1883 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



421 



doesn't cost him any thing to advertise. Lots of 

 people write to him and ask questions, and they 

 think he Is a bif? man, and he is only 20 years old. I 

 have three brothers, and a little sister called Elsie. 

 What do you think of the name? We live on a farm 

 about a quarter of a mile from Groesbeck, and we 

 have plenty of work to do all the year. Pa will not 

 keep bees. I guess ho is afraid they will sting him; 

 but when I get old enough to tend to them I will 

 have some. Harry Crago, age 13. 



Groesbeck, Ham. Co., Ohio, June 2.5, lSg.3. 



To be sure, I know your uncle, Harry. I 

 am very glad indeed to know that be is sec- 

 retary of the tSunday-scbool, and making 

 himself useful by writing for the newspaper ; 

 and I hope he will get to be a " big man," 

 in the best sense of the word. We arc very 

 glad to hear from him. 



wniTE pollen; where does it co.me from? 



As I did not sec anj^ letters in the Juvekile from 

 the boys or girls in the Black Hills, I thought I 

 would write aud tell you how we arc getting along 

 out here. Papa has one colony of Italians; and 

 though he is not much of a bee-keeper, we think 

 they are doing quite well. They have a large brood 

 of young, and eat a great deal. I should like to 

 know whet kind of a flower bees get white pollen 

 from. We live in the country, G5 miles from Dead- 

 wood, and pa is postmaster here. 



Empire, Dak. Irvin Craig. 



Well, Irviu, I can not tell where your 

 white pollen comes from, but we sometimes 

 get it here from a weed that grows in the 

 woods, called white snakeroot. It does not 

 bloom, however, until later in the fall than 

 this time. 



now TO STOP LEAKY COVERS; BY A NINE-YEAR-OLD 

 .JUVENILE. 



We bought a queen and ten frames of bocs last 

 August of J. L. Scofield, and fed them all they could 

 cat. They swarmed May 18, and swarmed the 5th of 

 June. They are filling up the one-pound boxes. If 

 your hives are leaking, cover the roof with duck, 

 and paint it well, and it will last as long as tin 

 They cover cars and steamboats with this kind of 

 stuir, and they never leak. 



Yonkers, N. Y. James J. Dowlikg, age 9. 



Thank you, friend -lames. I believe that 

 a duck cover answers very well if kept well 

 painted. The idea was suggested, and many 

 of them were used, a good many years ago ; 

 but for some reason or other, I hardly know 

 why, they have been mostly abandoned in 

 favor of tin. I rather think I should prefer 

 the tin ; but that, as well as the duck, should 

 be coated with paint. 



THE SWARMINO-TIME THEY HAD AT MARY'S HOUSE. 



I will tell you about our bees. We have 41 swarms. 

 We have 19 young swarms, and 22 old ones. We had 

 4 go off ; 2 of them were large, and 2 were not so 

 l.irgo. Our hired girl found a queen in the grass, 

 and papa and 1 put sr me more bees with her. We 

 have one swarm that always goes back. It has 

 swarmed 3 times. It swarmed to-day, and went 

 back. What do you think is the matter of them? 

 When they swarmed they stung those who helped. 

 Pa would not let me help with them, because he said 

 they would sting me. Bees are cross sometimes. 

 Our hired girl gets stung a great many times. 



When pa and I put the bees with the queen that the 

 girl found, my brother ran from the bees. I got 

 stung by them. I do not like honey, but I help all 

 the rest. My brothers and sisters are afraid of them. 

 One of our swarms alighted on the plow; and when 

 we got them hived we went to dinner; and while we 

 were gone they went off. 

 Buena Vista, Iowa. Mary A. Bcnford, age 11. 



Very good, ]Mary. I sliould think a plow 

 was a rather novel thing indeed for a swarm 

 of bees to alight on. I think if you had 

 given them a frame of unsealed brood be- 

 fore you went to dinner, you would have 

 found them all right. I think the swarm 

 that went bacK so many times must have 

 had a queen that could not fly, for some 

 reason or other. 



lizzie's story. 



My papa's bees have kept us all busy the last two 

 weeks. Papa had 9 colonies last fall, and wintered 

 them all. They have all sent out a swarm apiece, 

 some of them two; but papa cutout the queen-cells, 

 and put the second swarm back. 



a novel queen-nuj:;sery. 



Mamma put two queen-cells in an egg-shaped 

 gourd under a hen, and hatched two nice queens, 

 one in two and one in three days. 



Some boys cut a bee-tree on papa's farm, and left 

 the bees and comb. Papa took a hive to the tree, 

 wired the combs into frames, put the frames into 

 the hive, and the bees went in so fast they looked 

 as if they all wanted to get in first. Papa brought 

 them to the apiary, and gave them an Italian queen, 

 as they had lost their own. The bees are on white 

 clover all day, and night too, I suppose, as I saw one 

 little worker go from her hive the other evening to 

 a white-clover blossom, a few feet from her home. 

 It was so dark that I could hardly see bee or clover. 



Mamma says she likes your paper very much, and 

 could not do without it. Lizzie Woodruff. 



Greencaslle, Ind , June 23, 1883. 



DBONE-CELLS THAT LOOK LIKE QUEEN-CELLS. 



My sisters and I made a very curious observation 

 the other day, of which I have never read before in 

 any of the bee books or .iournals. When we opened 

 a hive and took out a frame of worker brood, wo 

 were astonished to see what at first sight seemed a 

 great number of queen-cells sticking out horizontal- 

 ly. On closer examination we found them to be 

 drone-cells built on the surface of the worker brood. 

 Thc7 were about half an inch long; their apices 

 touched the surface of the adjoining comb. On lift- 

 ing out the frame containing these curious cells, 

 some broke loose, so that in this way we were 

 shown that we could easily knock them otf with the 

 screw-driver. This we accordingly did. 



Lillian E. Miller. 



Savannah, Ga., June 18, 1883. 



I have noticed something of the same 

 thing, friend Ijllian, only 1 do not know 

 that T ever saw the drone-cells so long that 

 they would break off. I suppose it is only a 

 freak Of the young bees, that liad nothing 

 else to do, so they amused themselves by 

 elongating the drone - cells a great deal 

 further than they needed to be — somfething 

 as they elongate the cells to contain honey 

 when it comes in a great Hood. Perhaps 

 some one else can tell us something about it. 



