1884 



GLEANINGS l:S 13EE CULTUllE. 



55o 



we are wrong? Look out for buzz-saws, 

 friends. We recently had another sad acci- 

 dent in our factory. One of our men went 

 to get a drink, and on liis way back stopped 

 to talk with one of the hands. While he 

 was talking, he thoughtlessly stuck liis hand 

 on to a wabbling saw, wliere we were mak- 

 ing bee-feeders, and had it liorribly mangled, 

 as a matter of course. Once more, look out 

 for buzz-saws. They do not often show 

 nuich mercy when "you push your hands 

 against them. 



LETTER FROM OUR FRIEND FRANK 

 BENTON. 



SENUINO QUEENS BY MAIL, AND SOMETHING ABOUT 

 THE CARNIOLANS. 



BUR friend S. W. Morrison, of Oxford, 

 Pa., has kindly given us permission 

 to publish the following letter from 

 friend Benton : 



Your card of June ;Wth was received this 

 morning. The following are the present prices for 

 Carniolan and Italian queens, reared in their re- 

 spective countries: 



I. Finest select queens, each, July and Aug., 

 $5.00; after Sept. 1, $i.M. 



II. Fine queens, each, July and Aug-., $4..')0; after 

 Sept. 1, $4.00. 



On 6 queens, .I per cent discount; 10 queens, 10 per 

 cent discount; 20 queens, 13 per cent discount; 40 

 queens, 15 per cent. Expressage prepaid ti> New 

 York City, if sent by express. As long- as the 

 weather permits, queens will be sent by mail direct 

 to the postofflceof the purchaser, the postage being 

 prepaid in all cases. Since my advertisement in 

 Gleanings for Aug., 1883, the German government 

 has made a regulation requiring letter rates on all 

 live bees sent in the mail-bags. At the low rates I 

 was furnishing the finest queens to be liad, I could 

 not expect to pay expenses, and have letter i-ates on 

 all queens to pay— the first sent out, and any subse- 

 quent shipments to make good losses, should such 

 occur; so, rather than reduce the grade of queens 

 sent out, I raised the price slightly, and otfered two 

 grades. 



For the finest selected queens I am paying Ital- 

 ian and Carniolan bee-keepers exactly douhle the 

 usual price for good queens, and I have visited the 

 various apiaries from which my queens come, and 

 shall continue to do so from time to time as long as 

 I shall see fit to continue sending out queens from 

 here, selecting at each visit the finest stock I can 

 get. 



When queens are sent by express, the shipping 

 agents In New York (who are not bee-keepers, and 

 never open the boxes) have, for clearing them from 

 the custom-house, and re-shipping them, a charge 

 of a dollar or so on each packet (which may include, 

 say, 4 queens), or about $1.50 to $3.00 on six to ten 

 queens. There is no duty on bees. E.xpressage 

 from New York City is, of course, at cost of pur- 

 chaser. 



No one, so far as I know, ever claimed that Cai-- 

 niolans had three yellow bands. Sometimes, 

 (though not always) the first ring of the abdomen is 

 reddish-yellow colored. The whole length of the 

 abdomen is, however, furnished with silvery-gray 

 bands of thick-set fuzz, and the whole body of the 



workers, as well as the drones' bodies in particular, 

 have a silvery-gray color. Frank Benton. 



Munich, Germany, July 14, 1884. 



In regard to getting queens by express, 

 our experience has been that the express 

 charges and various other expenses amount 

 to not less than ten or twelve dollars on any 

 shipment ; and on forty or fifty queens, not 

 less than twenty-live to thirty dollars. I 

 should think that sending them by mail 

 would be very much the cheapest way, if we 

 can have the same success in getting them 

 through alive that we have l)y express.— The 

 above letter is somewhat of the nature of an 

 advertisement, I know; but as it was not 

 written for (Cleanings, and contains mat- 

 ter of general interest, I have thought best 

 to give it.— I confess, not having seen the 

 Carniolan bees. I did not know until now 

 but that they were yellow-banded, like the 

 Italians. One reason why I have not ordered 

 the Carniolans is because the number of 

 races we have already begins to create a con- 

 fusion that it seems to me should be avoided 

 if possible. When it is settled that the Car- 

 niolans liave some clear and decided ad- 

 vantages, we shall be glad to adopt them. 



THE ADVANTAGE OF CHERISHING A 

 SPIRIT OF THANKFULNESS. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT FERTILE WORKERS. 



fRIEND ROOT:— Do you sometimes feel that 

 you need encouragement in your efforts in 

 helping humanity? You have been a help to 

 me by your serious, cheerful words which I 

 love to read, in A R C and Gleanings. Yes, 

 it came quite natural to me yesterday evening, 

 when walking through my cotton-field, to kneel 

 down amid the luxuriant growth, and thank God 

 for giving us such good seasons, and I could not 

 help but think of you, kneeling in that busy factory, 

 and asking God's guidance. I thought, also, of the 

 cheering words in last Gleanings, about good 

 crops, and it being such pleasure to tend rich 

 ground, "to pick peas when a few would fill a 

 basket," etc. 



I'm a novice in bee culture; just started last year 

 with movable-frame hives. So far the losses have 

 balanced the profits, or more, I think; but lam in 

 no way discouraged, for I see brighter prospects 

 ahead, through resolved, better attention. A swarm 

 of bees— about two quarts— was found in the woods 

 some time ago near here, that had started comb on 

 the sapling around which they were clustered, and on 

 listening close wc could plainly hear a piping sound 

 as of a queen, and we were sure they had a queen, 

 we thought; but imagine our surprise when, look- 

 ing in the cells of the comb, we found them crowd- 

 ed with eggs. The thought forced itself in my mind 

 that the queen did not have room enough, and had 

 to go to laying; but we could not find a queen after 

 hiving them and looking carefully. We gave them 

 in a few days some comb from another hive, with a 

 little brood in it; but subsequent examination 

 showed the cells still overtaxed with eggs. The boes 

 would not work nor build comb— no, not even after 

 having given them bees and brood ; but finally they 

 got a queen-cell started after what was to me a 

 strange occurrence. One day, watching a cluster 

 of bees at the entrance of the hive, on the alighting- 



