420 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Junk 1. 



that being the number I had handy. Of course, 

 they were tied loosely. I dropped them in. hav- 

 ing a strong cord tied around tlae middle of the 

 bundle to lift them out by. I left them boil 

 two or three minutes, and took tliem out; 33 of 

 them were perfectly clean. The rest, the cen- 

 ter of the bundle, still had some propolis left on, 

 and were treated to a second dose. 



Taking a very large quantity of the separa- 

 tors at one time, there might be more trouble 

 than I tliink, about getting them clean, but I 

 don't believe there would be if the water were 

 kept hot enough, and enough of the lye used. 

 I don't think any harm would come from hav- 

 ing it unnecessarily strong. 



I next tried dipping the T supers. My boiler 

 was large enough to clean only half a super at 

 a time, so I had to dip in one half, reverse it, 

 and dip the other half. Had I been able to dip 

 one all at once, I think I could have cleaned one 

 a minute. And they are beautifully cleaned. 

 I don't know of any other way they could be 

 cleaned so nicely — quite as clean, I think, as 

 when new. We scraped all our supers before 

 the lye was iliouglit of; and wliile they are 

 much improved by the scraping, they are not 

 nearly as nice as wlien cleaned with lye, and 

 the scraping is harder worl\. 



I did not have any thing large enough to dip 

 a hive into, but of course a hive would clean as 

 readily as a super. With convenient apparatus 

 to work with, a large number of such articles 

 as separators could be cleaned at a time with 

 no very great amount of labor. It is such a 

 comfort to have every thing clean I Wood 

 separators are so cheap that we have always 

 thought it did not pay to clean them. I rather 

 think we shall conclude that it does pay, after 

 this, providing we can get them satisfactorily 

 dried in good shape. Emma Wilsox. 



Marengo, 111., May .'5. 



Heads of Grain 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS. 



LETTER FROM J. H. TOWNLEY, OF CHAFF-PACK- 

 ING FAME. 



We have no use for bee - keepers' supplies 

 here; but thanks, all the same, for illustrated 

 catalogue. The beautifully neat and tasty 

 picture of your grapevine apiary and its sur- 

 roundings on the front cover reminds one of his 

 old occupation, and almost makes him wish 

 that he were again engaged in his nearly life- 

 long favorite pursuit. The picture of your 

 factory, and the piles of apiarian supplies 

 around the depot and along the railroad track, 

 awaiting shipment, on the last cover, shows 

 that you have "spread out "quite extensively 

 since I was in Medina something like fifteen 

 years ago. 



I brought one colony of bees with me when I 

 came here in 188:.'. The first year, they stored 

 enough honey to winter them; the next season 

 I fed them honey all summer, and let them 

 starve in October. It was useless to keep them 

 longer. They wintered well in a large goods 

 box, packed below, above, and on all sides 

 with from 4 to V.1 inches of chaff, without a fly 

 from October until April. What honey they 

 had was mostly goldenrod and the excrements 

 of plant-lice. 



Bees are successfully kept in the south part 

 of the State and along the Missouri River. I 

 think they could be kept here in more favored 

 localities along streams, where, in its season, 

 there are scores of acres covered with a sea of 

 goldenrod for six or seven weeks. 



We can get white-clover honey, extracted, 

 laid down here, by the barrel, for 7 and 8 cents 

 per lb. It retails now at the stores, put up in 

 1 and 2 lb. tin cans, at ~0 and 3.5 cents per can. 

 Comb honey, in 1-lb. sections, some of it quite 

 dark, is retailing at 30 cents. J. H. Towni.ey. 



Ashton, S. D., May 7. 



[Some of our older readers will remember 

 this as the Townley who first suggested to us, 

 years ago, the use of chaff for packing double- 

 walled hives. In the interim we had nearly 

 lost track of him.] 



A 2K-INCH RAINFALL, IN THE MONTH OF MAY 

 IN VENTURA CO., CAL. 



There is a general feeling among bee-keepers 

 in this region that they will get no surplus 

 lioney tliis year. However, I expect a small 

 crop, and especially as we have just had the 

 very extraordinary experince of a 2}.<-inch fall 

 of rain in May. R. Wilkin. 



Newhall, Cal., May 4. 



[We are glad to hear of the rain, friend W., 

 and shall watch anxiously for its effect on the 

 honey crop. And, by the way, do you not be- 

 lieve that tliis rainfall was produced by irriga- 

 tion? Near Tropico I saw a tract of land that 

 had been covered with fruit, and at one time it 

 was worth •?10U0 an acre. The ground Kept get- 

 ting wetter and wetter, however, until, when I 

 saw it, it was but little better than a swamp. 

 All the fruit had been killed by the wetness, 

 and the tract was abandoned. This, I was 

 informed, was probably the result of excessive 

 irrigation year after year. The water had set- 

 tled down in this low place: and as the subsoil 

 was probably impervious, it became wetter and 

 wetter each successive year. In diflferent 

 pi '.ces I saw evidences of what might be expect- 

 ed by continued irrigation; and, if I am cor- 

 rect, such a state of affairs favors rainfalls 

 where they have not been previously known.] 

 A. I. R. 



SOMETHING FROM "TOMMY IRONDAI^E." 



Mr. Root: — We were glad to hear of your safe 

 return home after your long journey, and we 

 liope that you health is much improved by the 

 trip. Tell Mrs. Root that the book she sent the 

 children. "First Steps for Little Feet," was 

 much enjoyed by them. After your report in 

 Gleanings, that the Eaton P'alls picture was a 

 failure, we wondered if Pole Canyon Falls had 

 impressed itself properly on the Kodak. We 

 shall have no honey to speak of in Southern 

 California this year, as the rainfall is less than 

 for seven years; 13,^.1 inches have fallen here so 

 far this winter. It'is I'eported that Mr. Mercer 

 has only .500 colonies alive now out of a total 

 last summer of 1100. There has been gi eat loss 

 from starvation the past winter all through the 

 honey-belt of this country. 



T. F. AND Mrs. Arundell. 



Fillmore, Cal., May 8. 



[We are very sorry indeed, friends, to hear of 

 the bad prospects for honey. I think you Cal- 

 ifornia folks will have to get down to feeding 

 in winter, under such circumstances, and also 

 to giving your bees a little more attention dur- 

 ing the winter and spring months. Pole Canyon 

 Falls will appear presently.] A. I. R. 



QUEEN-EXCLUDERS FOR EXTRACTING; PROPO- 

 LIS DOES NOT INTERFERE. 



On page 333, INTay 1st, Wm. Seeman tells how 

 his bees filled up the holes in his excluders, and 

 would not woi << above them in extracting 

 supers. As excluders between brood-chamber 

 and top story is one of the most satisfactory 

 arrangements I have ever used, I write this to 



