1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



683 



answer very nicely. — I suppose you know you 

 are giving the Carniolans a pretty big recom- 

 mend. We And them gentle enough, but 

 they do not gather any thing like as much 

 honey, according to the number of bees. 

 Perhaps your strain is a better one, and may 

 be ours was an exceedingly poor one ; but 

 the queen came from Frank Benton himself, 

 and she was a selected queen at that. 



MRS. 



CHADDOCK'S KEPOET 

 BASSA^rOOD BLOOM. 



OF THE 



FIRST HOPING, THEN DOUBTING, THEN DESPAIR. 



bees. 



IRIEND ROOT:— I always smile when I read 

 ) your foot-notes to my letters. You do not 

 suppose— you can not suppose— that I spend 

 all my time working- with or crying over the 

 bees. Sometimes I forget that I have any 

 When Minnie came home from her school 

 she brought four new dresses for me to make; then 

 Jessie wanted to go to the institute with Minnie, 

 and she had to have two dresses made. There 

 were j ust nine days for mc^ to make the six dresses 

 (and the other things) in. The girls did all the oth- 

 er work, and I sat in the parlor and sewed from 

 daylight till dark, with the exception of an hour's 

 rest after dinner. We had harvest hands and visit- 

 ors and book-agents and beggars and tramps. 

 One day the clock was too slow, and every thing 

 was late, and the men came in before the meals 

 were ready, and had to sit around and whistle 

 awhile. The next day the ivhole family turned the 

 clock forwai'd, and every thing was too fast. I sat 

 and sewed through it all, never going near the 

 kitchen, except to meals, for the whole nine days. 

 And what do you think happened in those nine 

 days? I had been waiting patiently for the bass- 

 wood to bloom, thinking that perhaps the bees 

 could fill up the body of the hives with it, at least. 

 The girls started to the institute on the 16th of 

 July, and that morning early I went out to look at 

 the basswood. I saw what looked like great green- 

 ish white buds— the tree just full of them. I put 

 on honey-boxes, and gave the bees room to spread 

 themselves, and said, " In a few days now the 

 basswood will be in bloom." 



WATCHING i'OR THE BASSWOOD-BLOSSOMS TO 

 OPEN. 



Every morning for five days I went out to see the 

 flowers beginning to open. But there was always 

 the same whitish, green, round buds, and not a 

 single blossom. 



DOUBTFUL AS TO WHETHER THEY WILL, OPEN. 



Then a fear, a doubt, a sort of sinking feeling of 

 disappointment, took possession of me. It began 

 to dawn on my inner consciousness that those 

 round buds were too fat and plump for flower-buds. 

 I picked some of them to pieces, and my worst 

 fears were realized. 



NOTHING BUT SEED-PODS. 



There was a big round seed, filled with a sweet 

 substance, in each one. The flowers had come and 

 gone while I was making those new dresses. I sup- 

 pose the bees did get a little honey from the flow- 

 ers, as the weather was fine; but they did not get 

 enough to make them roar. I always hear and 

 notice them when they roar. They have been get- 

 ting some very dark honey from the catnip for the 

 last month— a little more than they use; but where 

 is the honey for them to winter on? 



Vermont, 111. Mahala B. Chaddook. 



BEES AMONG THE INDIANS. 



OUR GOOD FRIEND MRS. HARRISON GIVES US A 

 WISE HINT. 



tROTHEK ROOT:— While I was working with 

 the bees to-day, a lady called, and the con- 

 versation turned on the subject of bees. 

 She is a teacher in an Indian school, and is on 

 her way there. She said one of their boys 

 had been very sick, and, when he was getting bet- 

 ter, that he wanted honey, and that they were able 

 to procure only a small tumbler of strained honey, 

 which he enjoyed very much; that they had not 

 been able to get him to talk any before this, but he 

 brightened up, and told them how his father.cut 



