1883 



JUVEKILE GLEANINGS. 



347 



can carry they fly straight to their home. When pa 

 finds a swarm in a hollow tree he saws it ofif above 

 and below the honey, and nails a board on top, and 

 Eets it on a board. It is raised up a little, so the bees 

 can get in. At night, when they are all in, he covers 

 up the holes, and takes it home. Sometimes he 

 chops the tree down, smokes the bees, and gets the 

 honey. One year he got over 400 lbs. of honey in 

 this way. 



DECOY HIVES, AUAIN. 



Sometimes he takes a box or nail-keg, and nails up 

 both ends, and makes two or three holes so the bees 

 can get in; he fastens it up in a tree in the woods, 

 and in a few days or weeks a swarm finds the box 

 and takes possession. One year he got a swarm in 

 an old churn, and once he took a sugar-trough gourd, 

 cut a hole in one end, and got out the seeds, and 

 fastened the end up again, then bored two or three 

 holes for the bees to go in. In a few days there was 

 a swarm in it. Nettie Freed, age V4. 



Lowell, Ind., May 21, 1883. 



Why, Nettie, your letter is just wonderful. 

 Gourds for bee-hives ! I thought of that once 

 a great while ago, when friend Waldo adver- 

 tised his sugar-trough gourds, but I couldn't 

 think how to get movable frames into them. 

 Well, after what you have said, Nettie, it has 

 just popped into my head what we will do. 

 Raise lots of gourds, all sorts and sizes, and 

 then when somebody's apiary gets the swarm- 

 ing mania, as friend Hasty and others have 

 told about, just let them swarm, the more 

 the merrier, and put the large swarms in 

 large gourds, and the small ones in small 

 gourds; and when anybody wanis to buy 

 some bees with a queen, just sell them a 

 gourd full. You see,' they could jusrcrack 

 open the gourd, and let the bees out on their 

 frames; and if there were brood of any ac- 

 count in the larger sheets of comb, they 

 could be transferred. If we use pretty 

 small gourds, the bees would get them full 

 sooner, and swarm again so much the ([uick- 

 er. We would have to judge of the value of 

 each queen by waiting until her bees had 

 hatched, and looking at them as they came 

 out. For convenience, the gourds might be 

 hung to the branches of trees ; and wouldn't 

 they look just funny ? If they didn't all 

 sell in the fall, they would be light and easy 

 to carry into the cellar for winter. I sup- 

 pose we might get our surplus honey by cut- 

 ting holes in the big gourds, and sticking 

 little gourds into them, by cutting off the 

 handle so as to make a neck about like the 

 mouth of a bottle. Our honey would then 

 be ready to go on the market, not " sugar in 

 a gourd," but honei/ in a gourd, and it would 

 likely be the liglitest and strongest and 

 cheapest package ever made. By the way, 

 Nettie, how much of a task is it to get the 

 " insides " out of a gourd V 



EUGENE'S liETTEK ABOUT LOCUST- 

 TREES. 



WRITTEN BY HIS SISTER MAY. 



S you print a bee paper for boys and girls, I 

 thought I would tell you some things I know 

 about bees and honey, and where they get 

 some of It. I have a swarm of bees that I bought 

 f rotn p&ps. for a dollar. I saved the money that had 



been given me, and paid for my bees. Papa has 33 

 swarms of bees. They are all Holy-Lands and Ital- 

 ians but one swarm, which is a black one. I help 

 papa extract honey. I turn the extractor, and some- 

 times I hold the smoker and smoke the bees when 

 papa is taking out the frames. 



HONEY-LOCUST OF TEXAS, ETC. 



Bees get honey here from horsemint. It blossoms 

 about the last of this month; they get honey also 

 from elm, persimmon, and black-.iack trees. But 

 the best honey-tree here that I know of is the honey- 

 locust. It grows up as high as the oaks and elms; 

 lots and lots of them grow in Trinity River bottoms, 

 and the bees just go down there in great droves 

 when these trees are full of blossoms. 



There are two kinds of honey-locusts. Do you 

 know the difference between them? I will tell you 

 after awhile. They have leaves just alike, and slick 

 bark, until they get to be big trees. The leaves grow 

 on a stem about as long as my hand, and from this 

 leaf-stem there put out in pairs from six to eight 

 leaf-stalks, and on each side of these leaf-stalks 

 there are little leaves about as wide as my finger^ 

 nail, and twice as long. They arc green and slick on 

 both sides, but the upper side is the greener and 

 smoother. The young leaves are sometimes red 

 when they are little. The blossoms on the honey* 

 locust are of a yellowish-green color, and grow in 

 spikes, as papa calls them. They are shaped like a 

 bunch of grapes. The bees sit on the edge of these 

 little flowers, and just lick up honey by the mouth- 

 fuls. The honey-locust bears a great long pod, or 

 bean, from half a foot to a foot long; some of I hem 

 are neaiiy as long as my arm. These pods, when 

 they are little, look nearly like young beans; and 

 when they are ripe, in one side is a lot of seeds that 

 sometimes will rattle against the hull when you 

 shake«them, and in the other side is a sweet waxy 

 stufl: that T can't eat much of, as it gets strong in 

 my throat in a little while. Well, now, have you 

 found out the difference between these kinds of 

 locusts yet? I will now tell you that one has thorns 

 at nearly every leaf-stem, and lots of them on the 

 body and limbs of the tree, and the other has no 

 thorns on it anywhere. So you see there is quite a 

 difference; but bark, leaves, and blossoms, are just 

 alike, and they both bloom at the same time. They 

 both furnish lots of honey. One of papa's swarms 

 nearly filled the upper story of a chaff hive with 

 honey from these trees in a week; thentheblossoms 

 all fell off. We extracted two gallons of locust hon- 

 ey from one swarm, and it is nearly as clear as water, 

 and very good. 



I like to look at the pictures in Gleanings, and 

 on the covers too. We have young mustang grapes 

 big enough to make pies. Ma makes them just as 

 she used to make gooseberry pies in Indiana. They 

 make good pies, but it takes lots of sugar to sweeten 

 them. I will send you a can full of them; and if you 

 like them I can send you some vines in the fall, and 

 you can raise them; that is, if they don't freeze to 

 death in the cold winter. 



If you print this in Gleanings I will get another 

 letter written some time. I can't write, so I got sis- 

 ter Mary to write my letter. If this is worth a book, 

 I'd like Pilgrim's Progress. Eugene D. Arwine. 



Bedford, Tarrant Co., Tex., May 21, 1883. 



Many thanks, my little friend, for the 

 grapes, and also for your very good and in- 

 teresting letter. To be sure, you shall have 

 Pilgrim's Progress, and we credit you with 



