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GLEANINGS IN iJEE CULTURE. 



Nov 



cheaply made of malleable castings, with 

 points for attachments cast on the metal ; 

 or, better still, the points might reach aromid 

 the wood of the frame so that curling them 

 over would stick them so they never move. 

 A light liammer would do the business very 

 tiuickly— or for frames already tilled with 

 combs, perhaps a pair of light pliers would 

 be handier. I would advise all to go slow 

 on this, however, and I am afraid few will 

 like the arrangement. Two points mention- 

 ed— getting our tine honey all into the sec- 

 tions, and getting solid and entire combs, 

 are certainlv valuable considerations. 



BENTON S WONDERFUL SUCCESS IN 



MAILING QUEENS ALL OVER 



THE WORLD. 



THE"Gt)()D" CANDY STILL GOOD AND ALWAYS 

 "GOOD." 



EDITOR GLEANINGS:— In your last issue, page 

 660, in your comment on Frank Benton's ar. 

 tide concerning mailing queens across the 

 ocean, and the kind of candy used, you say 

 to friend B., " It is quite a curiosity to know 

 just how you make the candy that works such won- 

 ders, if that has any thing to do with it. If j'ou 

 prefer to sell the recipe instead of making the 

 candy, and I am not sure but this is the best way, 

 tell us what it is worth and we will pay you well 

 for it." 



Friend R., I can assure you that Mr. Benton's 

 candy is nothing new under the sun. To prove it, 

 let me quote from a letter received from Mr. Ben- 

 ton, dated Aug. 3, 1884; in filling an order for me he 

 says : 



"There would be $2.00 to your credit, which I 

 might return, but I thought j'ou would not object 

 to my putting in an imported Palestine cjueen, and 

 calling the account square. The balance on this 

 queen, $6.03, may serve as a slight testimonial of the 

 benefit I have derived from the use of the Good 

 candy in mailing queens this year. I have not, 

 however, made the candy just as you made it first, 

 but have employed pounded sugar in mixing it. 

 I have even taken sugar as fine as wheat flour; 

 but for all that, you need not count me among the 

 number who propose to call this shipping food the 

 Scholtz candy, or the sugar-and-honey candy. At 

 our house it goes by the name of the Good candy. 

 The Benton candy, on which I did succeed in get- 

 ting many queens across the ocean alive last year, 

 has now gone where the woodbine twineth, or, as 

 the Germans say, has wandered off into the lumber- 

 loom or garret. 



"Perhaps you will be interested in knowing what 

 success I have met with in mailing queens this sea- 

 son. I have mailed fiom Munich to various Euro- 

 pean countries, even as far from here as Sweden, 

 Scotland, and Ii-eland, queens of all races" supplied 

 by me, and without the loss o/a stji^^le one. More- 

 over, all have arrived in first-class order. My suc- 

 cess in sending queens by mail is due to three 

 things— the food employed, the style of cage used, 

 and the workers selected for the journey. If time 

 will permit, I mean to send an account to Gleanings 

 of the way it was done. It is not often I find time 

 to write as long a letter as this" [the letter con- 

 tains 22 closely written pages] ; " but as quite an 

 itero in my attaining wbat may be termed complete 



success in mailing queens across the ocean has 

 been the use of your candy, I thought it would be 

 of interest to you to know about it." 



In closing his letter he says, " Let me Itnow the 

 e.vact date of arrival, and the amount of food lelt 

 over, if any, as well as any other items which you 

 may think might be useful to me in making such 

 shipments. I shall send out, if I go to the Orient 

 this winter, a few very choice queens packed in 

 this way (only with more food) very earlj', to go via 

 Trieste and Bremen to America, without their be- 

 ing opened on the way. The boxes will be sealed in 

 Cyprus and Syria, and not touched until the pur- 

 chaser opens them. The journey to New Yoi-k will 

 take a full month, and may take 3.5 to 37 days. 

 Sometimes letters reached us from America to Cy- 

 prus in 18 days. Would you like an Eastern queen 

 by mail, registered in a Benton cage on Good candy, 

 direct from Syria? I believe I can do it, and then 

 let us toss up our old hats— eh?" 



By the above you will see that his candy that he 

 has had such complete success with is, after all, 

 nothing but the Good candy that is nothing new 

 under the sun. 



Yes, friend Root, you may call the candy the 

 Scholtz or the sugar-and-honey candy; that will not 

 change the fact of 1. R. Good being the first dis- 

 coverer and introducer of the candy's good qualities 

 in shipping bees and queens. I. R. Good. 



Nappanee, Ind., Oct. 13, 1R84. 



Steady there, old friend. I did not mean 

 to rob yon of your discovery at all, in what 

 I have "said ; 'I only meant to call attention 

 to the fact that oftentimes our most valuable 

 discoveries come so near something we have 

 had already, and right before our eyes, that 

 it is a little astonishing that nobody ever 

 thought of it. Wliile it is true, that honey 

 and sugar were described in Langstroth's 

 book all these years, nobody ever thought 

 of using it to fill (lueen-cages until you struck 

 upon it, and I have always supposed that 

 you were entirely oblivious of the fact that 

 it was described in Langstroth's book, as I 

 am sure we all were. It seems to me, how- 

 ever, that the candy as you gave it to us was 

 hardly what we require, for friend Doolittle 

 and some otl)ers declare the sugar had no 

 other value than to hold the honey, and that 

 so much sand would do just as well, etc.; 

 and we were so much annoyed by the grains 

 of sugar rattling out of the cages in our 

 mailing business that I began using the 

 finest pulverized confectioner's sugar, as you 

 may remember. Well, when I said what I 

 did" about friend Benton's candy, I had just 

 noticed that it was different in looks and 

 taste from ours, for it was soft and creamy, 

 or like butter, perhaps, so that nothing like 

 sugar was visible in it. Your kind letter as 

 above has given us the key, for friend Ben- 

 ton says lie pounded the sugar up. Now, 

 then, what we need is a mill similar to a 

 paint-mill, to grind the sugar and honey 

 after being mixed, until it is a simple paste, 

 like white paint, only thicker, of course. 

 This paint can not daub bees, and yet they 

 can eat every particle of it. I would suggest, 

 that the honey should be nice, thick, well' 

 ripened honey of the finest quality. Several 

 have been using candied honey alone ; but 

 honey will not sustain life like chemically 

 pure ' sugar ; neithw will it avoid daubing, 



