1883 



(JLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



117 



rest will. I can readily believe that any 

 strong scent, resembling the smell of bees, 

 would attract the straggling bees of a 

 swarm, and thus cause the whole swarm to 

 cluster there. 



TONGS FOR HOLDING FRAMES. 



^ SEND inclosed a small model for tongs for tak- 

 Jjl ing frames from the hive. I used them last 

 summer with much satisfaction. They enable 

 a person to take a frame from the hive, and turn it 

 in any direction. They take a firm hold on the 

 frame; and the heavier the frame, the better it 

 holds. 



FRIEND VREDENBURGa'S FRAME-TONGS. 



They can be made in a few minutes from ordinary 

 telegraph wire. The point that clasps the frame 

 ought to be as short as possible. It is my own in- 

 vention, and I offer it to you free gratis, in return 

 for the many useful hiuts I have received from 

 Gleanings. J. L. Vredenburg. 



Austin, Texas, Jan. 31, 1883. 

 Similar devices have been sever.il times 

 suggested, but I believe the above is rather 

 the simplest of them all. It is quite ingen- 

 ious, and no doubt would prove a help to 

 one who had once got used to it. I do not 

 know that I ever felt as if I would like one 

 of them, unless it was when I had a colony 

 of vicious hybrids, with the unpleasant 

 fashion of crawling off the comb on to one's 

 fingers, whenever you tried to take hold of 

 it at any point. With such bees, I have 

 sometimes thought I should like tongs ; but 

 as a rule, I fear 1 should find them " too 

 much machinery," and let them get lost. 

 However, we tender our thanks to you, 

 friend V., for the kind and generous spirit 

 you show in your concluding remarks. 



THE RESULTS OF ONE TVOMAN'S BEE« 

 KEEPING. 



39,000 LBS. OF honey in one season. 



BE AE brother in Christ: I feel constrained to ad- 

 dress you by the above name, although I have 

 never seen you; but your wise counsel in 

 Gleanings, and earnestness in Christ's work, make 

 you seem as a brother in his work, the work of life, 

 which should always be first and uppermost in our 

 lives. I believe if we love our heavenly Father as 

 we ought, and as it is our privilege to do, that all we 

 have and all we are will be consecrated to his work, 

 insomuch that we will feel that we are stewards of 

 the Lord: that our property all belongs to him ; not 

 even that he has made us a present of it, but that it 

 still belongs to him, and he desires us to make the 

 most of it, to use it in such a way as to be of the 

 greatest benefit to ourselves and to mankind. 

 More than ever before have we (Mr, Axtell and my- 



self) felt thus the past year, and we have also felt 

 that our faithful God had verified his promise, that 

 if we bring all our tithes into the storehouse he 

 would pour us out such a blessing we should not 

 have room to receive it. We have been trying for 

 years to bring all the tithes into the storehouse, and 

 he has blessed us; but this year more than usual, for 

 we scarcely know where to put so much honey. I 

 don't know how it is about those who did not bring 

 in the tithes, and who received the blessing too, for 

 it seemed there were some such; but that none the 

 less weakens God's promise, and the fulfillment 

 thereof to us. 



In the spring we started with 318 colonies of bees; 

 128 wintered in the cellar, all taken out alive; that 

 is, we lost none in wintering in cellar, but found 

 from 3 to 4 queenless, and nearly all in good to fair 

 condition. The remaining 90 wintered out of doors 

 at Timber Apiary; two or three died; about two 

 were queenless, the rest very strong. This was the 

 condition of them the first time we opened the hives 

 in the sprmg. The first of April the weather was 

 very warm for that time of the year, and the bees 

 consumed their stores fast, and also increased In 

 numbers rapidly. 



In May we had cool weather during most of the 

 month, so that the bees gathered but little from 

 fruit-bloom, and seemed not to increase in numbers; 

 in fact, some colonies seemed to be growing weaker 

 each day, and their stores running close. 



advantage of plenty of stores in the spring. 



Probably so little honey in the hive was one rea- 

 son of their dwindling; for those colonies that had 

 an abundance seemed to improve, so that those that 

 were taken out of cellar last, and were rather weak 

 when first set out, had consequently not used up 

 their stores, and were in as good (if not better) con- 

 dition when clover harvest came than those first set 

 out in the spring, and began brood-rearing so early 

 that they became scarce of honey. 



advantage of spring feeding. 



All our bees that are good colonies were wintered 

 on 7 brood-combs, or more, according to strength of 

 colony. All seemed to have plenty of honey to car- 

 ry them through, except those wintered outdoors, 

 and those first set out of cellar. We gave to each of 

 these colonies two brood -combs more filled with 

 honey, or as full as brood-combs are generally filled 

 — some full, and others not full. Quinby frames; 

 outside measure, 11V4 x 19^4. Guessing at the honey 

 fed, we called it 1500 lbs. We also fed 1!4 barrels of 

 grape sugar (corn sugar, more properly). The colo» 

 nies kept in the cellar the longest, some of them got 

 one comb and some got some of the grape sugar, so 

 that all were fed some; but I think it would have 

 paid us largely if we had fed half as much more; but 

 we kept hoping they would help themselves ; and as 

 it was a big bother, and one of the most unpleasant 

 tasks that a bee-keeper has to do, especially if one 

 has to buy sugar to do so, that one would almost 

 rather lose a few colonies than feed sugar in the 

 spring, as people are so prejudiced against sugared 

 honey. We don't intentionally let any die, but we 

 sometimes let them run very close. 



The first week in June found bees doing their 

 best; never saw bees pour in the honey as they did; 

 one week perfectly idle; next week a flood of honey 

 as it were. About the last week In May we had 

 united all our colonies that we could not call strong. 

 We followed the Doolittle plan, as given last spring. 



