188.1 



GLEANINGS IN iiEE CULTURE. 



Putting in a few sections on which the bees 

 have commenced Avork, talien from some 

 otlier hive, will often get tliem to going. 



A IjETTEH fisom hubkh. 



It is little Iluber, I mean, cliiklren, and 

 you may wonder how I could get a letter 

 from him -w'hen he can not even talk, to say 

 nothing of reading and writing. Well, I 

 suspect his sister Conny wrote the letter; 

 and if she did not know what he would prob- 

 ably say if he could talk, she evidently 

 thought she could guess pretty cleverly. 

 The letter was slipped under a dish of straw- 

 berries, which, I presume, the children pick- 

 ed all together. Here it is : 



Dca Dad:— I fout oo'd ike tawborries, so I sent 

 Ton and Tad down to de tawberry bed after um; 

 ain't me awsul dwcl'ui dood? Hubie H. R. 



FROM 5 TO 3), AND 300 LBS. OF HONEY. 



Pa is taking- Gleanings. I like to read it. He is 

 sicli, but is better now. Pa wintered .5 stands of 

 bees last winter; they increased to 3."), and we g-ot 

 pretty nearly 300 lbs. of honey. Pa has sold 6 ; 5 

 went off; double up 5 leaves us 19 on summer stxnds 

 in chaff hives, wintering' well 50 far. That queen 

 you sent pa last November died last week. The 

 bees are raising them another one. A swarm came 

 out last summer on Sundaj'; pa and ma were gone 

 to meeting. My eldeir sister and I got a box, and 

 hived them; and when they cam3 home, pa gave 

 them to us. E. I. Zinn, age 13. 



Holbrook, W. Va^ 



now TO TRAP MOTHS. 



Ma has 37 colonies, and brother has 8. They made 

 lots of honey last year, extracted and box ; they put 

 them all in an above-ground cellar, which has sub- 

 earth ventilation. 



I must tell you how ma caught the moths one year 

 iigo last summer. She fixed three deep dishes with 

 a little honey and vinegar in them, and set them out 

 in the apiaiy late in the evening, and took them 

 away early In the morning, so the bees would not 

 got into them. She caught over one thousand in 

 four nights. I should like to have one of those lit- 

 tle books, but pa says it is not a good plan to want 

 to get something tor nothing. 



Lizzie Patterson, age 10. 



Jagger, Ohio, Feb. 35, 1881. 



Lizzie, I think your plan is a pretty good 

 one ; but, if I am correct, you catch a good 

 many moths that are not bee-moths. Very 

 likely they are troublesome in other ways, 

 however, and so I suppose it does no very 

 great harm. I agree with your papa, but we 

 do not often give something for nothing. 

 These httle letters, when all summed up, 

 contain a good deal of valuable information. 



where did they come from? 

 We found a swarm one evening, clustered in a 

 plum-bush. There was about half a pint of bees, 

 and three drones, but no queen. I put them into a 

 hive, and they are gathering honey, and seem to be 

 as contented as the rest. Now, Mr. Koot, where do 

 you think they came f romV It seems to me if they 

 would have come out of one of our hives they 

 would have gone back, as they had no queen. I 

 have one hive of bees that have not swarmed yet; 

 although the hive is full of bees they have not 

 Started queen-cells yet. We are in the midst of 



white clover now. My brother'put a swarm of bees 

 into a empty hive on May 31; four slats had the 

 comb built out, and five empty; and eleven days 

 from' the time they were put in, they were at woi-k 

 in the sections. I think that is doing well for ABC 

 scholars. AVm. O. Heivly. 



Raymorc, Mo., June 13, ISSt. 



I should think, friend William, that they 

 must have l)roken off from the large swarm, 

 or got se])arated and lost from it some way, 

 for it is quite an unusual thing to get such a 

 little amount of ))ecs without a queen. If 

 you give them some l»rood, very likely they 

 will build up to a prosperous colony. 



new honey, alsike clover, and a caution 



ABOUT making CANDY. 



Papa has extracted 1!57 lbs. of honey since receiv- 

 ing his extractor; ho extracted that amount out of 

 ten hives. Our alsike clover has commenced to 

 bloom; papa brought in the first little blossom to- 

 day. The other day mamma gave Claudia and me 

 some honey to make taffy, and I spilled some of the 

 hot candy on my foot; it made a very bad burn, but 

 I put my foot in a basin of sour milk,-;and it gave 

 me immediate relief. Perhaps some other little 

 bee-g:irl would like to know this simple remedy for 

 burns. Mattie Boles, age 6. 



Church Mill, Miss., June 9, 1884. 



the maple-tree honey-dew, again. 



I was out yesterday, and stepped on a clover blos- 

 som, and got stung on my foot. We have a lot of 

 maple-trees in our yard, and three days this week 

 they were covered with bees. Can you tell me what 

 there is on maples that they can get? T have a little 

 sister two' months old. She has blue eyes, but we 

 can not think of a name for her yet. 



Guy Barnes, age 8. 



Pana, Christian Co., 111., June 4, 1884. 



Our July No. tells you all \xe know about 

 it, friend Guy. 



HOW TO make a hive OF A DRY-GOODS BOX. 



Pa had 1.5 standsof bees last fall ; he lost 7 through 

 the winter and spring; he now has 13, with the new 

 swarms. He did not get his other new Simplicity 

 hives until last night. He went to church to-day. 

 He had used all the other hives you sent, and we 

 had a swarm to-day while he was gone. Ma hived 

 them in a dry-goods box, with strips on the end to 

 hang the frames. I guess pa will nail up a hive in 

 the morning, tojput them in. Ma said it would be 

 easy to lift out the frames in the new hive. 



Isaac Smith. 



Finncastle, Tenu., June 29, 1884. 



MABEL AND CARRIE. 



I live across the road from Mabel, and we go to 

 school and Sunday-school together. My sister Car- 

 rie has two colonies of bees; they do not make 

 quite enough honey for us to eat, so I hope we shall 

 have some more another year. 



Winnie Jackson, ago 8. 



Northville, 111., March 1, 18S4. 



Now, AVinnie, that is funny, for we have 

 a Carrie at our house, and a cousin Mabel 

 lives just across the road. I think your sis- 

 ter's two colonics of bees ought to be asham- 

 ed of themselves, if they didn't make honey 

 enough for your family to eat. A good 

 swarm of bees should make enough to keep 

 honey on the table the year round, 



