1881 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



181 



work hiving them. I shook them several times, and 

 they went in the hive pretty well. The rest I smok- 

 ed down. 



When they all got in the hive I threw an apron 

 over the front of it, and carried it across the street 

 and set it in its place. Well, in all the work I did not 

 get stung once. I like to hive bees when they are 

 good natured. I have not hived any more alone, but 

 I help in hiving them. Will some girl or boy tell us 

 whether they can hive a swarm of bees alone? If 

 they can, I wish they would please tell us how they 

 do it. Lizzie Harrison. 



Peoria, 111., March 11, 1881. 



Well doue, well done, Lizzie ! and since I 

 come to notice your name and address, it 

 strikes me that you must be Mrs. L. Harri- 

 son's little girl ; is it not so? I really do not 

 wonder you have energy, and are not afraid 

 of bees, with such a mother as you have. 



I am a little girl 13 years old. My pa takes Glean- 

 ings. I go to Sunday-school almost every Sunday. 

 There are from 75 to 100 scholars. I like my super- 

 intendent. Pa keeps bees, and last spring he put 

 them in an L. hive, and they made 150 lbs. Can any 

 one beat that? He would like j'our ABC book, and 

 he intends to send and get It when he has enough 

 money. Nettie Wakeman. 



Ouaquaga, Broome Co., N. Y., March 7, 1881. 



Very good, Nettie ! If your father can do 

 as well as that every year, he will hardly 

 need an A B C book. I really hope he will 

 get some more money ; don't you think I am 

 very kind? 



kpMitmnt 



MRS. LUCINDA HARRISON TALKS TO THE JUVENILE 



CLASS. 



'-K think, Mr. Editor, that our young friend 

 Mabel, of Wyandotte, Kansas, is a very ob- 

 serving little girl, and partly correct, with 

 reference to "dark honey." We know that bees 

 clean and varnish up their combs, but they are des- 

 titute of scrubbing-brushes, hot soap-suds, and boil- 

 ing water, for their necessary spring cleaning. 

 Where hives stand like ours, in a city, amid coal 

 smoke, soot and dust, and especially after a long, 

 cold winter like the one just past, with so few clean- 

 ing-house days that the bees could not carry out 

 their dead and comb-cappings (and it is now satu- 

 rated with moisture, rendering the task too great for 

 their strength;) if the bee-keeper does not come to 

 their assistance, no snow-white combs will gladden 

 his eye or tickle his palate. How can the bees pre- 

 vent soot and dust from shading the honey if they 

 have to walk over a filthy tloor to deposit it, or keep 

 their feet or antenna; clean ? After a mild winter, 

 with plenty of cleaning-house days, their floors are 

 tolerably clean ; but a winter like the past produces 

 a very different state of affairs. The winter of 

 18"9-'80 was mild, and bees were healthy. When we 

 cleaned the hives in the spring, we came to the con- 

 clusion that healthy bees voided their fseces in a 

 dry state, judging from the little mounds of an inch 

 or so in height, invariably found underneath the 

 cluster. On hearing such remarks as this about a 

 neighboring apiarist's honey, "I'd as soon have soap- 

 greage in ray store as that man's boqey; I could 



neither sell it nor give it away," we concluded to 

 pay the apiary a visit, and see what was the matter. 

 We found the apiary to be a large one, in a first' 

 rate locality; the colonies were immense, and tons 

 of honey on hand, but none first-class. The hives 

 were black, dirty old things, innocent of paint, and 

 had never been cleaned. The surplus honey was 

 permitted to remain on the hives for months after 

 the boxes were filled, and uncompleted ones during 

 the winter. This bee-keeper came very nearly beingf 

 in the same boat with another old settler of the 

 brimstone persuasion, who says, "When I used to 

 tuk up a gum, I could sell the honey; but I can't do 

 it any more. Why?" 



My dear Mabel, Hare Bell, or Blue Bell, when the 

 weather is warm and pleasant, remove your bees to 

 another hive, and then scrape the old hive as clean 

 as you can get it, scrubbing it afterward with a 

 brush and hot soap-suds, and finish by scalding with 

 clean boiling water. This will kill all the bees' 

 "bed-bugs," and when the hive is dry you can lyg- 

 turn the bees to it, and they will thank you with 

 their happy hum and shaking of their antennae, and 

 repay you with storing beautiful honey in snow- 

 white combs. "Thus endeth the first lesson." 



Peoria, 111., March, 1881. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Now, Mrs. II., while the veterans may not 

 all exactly agree with you in regard to the 

 propriety of cleaning off the propolis from 

 the cracks and crevices of the hives, which 

 your hot water and soap-suds might do, we 

 certainly all agree in regard to cleanliness 

 being next to godliness. The question has 

 sometimes been asked me, as to why I al- 

 ways have women in almost every room in 

 our factory; it is because luen and boys will 

 not, as a rule, be clean and neat in their hab- 

 its. As our wax-room is not a very pleasant 

 place sometimes for women, we tried for 

 awhile having only men take care of the 

 room. Of course, they did pretty well (we 

 always do ;) but after awhile I offered one of 

 the gti'ls a little better pay, just to take a 

 kind of supervision, you know. Well, the 

 jirst thing she did was to move the boxes 

 and pails out of the corners, and give the 

 room a tremendous sweeping. Why, I just 

 felt happy to see her do it ; and after she got 

 through, it seemed so much more homelike, 

 I could have sat right down in the middle of 

 the floor and laughed, and I should not have 

 stuck fast either. Since then, I have a sort 

 of feeling that I do not want to live — no, 

 nor even work in a room, where there are 

 not some women around. Somebody once 

 said my wife was such a good housekeeper 

 she had spoiled me ; but I do not believe it, 

 do you, Mrs. 11.? Now, begging your par- 

 don, we are all ready for the next lesson, 

 are Ave not, Mabel, Freddie, Louie, Jennie, 

 Charlie, Ellen, Roy, Minnie, Eddie, Anna, 

 Lizzie, Nettie, and the rest of youV 



It is now reasonably certain, says the Prairie 

 Farmer, that the manufacture of fine syrups and 

 sugar from sorghum can be made a vast and profit- 

 able industry, advantageous alike to the intelligent 

 grower of the cane and to the manufacturer of the 

 products obtained from it, and saving to the coun- 

 try millions of dollars annually which are now sent 

 abroad for these indispensable articles of daily con* 

 sumption. 



