120 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CXJLTURE. 



Mae. 



weather and condition of the sap have a good deal 

 to do with It. We tap the rock-maple; if the condi- 

 tions are right, we get a flow of sweet sap. The 

 aphides may be the tappers in this case, and at cer- 

 tain times the sap, being in a right state, hence the 

 honey-dew. The veins of the leaves may burst, too, 

 under certain conditions of the sap and weather; 

 and 1 incline to think we get the dew from both 

 causes. 

 •'And now a word about the 



BOX-ELDER. 



" Its true name is ash-leaf maple. I think a good 

 deal of it, and so do the bees. It blossoms quite 

 early in the spring, and if the weather is favorable 

 the bees Mill just cover the trees, gathering honey 

 and pollen nearly all day. In the spring I have only 

 to strike a narrow-bladed hatchet into the bark and 

 the sap will flow abundantly. The bees soon find it, 

 covering the body of the tree in their eagerness to 

 obtain it. There has been but little said about it as 

 a honey-producing tree, but I place it among the 

 best. It is a handsome tree, either on the lawn or 

 roadside. You can plant the seed like corn, and it 

 will come up regularly, growing very rapidly, and 

 soon making a beautiful tree. 



"I told you," said Mr. Duster, "when you were 

 here the last time, a little experience I had with a 

 bad lot of hybrids. Well, this time it is another fel- 

 low— Zach Brown— 'Old Zach,' as he is commonly 

 called. One colJ day last winter I found old Zach 

 and two or three of his cronies in one of our stores 

 hugging close to a hot stove, and telling yarns. Old 

 Zach was JLjst closing one about the way he could 

 handle bees. Why, he could scoop 'em up in his 

 hands, carry 'em in his hat, they'd never sting him— 

 oh no! etc., etc. 



"Well, last summer as I was returning from dinner 

 to my business, I heard a most terrible din just 

 ahead of me, and I soon found the cause was the 

 swarming of some bees belonging to a young widow 

 lady; and all her lady friends, some four or five 

 women, were at it with every conceivable thing that 

 would make a noise -and they made it I If I thought 

 bees could be stopped and made to alight by this 

 process, I would certainly hire a woman to manufac- 

 ture the noise; such energy, such persistency— whj-, 

 one of them asked me, after the bees had alighted. 

 If she had not better keep an old sheet-iron or tin 

 waiter she had, a rattling! I told her I thought it 

 would do as much good now as ever. I meant to be 

 a little sarcastic; but I'll be blamed if she didn't 

 take me at my word, and at it again she went. Yes, 

 give me a woman for a racket of this kind. The bees 

 had alighted in the worst place possible— on the 

 body of a small tree, among the thick small limbs, 

 and about twelve feet high. I saw at once I was in 

 a fix, being the only man present. Already I had 

 caught the young widow's soft pleading e3-e3 resting 

 upon me; I knew their meaning as well as the next 

 man. Who don't know the meaning of a widow's 

 eyes, if she means it? and I saw she did. I looked at 

 the widow, then looked at the bees; looked at the 

 bees, then looked at the widow, and I might have 

 looked a little foolish besides, between-times. But 

 as good luck would have it, I just then thought of 

 old Zach's story. So I told her that, as my business 

 was very pressing, and not knowing, as well as some, 

 how to hive bees, I would send a man who knew all 

 about it. She looked her thanks, and I looked for 

 Old Zach. I found him and one of his cronies on the 



street, and he was willing and ready to go. Crony 

 and I went too. Business, with me, seemed drlfer- 

 ent under the circumstances, you see. Old Zach, 

 after looking at the situation of things, and taking 

 two or three big pinches of snuff, concluded he would 

 stand on a chair and hold the hive bottom-side up 

 under the bees, while some one would shake the 

 tree, and he would catch them, as ho could just reach 

 up to where they clustered. I had another pressure 

 of business about that time, "SO I went a little way 

 up the street, then crossed over to the other side, 

 and down opposite the bees; got behind a big cot- 

 tonwood-tree and— awaited events. Old Zach was 

 already on the chair, with the hive nearly over his 

 head and under the bees, and his crony friend had 

 hold of the tree ready to shake. Old Zach gave the 

 word, and down came the bees— about one-half in 

 the hive, and the other half on Old Zach. He got 

 down from his chair ' sort of spry,' and he really 

 looked astonished! but whether it was the small 

 quantity of bees he caught in the hive, or the large 

 quantity that was in his hair and all over him, he 

 gave me no time to ask; for up the street he went 

 as fast as his legs could carry him, and with a good 

 portion of the bees after him and on him. He tacked 

 short at the first corner of the street he came to, as 

 though he thought he could dodge them and throw 

 them off the track. He soon disappeared behind 

 some buildings and it was the last I saw of him for 

 several days. 



"Just then my attention was called to the demon- 

 strations of his friend and crony. He was a man 

 tall, lank, and lean, with a long neck, scraggy, bony 

 shoulders, and hips the same, and his knees the size 

 Of small tea-kettles— all joints with a little bone be- 

 tween. Well he was balancing himself on the front- 

 yard fence and holding on to the upper rail with his 

 great bony hands, and as he see-sawed back and 

 forth, his head nearly touched the ground in the 

 yard, while his feet were high in the air over the 

 side-walk; and as they came down upon the walk, 

 he would give such a guffaw as would have aston- 

 ished man or brute, while at the same time he kept 

 talking between-times, as he could get breath, and I 

 could hear something like this: 'Did you see them 

 bees after Old Zach? haw, haw!— streaming out after 

 him like a Chinee's pig-tail— haw, haw! He could 

 scrape up bees iu his hands— could carry 'em in his 

 hat, eh? haw, haw! I seen 'em in his hair, and—' 

 here he stopped suddenly his sec-sawing and talk, 

 slapped his lantern jaws first with one hand and 

 then with the other. 'Bees!' was all he said, and 

 away he went down the street, swiugiug his legs and 

 arms in the air in all directions, looking like so many 

 old-fashioned flails. He, too, suddenly disappeared 

 around a street corner with all his unexpressed 

 comments with him, and I'll venture to say he never 

 did so much work in so short a time before in all his 

 life." 



Here I bade Mr. Duster a good-afternoon, and we 

 parted. II. H. Mellen. 



Amboy-on-Inlet, 111., Feb. 13, 1881. 



I most heartily approve of your ideas 

 about la wns; t'rintl M., but really I can not 

 say that I do about leaving the widow with 

 her bees flying round in the air without any- 

 body to put them in a hive for her. If she 

 lost them, just tell your neighbor Duster 

 that I think he ought to give her another out 

 of his own fine apiary, and not a hybrid stock ■ 

 either. 



