218 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



Apr. 



A LETTER FROM " HONEYVILLE." 



My pa and I have just come in from the bee-yard, 

 examining the bees. A few were weak in honey, so 

 we gave them more. This morning it was cool; but 

 toward noon it bcgSn to get warm. This afternoon, 

 when we examined the bees, what do you think we 

 found? Well, we found young drones just hatched 

 out. We found drones in only one colony, which 

 had an imported Italian queen 5 years old, but she is 

 now dead. My pa has 31 colonics of bees, and he has 

 C6 more which he tends for the half. I had 2 colo- 

 nies of bees last fall; but one has died, so I have 

 one left, and that a pure Italian. There is a store 

 not quite half a mile from here. It is named Honej'- 

 vllle, and it has the right name too, or I think so— 

 don't you? There are nearly 90 people and children 

 living in Honeyville. May be we shall get a post- 

 office here, and then we don't need to go so far for 

 the Juvenile. Sometimes I can't hardly wait till it 

 comes, so I can read the letters from the boys and 

 girls. Daniel J. Mishler, age 13. 



Ligonier, Ind., March 29, 1883. 



THE WAY CHALCEDONY GOT THE PEACHES. 



One little girl told me that bees made honey, and I 

 thought so too; but pa says bees don't make honey. 

 He says God makes the honey, and the bees gather 

 it and carry it to their hives. Pa has a bee-yard, 

 and there is one peach-tree in it. Last summer the 

 tree had peaches on it, and I did not know how to 

 get them, for I was afraid of the bees; but I will tell 

 you how I got the peaches. I took a tin dipper and 

 tied a long stick to the handle of it, and then held it 

 under the peaches, and knocked the limb with 

 another stick, and the peaches fell into the dipper; 

 so I got them that way, and the bees did not sting 

 me. I learned aU I know, at home. 



Chalcedony Manning, age 10. 



Bartlett, Tenn., March 33, 1883. 



Your plan of getting the peaches was 

 quite ingenious, my little friend. But is not 

 your name, " Chalcedony," a little singular? 

 How many of our little friends can tell us 

 what " chalcedony " means ? 



FLORENCE AND THE BEES. 



Pa has to feed his bees now. He puts white sugar 

 in boiling water, and makes a syrup. He used to 

 put the syrup in saucers, and made floats of wood 

 full of holes to feed the bees. But now he has made 

 feeders. Pa made his own smoker. He took round 

 oyster-cans and made the fire-chamber, and for the 

 bellows he took two pieces of wood the same size 

 and tacked strips of leather to them. Uncle and pa 

 have just bought some lumber to make new hives 

 for next summer. Pa gave uncle a hive of bees last 

 summer; he has two now. When he comes to see us 

 he talks about nothing but bees. We laugh at him, 

 and tell him that he has got the bee-fever badly. Pa 

 was examining his bees last night, and found that 

 one colony was half frozen to death. He brought 

 them in the house, took the top off the hive, and 

 warmed pieces of carpet and put over the top of 

 them. This morning they were flying around the 

 room. Pa has not taken them out of the house yet; 

 but if he had left them out of doors they would have 

 been dead. Pa set out a great many strawberry- 

 plants, and some raspberry- sprouts. He had a bas- 

 ket full of strawberry-plants left, and gave them to 

 me to make me a little strawberry-patch, so my lit- 

 tle brother and I set them out. I will answer Hugh 



J. White's question. Where in the Bible does it say 

 that John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey? 

 The third chapter and fourth verse of Matthew. 



Florence E. Coombes. 

 Memphis, Ind., March 25, 1883. 



now MANY eggs DOES A QUEEN LAY? QUERY FROM 

 A SCHOOLGIRL. 



Can you tell me the number of eggs a queen will 

 lay in her lifetime (of course, I mean the average 

 queen), and oblige a schoolgirl? Nellie Adair. 



Oswego, N. Y., Jan. 13, 1883. 



I can't tell, Nellie, but I can make a rough 

 estimate. For instance, we will say a queen, 

 although she may lay 300 eggs a day, lays, on 

 an average, 1000 ; and although she may live 

 to be three or four years old, we will estimate 

 that she lives two years. In two years there 

 would be about 730 days. Let us estimate 

 that she would lay lOOOeggs per day for 500 

 days. This would be 500,000. Now, Nellie, 

 suppose we prove it another way. A good 

 ordinary queen will often send out, during 

 her lifetime, as many as three good swarms 

 in a season, and for two seasons ; this would 

 make six good swarms of bees. Now. we es- 

 timate a swarm to have about 40.000 bees. 

 This would give 240,000 ; and as all the bees 

 that are hatched do not go out in swarms, 

 perhaps as many moro are hatched. This 

 would give something like our first result, 

 500,000 eggs, laid by a queen during her life- 

 time. 



sugar-cane that the bees WORK ox; REPORT 

 BY A JUVENILE. 



The other day father and I cleaned the seed of 

 our orange cane (the kind the bees work on) with an 

 old-fashioned Hail, and father thinks it is the best 

 way. He has been cutting your advertisement out 

 of papers, and sending them with his Plymouth- 

 Rock chicken circulars, and he says if you will print 

 some of your advertisements on slips of paper he 

 will send them with his circulars, and increase the 

 circulation of Gleanings. 



Charles E. Israel. 



Beallsville, Monroe Co., Jan. 8, 1883. 



Thanks, Charley, for your report on su- 

 gar-cane. I shouldn't wonder if your father 

 would have calls for all the seed he has to 

 sell, from bee-men. I would suggest, that 

 if he has any to spare that he furnish it at 

 regular prices, 15 cts. per lb., and 18 cts. 

 more where wanted by mail. ^Vill you 

 please write us another letter, and tell us how 

 much sugar you get from it ? We are very 

 much obliged indeed to your father for send- 

 ing out our advertisements. Tell him we 

 will gladly send him as many price lists as 

 he wishes, and then he can send them out 

 when he sends goods. 



lizzie and her uncle. 



Uncle takes your paper, and he has a new ABC 

 book. I believe he thinks as much of it as I do of 

 my new scrap-book. When we have callers he will 

 say, "See my new bee-book." Then I say, "See my 

 new scrap-book." 



Uncle commenced last spring with two hives of 

 bees; and now from those two he has nine; besides, 

 one of his first large swarms went off. We have had 

 all the honey we wanted to eat, some to give away, 

 and some left yet for winter. The bees did not fin- 



