604 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Au&. 



■vVitli the bees, go to work at your straw- 

 berries or other kinds of garden stuff. By 

 all means, keep your bees from starving. 

 Clean up your i»itcher of syrup so the rob- 

 bers will hot be hanging around it. Keep 

 your smoker and rotten wood in some dry 

 place, out of the weather. Grind up your 

 honey-knife (which we see sticking in your 

 belt in one place and standing up straight 

 ill the ground in another); wi])e the honey 

 off from the handle, so it will be pleasant to 



f:et hold of when honey conies. Have every 

 hing in good shape, and then attend to 

 something else until Trovidence sees tit to 

 reward you. And it is by no means certain 

 that you will have to wait until next year 

 for your honey crop, even if basswood and 

 clover have botli gone by. Our bees are 

 now working on red clover, with a vim. In 

 our locality it would not be any thing very 

 strange if we should have section boxes till- 

 ed with honey, as has happened several 

 times in the last 20 years in our vicinity. If 

 you had 200 or 800 "hives to be fed through 

 poor seasons, and were too poor to buy the 

 sugar for them, you might look long-faced. 

 No, I do not think that any of us sh;tll feel 

 Worse than we did. It sometimes helps us 

 to bear our trials when we know that others 

 are having to shoulder like ones. 



THE BASS"WOOD BORER. 



Al,SO SOMETHING AliOUT THE BASSWOOD, OR T.IN- 

 DKN TKKE, IN OENEKAL, FROM PROF. COOK. 



!^ ECENTLY one of our boys found a 

 11? very peculiar-looking beetle near the 

 ^t\ boiier-room, where a good deal of 

 '■^ basswood sawdust, etc., accumulates. 

 Feeling curious to know something 

 about it, " his honor the bug,'" as it was 

 called, was sent to Prof. Cook for identitica- 

 tion. It seems the bug \s a, beetle, however, 

 and an undesirable one too. By the way, will 

 friend Ci ok give us the distinguishing ear- 

 marks between a bug and a beetleV Here is 

 what he says : 

 Friend Root :— 



"His honor the " beetle, not "bug," wliich you 

 send is one of the few insects that attack our grand 

 ornamental and most admirable honey-tree, the 

 American linden, or basswood. It is the Saperda 

 vestita. Say. This beetle is tliree-fourths of an inch 

 long, greenish yellow in color, and, like all the 

 family of borers to which it belongs {Cerambycidoe), 

 is characterized by its slim trim appearance and 

 long antennas. Thus these beetles— all in the fam- 

 ily—are called "longieorns," really long horns. 

 This beetle lays its eggs on the lindens, and the 

 grubs bore into the tree. Were they numerous 

 enough they would do injury; but I think that is 

 rarely the case. Thus our beautiful lindens are 

 rarely in.1u»ed, while our elms, maples, and locusts, 

 are often ruined in great numbers by their insect- 

 enemies. When I get to be an editor, which will 

 probably not be till I cross the river, I shall urge 

 the planting of lindens in e.xtenso. The rage now is 

 to plant elms and maples. The elms have two terri- 

 ble enemies— canker worms and elm-leaf beetles, 

 which latter bids fair to exterminate this beautiful 

 shade-tree in the east. The maple is so badly at- 

 tacked by borers that more that are transplanted 



by our waysides die than live. The linden, on the 

 other hand, is almost insect-proof. I have never 

 known a tree to be seriously injured. More than 

 this, it is a grand tree, excelled in beauty by none, 

 and a very valuable honey-tree. There is only one 

 requisite to success in planting this tree: We must 

 keep cattle and other stock away from it till it is 

 well grown, as thej' appreciate the juicy foliage, 

 and will not spare that tree. I urge, then, that all 

 plant lindens and get your friends to go and do 

 likewise. A. J. Cook. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



Friend Cook, we shall be very glad indeed 

 to see you an editor (providing it will not 

 wear you out prematurely); but we are in 

 no hurry at all to have you "cross the riv- 

 er,'' as you put it. We do hope, however, 

 you will continue to urge the planting of 

 linden-trees. Gleanings has had some 

 pretty emphatic articles on the subject, and 

 I have thought, for the past two weeks, that 

 if the world at huge could enjoy the sight 

 of the row of lindens in. front of our house 

 and factoiy. there would certainly be more 

 of them planted. In the cool of the evening, 

 and when the sun first rises in the morning, 

 the aroma is most beautiful. Sometimes I 

 start out with a brown study, and look 

 around me, wondering what it was that 

 brought such a thrill of hapi)iness all at 

 once. Pietty soon I called to mind that it 

 was this beautiful perfume of the open lin- 

 den-blossoms, coupled with the merry hum 

 of bees that are roaring about the branches, 

 from daylight until d^rk. Yes, even when 

 it rains, so eager have they been for the past 

 few days that they were on the wing, reveling 

 amid the leaves when our workmen thought 

 it rained too hard to be out. Some have 

 urged that basswood-trees are not as easy to 

 make live as the elm. and maple; and even 

 our neighbors across the way have been 

 planting elms in place of linden. I think I 

 shall have to call their attention to the 

 point you make, that elms and maples are 

 more subject to insect-enemies. 



KEEPING COMB HONEY. 



A BRIGHT IDEA FROM C. C. MILLER. 



"JIP S a general rule, comb honey kept till it is a 

 2kJh year old, (,r older, will not sell for as high a 

 ^^K price as new honey. It is likely to be some- 

 ■^^ what leaky, the combs cracked, and the hon- 

 ey candied. Yet I have seen very fine speci- 

 mens of old honey. I was in the habit of sending 

 some honey each year to my mother; and otie time 

 when visiting her she- said, "Charles, you needn't 

 send me any honey next fall, for I have plenty to 

 last over." 



"But," said I, " you must use up what you have, 

 and let me send you some new. Comb honey is not 

 so good kept over from one year to another." 



She assured me that it was just as good, and 

 showed me some that certainly was very nice; and 

 when asked what she had done to keep it so nice 

 she said she had done nothing; that it had kept 

 that way itself. I asked her to let me see where 

 she kept it, and she led the way up into the garret. 

 A bee-keeper near Kockford showed me some 

 honey that was 18 months old. Close inspection 



