300 



GLEANINGS IN BEE Cl^TURE. 



June 



Or Iietters from Those "Who liave Made 

 Bee Culture a Failure. 



AM very sorry to be obliged to i-equest to be put 

 at the foot of the list of Blasted Hopes, and to 

 ask thee to draw a new cut especially for me. 

 I have been in the business 8 years; packed last fall 

 8! stands for winter; thought all right; 45 were 

 Italians, rest hybrids, 2 blacks only. I saved 2 Ital- 

 ians, 2 blacks, 11 hybrids; 15 out of 83, and 3 of them 

 only a handful. The queen I got of thee last spring 

 Is all right, and one of the 3 pound boxes I got is 

 alive yet, but very weak. I had a debt of $600.00 

 hanging over me; I thought perhaps I could get rid 

 of it if I had good luck with bees, and invested ev- 

 ery dollar I could spare in fixing up to handle bees; 

 liut, oh dear! But I don't iutend giving up yet. I 

 will try a few more as soon as they can be had by 

 the pound, so I think I can stand it. I have about 

 25 lbs. of fdn. that 1 got last spring of A. I. Hoot, 

 and plenty of comb; so I will send my wax and get 

 some bees and queens. Where can I do the best? 

 How is it with thee, brother Root? Can I get a few 

 of thee to start again? Old Curley. 



New Sharon, Iowa, April 9, 1881. 



Now, friend "• Curly," I want to protest 

 a little. Yon invested a sood deal ot" mon- 

 ey, you say, with the idea of getting that 

 $600.00 paid up. You bought bees by the 

 pound of me, as I understand it. Now, why 

 did you not raise your bees instead of buy- 

 ing them V Neighbor II. has raised his 

 whole apiary from a single stock, and never 

 bought a pound of bees in his life. He has 

 sold a good many, though. You speak of 

 buying bees now. What for, I want to 

 know y Build up those 15, and raise bees to 

 sell rather. If you don't want hybrids, buy 

 one pure queen, if you have none, and theii 

 raise the rest yourself. Your hybrids, it 

 would seem from your re])ort, wintered far 

 better than the others. ''.Vliy not keep hy- 

 brids ? It begins to almost seem to me, 

 boys, that God is punishing us for our ex- 

 travagance, and I do not know but I need 

 the lesson as much as any of you. Folks 

 who have plenty of money "in the bank, and 

 keep bees only for fun, can afford to buy 

 quantities of bees and high-priced queens, 

 even when they have very good ones al- 

 ready, but, friend C, I do"not believe you 

 and I can afford to do so ; we are both of us 

 in debt. 



Bees aro nearly all dead in this part of Wisconsin. 

 1 have lost from 56 last fall, to 9 at the present time ; 

 and I do not know of any more than one man here 

 who is coming out any better. If not, blasted, I am 

 certainly busted. A. A. Winslow. 



New Holstein, Calumet Co., Wis , May 3, 1881. 



Whenever ray time for Gleanings expires, please 

 stop the paper. I must catch my breath lirst after 

 such a disxstrous winter on bees. Rout. M. Weir. 



Bloomiugton, Ind., May 17, 1881. 



I have the. promise of 2 or 3 weak stocks of bees to 

 start up business. D. P. Lane. 



Koshkonong, Wis., April 13, 1881. 



Pretty cool, for one of our old veterans, is 

 it not, friend Lane? 



I have spent $55 00 for bees, and have lost all. 

 Now I want a pnper of Spider-plant seed, as the hon- 

 ey can be dipped from the flowers with a spoon. 

 You see, I will just gather my honey independently 

 of bees. Mrs. M. J. Macquitiiy. 



Louisville, Ky., Apr. 2), 1881. 



THE DWINDLING. 



I have lost 43 swarms out of C3, which loaves me 

 only 21. I never had bees " melt" away before; for 

 it seemed as though they melted. Swarms that 

 seemed strong six weeks ago are all gone. Spring 

 dwindling is the cause, I suppose. 



R. Rathbun. 



Millington, Tuscola Co., Mich., Apr. 35, 1881. 



]adi^§' §^p,adw^^^" 



SWARMING OUT IN SPRING. 



^Tj^BES have had a hard time this winter. 

 f^m persons have lost all they had. ~ 



Many 

 Father had 19 

 swarms last fall. Only 7 are alive now. The 

 imported queen he got of you last fall is all right. 

 We had a hard winter — 100 days of good sleighing. 

 Yesterday, as father was walking through his apiary, 

 he discovered a cluster of bees on the top of the 

 hive. On examination he found a queen there. He 

 caged her and opened the hive, and put her back. 

 He wants to know why she came out, having plenty 

 of honey and some brood. Alice Humphrey. 



Redfield, Dallas Co., Iowa., Apr. 18, 1881. 



I think it was a case of absconding, friend 

 Alice. The bees got dissatisfied with some 

 thing, perhaps because tltey were weak in 

 numbers, and, as poor h II man beings some- 

 times do, tried to better their condition by 

 " jumping out of the frying-pan into the 

 fire." After flying around awhile, and find- 

 ing no comfort out of doors, they likely went 

 back and clustered on their old home, as you 

 found them. When we find such a cluster, 

 it is always well to ho sure where they be- 

 long. If it did not happen that they cluster- 

 ed on their own hive, and such is often the 

 case, your father may have made mischief 

 by putting them in wliere he did. 



A FURTnER REPORT FROM THE WILKINS SISTERS. 



On the ninth of March last, we had lost but 2 out 

 of 55. We then expected to lose no more, having 

 given our bees a thorough examination and putting 

 to rights, and found them in much better shape than 

 wo had anticipated. Our answers to inquiries at 

 this time, and for two weeks later, were to this effect, 

 so that I suppose wg are responsible, though inno- 

 cently so, for the erroneous statement in circula- 

 tion. [See page 226 of last month's journal. — .Bd.] 

 We have now lost 7U?ie colonies, and have united 

 others imtil we have reduced our number from 55 

 to 40. T/icsc we expect to keep We have had no 

 acquaintance whatever with spring dwindling in 

 previous years, nor had we ever bef')re lost a colony 

 in wintering. I trust this may reach you in time to 

 pi-event any undeserved credit being given us in 

 Gleanings for May. Lucy A. Wilkins. 



Farwell, Mich., Apr. 22, 1881. 



Many tlianks, my friends, for correcting 

 the mistake the newspapers were innocently 

 making; I heartily wish our own sex were 

 all as ready to correct any undeserved credit 

 the world might happen to give them. 



