342 



GLE AIRINGS IK BEE CULTUBE. 



July 



From Different Fields. 



HONEY-DEW IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 



I NEVER had bees do so well in my life. There is 

 more honey-dew on my farm than two thousand 

 — ' colonies could gather. It is on all kinds of trees 

 and shrubs. We have not had any rain for about four 

 weeks, and the dew has been plenty for three weeks. 

 The honey-dew is dripping from some of the oaks. T 

 have tested the origin of the dew to my satisfaction. 

 With the aid of the little magnifying-glass I got of 

 you I thoroughly tested it, and I find that the insect 

 gets it from the leaf or shrub, and crawls on top and 

 puts it out. I took home some leaves that had some 

 insects on the under side, and no sign of dew on top, 

 and put them in my house at night, and the leaves 

 were covered on top the next morning. I also saw 

 them crawl and leave a stream on the leaf behind 

 them. So the honey-dew is a settled fact in my 

 mind. I am swarming my bees. I put a frame of 

 larvae in and made a hive, and in five days they had 

 4 Langstroth frames full. I count that big for yield. 

 I had 7 colonies, and I have doubled at this time, and 

 •they are doing well. 



VENTILATION. 



Do you give your bees any ventilation other than 

 at the entrance? Say some thing about it in Glean- 

 ings. J. D. CooPEit. 



Traveler's Rest, Greenville Co., S. C, May, 1881. 



The report you give of the honey-dew is 

 indeed wonderful, friend C. — We can get all 

 the ventilation required, with the Simplicity 

 hive, by moving it forward on the bottom- 

 board. As the sun does not heat through 

 the walls of the chaff hive, it does not need 

 more ventilation than the entrance affords, 

 when open the whole length, assisted by the 

 ventilating holes in each end of the cover. 



OPEN-AIR FEEDING, AND HOW MANY POUNDS OF HON- 

 EY DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE 1 LB. OF BEES? 



I failed to sell my honey, and ara feeding in the 

 open air; have fed to-day VZ gallons of syrup, made 

 of V-i grape sugar, and well diluted. I have about 

 2000 lbs. to feed during the season. Who can tell 

 how many pounds of honey it will take to make 1 lb. 

 of bees? I will give the price of Gleanings for a 

 reliable answer. C. D. Wright. 



Baxter Springs, Kan., May 20 1881. 



A pretty hard question to answer, friend 

 Wright ; for, if I am not mistaken, it will 

 take as many or more pounds of pollen than 

 it does of honey. J3y feeding tlour candy 

 to bees confined to their hives, by cool 

 weather it seems to me we might get at it 

 pretty fairly. I Avill give $10.00 for the re- 

 sult of a satisfactory experiment; I mean 

 one that would be satisfactory to myself, 

 and you know that I am sometimes pretty 

 notional. Perhaps it can be managed with 

 Hying bees, but I confess I don't exactly see 

 how. 



an enthusiastic ABC SCHOLAR. 



I wintered my bees on their summer stands in 

 chaff hives, and I do not think I lost a quart of bees 

 in ten colonies. There has been so much said on 

 wintering, that I will defer giving you my mode 

 until next fall. One of my neighbors wintered his 



bees on summer stands, and during the hot weather 

 last summer he raised the front of his hives and 

 placed pieces of lath under them to give them ven- 

 tilation. That was the " packing" they got for the 

 winter. What do you think of that kind of winter- 

 ing? he had 12 colonies; 6 of them died, and the 

 others are good strong colonies. More than half of 

 the bees died in this vicinity during the last winter. 

 I had the pleasure of seeing the imported queen 

 that you sent to brother Keeran. She is a beauty, 

 and introduced and doing her duty as a good mother 

 should. 1 dearly love to read those Home Papers. 

 "Very often I fail to attend church and Sabbath- 

 school; but I never fail to read those Home Papers, 

 and they are a great source of happiness to me. 

 Continue them as long as you live, for they are do- 

 ing a world of good. Friend Novice, two weeks 

 from this evening, if God spares mo and the queen, 

 I am going to start a little nucleus. The hive Is 

 made; the frames and every thing pertaining to a 

 well-regulated house is in the hive. You are re- 

 spectfully invited to attend. Thomas Butler. 

 Bloomington, 111., May 31, 1881. 



Many thanks for your kind invitation and 

 kind words, friend B.; but I fear 1 can't 

 come, much as 1 would like to. I am not at 

 all sure that the Home Papers will do you 

 more good than going to church or Sabbath- 

 school, even if you do like them better. You 

 see, it is easier, and we are very often a lit- 

 tle lazy about taking up important duties. 

 Go to church and Sunday-school first, and 

 then you can read the Home Papers with a 

 clear conscience. We are to help the world 

 along, and not always to be helped or pleased 

 ourselves. 



dadant's pa.mphle^ on extracted honev. 



I hardly think your notice of the pamphlet by 

 Chas. Dadant & Son, in the April No. of Gleanings, 

 was as extensive as it deserved. I know it is hard 

 for the editor to give extended reviews of all publi- 

 cations pertaining to our favorite pursuit; but some 

 are pre-eminently deserving, and contain a mass of 

 interesting facts that should be more extensively 

 known, and such is the work referred to. It should 

 be circulated throughout the entire country, north 

 and south, east and west ; for there is a lamentable 

 degree of ignorance, even on the part of persons 

 otherwise well informed in regard to extracted hon- 

 ey and the adulteration of the same, and we can not 

 ' do too much to impart the knowledge we possess; 

 and the bee-keeping fraternity should return a vote 

 of thanks to the Messrs. Dadant for the able man- 

 ner they have conveyed the information thty pos- 

 sess to the public; and every bee-keeper should ap- 

 point himself a committee of one to circulate the 

 same as much as possible, and so educate the public, 

 and all comb honey and adulterated stuff will soon 

 be things of the past. E. T. Flanagan. 



Belleville, 111 , May 5, 18S1. 



You are doubtless right, friend F., and I 

 should, perhaps, have said more in praise of 

 the book, were it not that 1 felt the amount 

 of matter that it contained w;is rather small 

 for the price. Of late, we have been in the 

 habit of getting a pretty good-sized book, on 

 almost any subject, for a dime. 1 know the 

 matter a book contains has much to do with 

 it, and I know, too, that a book on honey 

 will not have the general demand that some 

 other books would. 



