si 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CtJLTURE. 



Jan. 



took me nearly all Sunday to prepare 18 nuclei to 

 save the queens. 



Count first and last day of Mr. Pond's statement, 

 as we should, and you have 14 days; the queen may 

 have laid in the center of comb Vi hour later after 

 the comb was put in, and Mr. Pond states himself 

 that the queen was not 24 hours old; she may have 

 been much younger yet, and you have to count the 

 last day. I always look on these queens hatched in 

 14 days as being a sign of strength and hardiness, 

 but I may be wrong. 



LARGE-SIZED BEES. 



Some Eastern man who saw my Italian bees, says 

 they are much bigger here than in the East, and I 

 nearly believe it, because I put the sample of the 

 Jones perforated zinc before the entrance (not in the 

 honey season), and only a few bees could enter with 

 difficulty, and many not at all. G. Damkohleu. 



Clarence, Shelby Co., Mo , Nov. 29, 1882. 



And SO you would expect that what we 

 call ten-day queens would be superior, rather 

 than otherwise, would you, friend D.V I be- 

 lieve it has been before suggested, that the 

 first hatched are the strongest and most vig- 

 orous, and this would imply that nature's 

 course in artificial swarmingis the right one ; 

 for the first hatched then destroys all oth- 

 ers, unless there are after-swarms. — In re- 

 gard to taking care of 18 young queens on 

 Sunday, I do not know but that I should 

 have done nearly the same. I would do just 

 as little work as possible on Sunday, but 

 still I should not want a great deal of proper- 

 ty to be lost, when it was clear and plain it 

 would be lost if not cared for.— Your con- 

 cluding idea, that the Jones perforated zinc 

 is going to prove a gauge to size our bees by, 

 is worthy of some attention. 



* REPORT FROM THE OLD KEYSTONE. 



The season of 1882 has been a very indilTerent one 

 for bee-keepers here. The spring opened out beau- 

 tifully, promising abundant bloom of maple, and 

 fruit of various kinds. Our bees had just fairly got 

 to work when a cold wave passed over our country, 

 freezing every thing in the shape of earlj' bloom. I 

 tell you, it made me feel " kind o' blue." The next 

 thing In order was to feed quite a number of colo- 

 nies, to keep them from starving. Oh how I pitied 

 them I they tried to find honey in the frozen bloom, 

 but failed. By and by the white clover came, and 

 along with it came cold wet weather. It yield- 

 ed but a small amount of honey — about enough to 

 keep up brood-rearing, etc. I began the season with 

 29 colonies — 27 Italian and 2 black, all in fair con- 

 dition. I transferred the 2 blacks, and two weeks 

 after I swarmed them and gave them Cyprian 

 queens. Ilncreased from 29 to 63 colonies; doubled 

 up to 59; have gone into the winter with 45 In good 

 condition, 5 rather weak, and 9 nuclei on 3 and 4 

 frames. I have now 52 Italians and 7 Cyprians, 

 whole count; had one swarm that went to the woods, 

 that is not included In this count; two-thirds of in- 

 crease was by natural swarming. I reared and sold 

 21 queens, most of them tested. Now for the sur- 

 plus: I used 700 one-pound section boxes in my 

 apiary, filled with fdn.; got 300 partly filled; only 50 

 in marketable condition. The whole 700 were filled 

 with nice comb, but only the above In honey. I got 

 150 lbs. of comb honey from my early swarms, and 

 about 200 combs in frames, built out nicely from fdn. 



We had a fine flow of honey from buckwheat — 



the best buckwheat season we have had for 15 years 

 in our part of the State, and I tell you the little fel- 

 lows lost no time while it lasted. Now this, my re- 

 port, will seem insignificant, compared with many I 

 read in Gleanings. I should be pleased if I could 

 write a better one, but the above is all I can truth- 

 fully give. John N. Puoh. 

 Hannahstown, Pa., Dec. 18, 1882. 



honey-dew, and honey that wasn't "dew" at 



ALL. 



I never believed in honey-dew. Why, it is no trick 

 for honey-dew to be found on hickory leaves when 

 the honey is in the body of the tree. When we buy 

 a load of hickory wood, and it is green, and lies a 

 day or two on the woodpile, we can almost always 

 see the honey oozing out at both ends of the wood. 

 But where I am beat is here: I bought one L. hive; 

 the top was made of flooring boards; I put in a good 

 swarm of bees, and had a thick piece of heavy duck- 

 ing over the brood-frames. Well, after they had fill- 

 ed the frames I took the top off the hive, and on the 

 ducking I found some water, as I supposed, and I 

 thought to wipe it off; but to mj' surprise it was 

 thick honey, bright and clear. Now, how did that 

 honey get there? There was about a table-spoonful 

 of it. I never heard of anything like that before. 

 There are no trees standing near my hives. 



B. F. Bark. 



Flagler's. Marion Co., la., Dec. 9, 1882. 



Friend B., I think somebody opened your 

 hive, and cut out a chunk of honey, letting 

 some drop on the mat; afterward the bees 

 filled up the gap ; but the honey stayed, 

 and ripened on the ducking until you found 

 it. EhV 



ABOUT GLEANINGS, ETC. 



The first copy of Gleanings I ever saw was the 

 May number of 1878; that and friend Root's price 

 list came together, as I believe they generally do, to 

 strangers. It was also the first copy of any bee pa- 

 per I had ever seen, and that and the price list were 

 a complete puzzle to me; but the familiar, every- 

 day, Christian-like manner in which the editor 

 talked to his patrons also seemed strange, for I had 

 never seen much if any of this kind of talk outside 

 of the religious papers, and very little of it in them, 

 and consequently I soon came to the conclusion that 

 friend Root must be a rather uncommon kind of a 

 personage, probably a superannuated clergyman 

 who had ceased fi-om the active duties of his pro- 

 fession because of ill health or something of the 

 kind, and had taken up bee-keeping as a sort of rec- 

 reation, and had become an enthusiast in the busi- 

 ness. But after I had read a few numbers I came to 

 the conclusion that I was wrong about every thing 

 except the enthusiasm, and I am quite sure he is 

 not lacking in that regard. How much Novice has 

 done to unite the bee-keepers of our land into one 

 great band of brothers and sisters, it would be difli- 

 cult to estimate; and as to how much he has done 

 to elevate bee-keeping to the dignity of a pleasant 

 and remunerative pursuit which is giving support 

 to thousands of noble men and women, we have, 

 among many others, the testimony of so learned 

 and able an apiarian as Prof. Cook, who gives the 

 following: ********* 



DOLLAR QUEENS. 



A great deal is being said in the journals about 

 cheap queens, both for and against them. As a 

 great majority of queens are reared much in the 



