much white clover as there is this 

 year, and alsike is plentiful also. There is quite a 

 number who keep bees in this neighborhood, but 

 Mr. Ira Owis has the largest number of colonies. 

 Neil C. McGregor, age 10. 



Whitney, Ont., Can., June 23, 1881. 



Friend Neil, there is qviite a moral to your 

 letter. It is, to look out for inisliaps. I luive 

 had quite a nnmber of different hands in 

 vears past to take care of our apiary •, but 

 tlie young man who has charge now, I be- 

 lieve succeeds a little better than any who 

 have had it before him. Now, it is not be- 

 cause he has more knowledg«' than his pred- 

 ecessors, foi' I sometimes tliiuk lie does not 



know as much about bees as some of the 

 others did ; but the whole secret seems to 

 be that he avoids mishaps ; he does every 

 tiling so tlioronghly that he seldom has any 

 thing happen. A good many years ago I 

 had a very nice boy to take care of the bees, 

 and he was a very fine mechanic ; but almost 

 every day I would find something like this : 

 One afternoon I found a lot of one-pound 

 sections full of honey, broken and daubed, 

 and stowed away in one corner of the honey- 

 house. I asked " him what they were doing 

 there, and he said he put them there to 

 get them out of the way. 



'' iiut," said I, "how did they get broken 

 soV 



He replied, "Why, it was an accident. 

 The wind blew the ladder doAvn, and it fell 

 against a case of sections, and knocked them 

 over on to the ground."' 



You see, it was purely an accident ; but I 

 tell you, my friends, if we want to succeed 

 we must not have accidenis. The ladder 

 should not be placed where it will fall down, 

 neitlier should a case of sections be left 

 standing outdoors. Tlie cellar drain should 

 be made so it can not stoj) up. Still further, 

 the minute those sections tumbled down on 

 the ground, instead of V)eing set oft' in a 

 corner, to be there until I hunted them up, 

 they should have been sold as chunk honey, 

 or put back into the hives, to be fixed up ; 

 and in any case, reported to the ow^ier at 

 once, for him to give orders for their dis- 

 posal. A cellar drain should be so made that 

 it will not stop up in 25 years. 



WANTED, A 5-CENT SMOKER. 



1 read pa's paper that j'ou publish. He reads it a 

 heap. He has bees. I help him work with them. I 

 have one hive which pa gave me. They are little 

 black bees, very ill natured, and their sting huits 

 so bad I wish you would send me a little smoker, to 

 keep them from stinging me so much. Pa hardly 

 ever uses smoke. He loves to work his bees. Pa 

 says he is going to send to you and get some foun- 

 dation, and then his bees will make more honey. I- 

 would rather have a smoker than a book. My ma is 

 sick almost all the time. I have a brother, older 

 than I am, and a little brother. 



Leoner T. Bills, age 9. 



Lawrenceburg, Tenn., June 13, 1884. 



Well, my little friend, I should be glad to 

 make a small cheap smoker on purpose for 

 the little boys and girls, and I have some- 

 times thought of doing it with the scrap 

 leatlier we throw away almost by the wagon- 

 load. May be, when l get a little time this 

 fall, I shall be able to do it ; but it will have 

 to cost a little more than five cents ; perhaps 

 five times five. 



HONEY FROM THE PEAR-TREE LEAVES. 



My papa keeps bees; they have not swarmed any. 

 They are working on the pear-tree leaves. I will 

 send you some of the leaves, s-o you can see what 

 they work on. If you think this is worth a book, 

 send "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room." 



Hattie Horofi, ago 1). 



Rootstown, O., June 30, 1884. 



Yes, Hattie, your letter is worth a book, 

 for it gives us a valuable fact; tliat is, that 

 the bees sometimes find lioney-dew on the 

 leaves of pear-trees. Our next friend fur- 



