GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Sept. 



help my brother putting on and taking off boxes, 

 and cutting out queen-cells. Father does not like 

 to increase much. We cut out queen-cells eight 

 days after the first swarm came out. The late 

 swarms we hive, and look up the queen, take her 

 away, and put the swarm back. Again, eight days 

 after, we cut out the queen-cells all but one; that 

 stops their swarming. 



George Hillenbrand, age 11. 

 Sun Prarie, Dane Co., Wis., Jan. 23, 1884. 



MABEL AND HER GRANDM.\, VERBATIM. 



I AM SIX Years o LB AND Lil'e |n EooKViiLF 

 ToLLA3\rd cO CoA'N. BuT A.ii NoW r|sIT- 

 ING MY GrAA^DAB \N PojI/FEot. ThF L^NcLE 

 TThERE I aT>I sfAYiNG 1»AS ThlWYrcuE 

 h|VE8oFBEE!^. ^E hA.s' JuST KEcEITED A 

 SMAliL sWAcM WiTh A QuehN FE=a\1T.4lY 

 hE hAD A sWAKM CoMe oUt YEsTfEDAY A.vD 

 7i|VeD a Few ll'ITh T'^E Qu^e.v AnDlKfThE 

 ojh^r.V Go JJAcK TC> The otDhlFE. go ThAT 

 ThEY"\7CroULD MAke M-EE ho.VEY. I h.dlVe 

 JUST EeAD ThE / | /^sT /'AET OF P|L.GEiM's 

 PROGRESS. MABeLH- J/YOE. 



-RoeKriLL*;, CON V. 



HONEY C.\KE AND HONEY PIE. 



Pa has been keeping bees for a number of years, 

 but was never successful until last summer, when 

 we got enough honey tor our own use. He has 16 

 swarms. I like honey. I think it is good on buck- 

 wheat cakes. You asked for a recipe to make hon- 

 ey cake or pie. My ma made a cake, and put honey 

 between the layers in the place of jelly. I can't 

 think of any other way, unless we make a honey 

 pie of strained honey, but I think that would be too 

 sweet. Pa has bought four queens this summer- 

 two Holy-Lands and two Italians. Pa takes Glean- 

 ings, and I like to read it. I wonder when I read 

 the next number, if I shall read this letter. 



Fultonham, N. Y. Lottie Becker. 



I rather think, frieiik Lottie, when you 

 come to read this number of tlie bee journal 

 you will read your letter. Is it not funny, 

 that I can guess so wellV 



AN ENTHUSIASTIC BEE-KEEPER, AND WHAT HIS 

 TEN-YEAR-OLD BOY SAYS ABOUT HIM. 



My pa has 30 swarms of bees. He has taken out 

 between 600 and 700 lbs. of extracted honey, and 

 the hives are now full of comb honey. He is the 

 happiest man in this county. I have heard of sla- 

 very, and think pa takes more comfort watching 

 his little band of workei-s than did the master of a 

 whole plantation. He has sown catnip, sweet clo- 

 ver, and motherwort in every foot of waste ground 

 within Ave miles of home, for his little familj'. 

 Last winter he kept them in the cellar; all but one 

 that was in a chatf hive, and left on the summer 

 stand, came out very quiet in the spring. Not one 

 would sting. I help pa make frames, and tend the 

 smoker. Once in a while I get stung, but it doesn't 

 hurt much. I like to read the letters from the little 

 boys and girls. Guy M. Haner, age 10. 



Cedar Creek, Wis., Aug. 26, 1884. 



GEORGE'S PROBLEMS. 



There is a gentleman living in this town who says 

 that queens are not made the way people suppose 

 them to be. He says that the queen-bee is fed 

 on the same sort of food as the worker-bee, but is 

 given a greater quantity of it. He says the queen 

 lays its egg in a cell, and then the worker-bees fill it 



about half full of a kind of food called chyle; and 

 when the bee is hatched it eats this food. 



The queen goes around to all the cells, and lays an 

 egg in each one. In the large cells it lays an egg 

 which will hatch a worker-bee. I live in Lexington, 

 Ky. George G. Dunlap. 



Lexington, Ky., Aug. 25, 1884. 



Your friend has it pretty nearly right, I 

 thuik, George, Init 1 do ndt know that his 

 ideas are very much different from other peo- 

 ple's. My ojjinion is, that the queen-bee is 

 fed on about the same food as is given to the 

 young workers, but that she has a great deal 

 more of it. 



HONEY BEER. 



Pa has .58 stands of bees; they are doing very well 

 this summer. Pa made some honey beer which our 

 neighbors all think very good. I could send you 

 the recipe if you have not got it already. We have 

 also some splendid honey vinegar. I watch the 

 bees, and get ten cents for every top, and five for 

 every second swarm that I see. 



Carrie Sheeres. 



Clarksburg, Ont., Can., August 5, 1884. 



I suppose the beer you speak of, friend 

 Carrie, is what we call small beer, and is 

 generally considered a very harmless drink; 

 but for all that it does contain alcohol, as 

 any chemist will tell you, and I feel pretty 

 we'll satisfied that even these mild beers oft- 

 en encourage a taste for alcoholic stimu- 

 lants. On this account I should not recom- 

 mend them, and I do not believe we had bet- 

 ter make beer, even of honey. It is all very 

 well to make refuse honey into vinegar, but 

 I Avouldn't drink it at all. 



WHY bees sting WHEN THEY ARE BEING FED. 



I see in Gleanings, July 15, that you published 

 the letter I wrote last winter, about ants carrying 

 honey from the hives last fall. We were afraid that, 

 when warm weather came, they would begin rob- 

 bing again, but, strange to say, we have seen but 

 very few ants near the hives this summer. We are 

 not now afraid of them. What makes bees sting so 

 badly, that are being fed to build them up for win- 

 ter? Just as soon as the feeder is set down at the 

 entrance at dark they will fly out by dozens, and try 

 to sting us, instead of being grateful for their food. 

 Papa raised some queens from eggs laid by a Holy- 

 Land queen that he got from Mr. Harrington, but 

 one of them is as black as a common black queen. 

 Will her bees be yellow? Cora Ma.jor. 



Cokeville, Westm. Co., Pa., 1884. 



Perhaps it will be a little hard to tell, friend 

 Cora, why bees should sting just because 

 you feed them; but it is nevei tlieless true, as 

 I have told you in the A B C book. I have 

 thought it Avas because feeding can seldom 

 be done without starting a sort of robbing 

 mania; and when bees get into this they do 

 the worst stinging tliat I know any thing 

 about. It is a ditlicult task to feed in such a 

 way as to imitate nature, unless you feed all 

 the bees outdoors, and that is a pretty big 

 task.— Queens vary in color, like almost all 

 other animals, and we almost always get 

 more or less dark <)ueens from any kind of 

 imported stock. These very dark queens 

 will, however, often produce nice yellow 

 workers. Keep the one you have, and let us 

 know whether her bees are yellow or not. 



