363 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



with hoes and sticks, and was told they had 

 iust been chasing off a tiger. I liave never yet 

 heard of a man-eating tiger in this part of this 

 province. The nature of the country here, nar- 

 row valleys between high hills, and the absence 

 of freezing cold winters, favor the increase of 

 such "varmints,'' while superstition hinders 

 somewhat their extei'raination. Poor weapons 

 and ignorance of natural history aggravate the 

 trouble. Once on a mountain path I saw a snake 

 and asked a Chinese brother, " Have you poi- 

 sonous snakes here'?"' After a short silence he 

 cautiously replied, "On the hills we dare not 

 speak carelessly." He is a good man, neverthe- 

 less. When he began to read his Bible at home 

 his mother gave him forty blows on eacli ear as 

 hard as she could lay on. first one hand then 

 the other, and he, a man giown, took it all as 

 meekly as a lamb. But now he is high in her 

 favor. 



I have written how Chinese bees will come and 

 locate in curious places; but, alas I they will go 

 just as they come. This summer I visited the 

 places where I saw the bees under the bed and 

 under the counter: but they were gone. In both 

 cases the owners said the bees went otT of their 

 own accord; and Mrs. Whitnc^y's " self-come" 

 bees went off in a body one day last summer, 

 leaving a lot of empty combs badly infested 

 with moths. So far as I know, the Chinese use 

 honey only as a medicine; but the larvie of bees, 

 or of wasps either, are considered a very dainty 

 morsel. 



I have just astonished a Chinaman by telling 

 him that, even in silvery America, the lazy and 

 careless come to want. J. E. Walker. 



Shaowu, China, Feb. 2L 



HIVE EECOEDS. 



WOODEN POINTEHS INSTEAD OF BRICKS ON 

 hive-covers; a good SUGGESTION. 



During the past year there have been several 

 articles from extenslv^e bee-keepers, describing 

 tlieir m(>thods of keeping a record of the condi- 

 tion of each hive by means of stones or bricks 

 placed in various positions and on different 

 parts of the cover. Now, I think I have a bet- 

 ter way. Nail or, screw three small buttons, each 

 V^ or 2 inches long, on the cover of each hive — 

 one in the center and the others in the corners 

 of one end. Let one represent tln^ queen, one 

 bees and brood, and the other honey. Each 

 button may be turned to point in each of eight 

 different directions; that is, toward each cor- 

 ner, and half way between these. Each direc- 

 tion has its meaning, and a single glance tells 

 the exact condition of the colony the last time 

 it was examined. I think the buttons superior 

 to bricks or stones, because they are easier to 

 operate and ai'c less liable to be knocked out of 

 place; but princii)ally because, in removing the 

 cover to examine the colony, no special care is 

 needed, while with bi'icks or stones they must 

 first be removed, or the cover handled very 

 carefully to prevent changing their positions. 

 Where a person is handling L'OOor more colonies, 

 something of this kind is needed to economize 

 time, and this method seems to nu' to have 

 more points of excellence than any other I 

 know of. 



m'intyke's u: capping-uox. 



This, as described on page 7()9, 1890, strikes 

 me as being just exactly the thing for the large 

 honey-producer; but 1 think an inii)rovemenf 

 could be made liy dividing the box hoiizontally. 

 the meeting edgi>s to be beveled, the upjier into 

 the lower. The box would still be solid and 



lii'in; but removing the upper half would great- 

 ly facilitate taking out the drained cappings. 

 J. Webster Johnson. 

 Tempe, Arizona, March 30. 



[You have given us a good suggestion in re- 

 gaixl to |)ointeis fastened on the hive-covers. 

 1 had thought several times of adoi)ting a sim- 

 ilar plan. When working over a hive I usually 

 sit on the end or side of the cover; and. of 

 course, slates, stones, or other such memoranda 

 as are held down by gi'avity, in obedience to 

 the same law are displaced, and I have got to 

 remember to put them back just as they were, 

 or slightly modified to indicate the changed 

 condition of the colony. Now, your pointers 

 would not be disarranged at all, and could be 

 made for an insignificant sum of money. For 

 record-making on hives, we want something 

 that we can read and see at a distance, just as 

 we would tell the time of day on a clock-face 

 by the figui'es, so far distant as to be almost 

 undiscernible. Your suggestion In regard to 

 the uncappinff-i)ox is a good on(\ I lielieve.] 



E. R. R. 



LADIES' G8N¥ERSAZ18NE. 



BUILDING TIP WEAK COLONIES. 



Mi;S. HARRISON HAS NOT BEEN VERY Sl'CCESS- 

 FUL IN IT. 



Mrs. Axtell. at our last conversazione, said, 

 " I know of nothing that a woman can work at, 

 and make pay better, than to take those weak 

 colonies under her wing and nurse them into 

 strong ones, by the time the honey harvest 

 comes." I've done a good deal of this nursing 

 business, and I never worked at so low wages 

 at any other kind of work. I barely earned the 

 water that went into my soup. Of late years I 

 do all my spring feeding in the fall, and vei'y 

 little of it then, for tlie Illinois River bottoms 

 have never failed to furnisii a flow of honey in 

 the fall, that I know of. When I put on Hill 

 devices I tell the bees that they have plenty of 

 honey to last until fruit-bloom, so good-by. 

 After our bees wei'e all taken from the cellar. 

 Mr. Harrison said, " I wish you would look into 

 that colony of bees nearest the grape-arbor, for 

 they ari' weak, and I am afraid that they are 

 starving." I was sorry that I knew that there 

 was a weak colony of bees: but as I had prom- 

 ised the minister to "obey," I went and exam- 

 ined them and found plenty of honey, but only 

 about a scoi-e of bees and a queen. I covered 

 them up and left them until the afternoon, 

 when it was quit(>. warm, and opened the hive 

 again, and was delighted to find out that tlus 

 bees had departed for fresh fields and pastui'es 

 new. I took out the combs, trimmed oft' all ex- 

 crescences like old queen-cells, scrubbed the 

 hive with brush and hot suds, rinsed with boil- 

 ing water, and, when dry, put back the combs 

 and carried it into the celhir to remain until I 

 had a swai'ni to run into it. 



I'vo tried every way that I ever h(»ard of to 

 build up weak colonies. I've given them ca])- 

 l)ed blood, and Uve brushed off' young bees 

 from combs belonging to strong colonies, and 

 [ticked up the downy ones and given them to 

 the weak, and I did more harm tlum good. I 

 should have had more bees at swarming time if 

 I had let them alone. It is not pleasant to talk 

 of our failures, but open confession is good for 



