1883 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



4&5 



maple, basswood, oak, willow, cherry, and pepper- 

 Idge are the ones that yield the most honey. Plenty 

 of Improved land, swamp and hay marsh, all within 

 half a mile. With clover, berry bushes, boneset, 

 goldenrod, flreweed, and touch-me-not, hundreds of 

 acres within reach, I think I will try to overstock if 

 I can. It now rains soft water again. There are 

 lots of places just as good as this, yet most bee-keep- 

 ers locate near town, and in old improved country, 

 for convenience, not honey. Why don't more boys 

 learn to handle bees? I shall need one to help me 

 when I get overstocked with work. I shall increase 

 until I get all I can handle. 



QtJESTIONS I HAVE TO ANSWER VERY OFTEN. 



Are there bees in all of those hives? 



D 1 they swarm like that all the time? 



/.ro those barrels full of honey? 



Don't you get lonesome here alone? I should 

 think a bear would come and knock them to pieces, 

 and drum you out too. 



They cftll me the bee-boy. Now, Mr. Root, I sup- 

 pose you would get lonesome after being there witb 

 so many; but I, with all of my bees, and a garden to 

 hoe, having a house and a wintering house to 

 build, don't And myself alone much. 



I should like to send a sample of honey-pl»iits, but 

 it would take a large box to hold them all. You 

 may name my apiary, if you have a name handy. 



It thunders again. Now it rains, or, rather, driz- 

 zles. F. E. TOWNSEND. 



Newark, Mich., July 34, 1883. 



Friend T., I have put you among the ju- 

 veniles, although you have not told us your 

 age. But I judged from your letter that you 

 must be a boy ; if you are not, you have cer- 

 tainly given us a boyish letter. You ask if 

 I would not get lonesome. Well, it 

 seems to me it would be just about the 

 nicest thing in tlie world to be away off in 

 the woods with the bees — for just a little 

 while, any way, so I could take a little rest. Is 

 there a nicer thing in the world, anyhow, 

 than bees and woods V I have beeu through 

 your Michigan forests, and I know a little 

 of them. Your idea of giving a laying queen 

 to a colony that had just swarmed is a good 

 one, and I guess your plan of managing fer- 

 tile workers is about as good as anv. I 

 guess we will name your apiary the "• Wood- 

 land Apiary." How will that do V 



^ ■■■ ^ 



MAKING METAIi- CORNERED FRAMES. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT THE MAN WHO MAKES 

 THEM. 



f||HE hives and all the rest of the goods came to 

 hand all right, and I am very much obliged to 

 — you tor the extra comb-guides. I have all the 

 frames made up, and ten of the hives. It is nice to 

 work your stuff, for it is so true, and makes a good 

 fit, and that is what I like. I will tell you how I 

 make my frames. I took a 4x4-inch scantling, and 

 sawed it off so it would stand on end, and come four 

 inches higber than my knee, and put the iron in the 

 end of it, and I was ready to sit down by the Are 

 with those nice bunches of frames, and put the cor- 

 ners on. I made about 50 or 60 every night, and 

 it was nice, for I was not in the road of any one, and 

 no dirt to clean up, though I took them out of the 

 box and cleaned the dust off, and buudled them up 



again. I want to give those 50 hives two good coata 

 of paint. Hugh Vankirk. 



South Strabane, Pa., 1883. 



Friend V., your account of the way in 

 which you make your frames reminds me 

 of something I shall have to tell the little 

 folks. Some years ago, when I used to have 

 a Sunday-school at our county Infirmary, 

 I met there a poor man who was not only 

 perfectly deaf, but had lost the use of his 

 legs, so that he had to get around in a sort 

 of a chair with wheels to it. Well, one day 

 last winter I was surprised to get a letter 

 from this man. He wrote a nice plain letter, 

 and said he knew me well, for he had been at 

 our meeting, and had heard me "preach." 

 Perhaps he did not say exactly that, but it 

 was pretty near it, and then I remembered 

 that I had seen him in his rolling chair 

 among the rest of the inmates there. When 

 I went around after the school was out, I 

 had shaken hands with him among the rest, 

 and in that way he knew me. It sounded a 

 little funny to hear him tell about hearing 

 me preach ; funny for two reasons ; first, 

 the idea of my "preaching ;" and second, 

 the idea of his hearing, when he could not 

 hear a word that I or anybody else had said. 

 But then, you know, he liked to come into 

 the "meeting," as he called it, because he 

 saw there a good many well-dressed people 

 with smiling faces; and in some way it did 

 him good to see them all look nice and hap- 

 py. VVell, what do you suppose he wrote 

 about V Why, he wanted to come and work 

 for me ! lie said he could write, or he could 

 drive nails, or do almost any thing; and 

 how he did tease and coax to have me help 

 emancipate him from the bondage and stig- 

 ma of being in a " poorhouse "! I told him 

 when it got warm we would try to give him 

 work, and to-day he sits over in the brown 

 house where we used to live last summer, 

 l)ouudiug away day after day with his little 

 hummer, making metal-cornered frames. 

 In fact, he puts together all the metal-cor- 

 nered flames that all the bee-keepers use 

 who order frames of us already put up. He 

 makes all the frames for wired frames also ; 

 and he has become a great favorite among 

 all the hands of our establishment. At noon- 

 time, whole droves of girls go over there to 

 see him and talk with him. He talks, you 

 know, and they nod their heads, or write on 

 the slate, and some of them talk to him by 

 the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. I wonder if 

 you know how that is done. It is done by 

 making letters with your fingers. Some 

 time may be we will tell you more about it. 

 But I think you will find all about it in the 

 big dictionary. 



Well, now we come to the point of our 

 story. Mr. UeLong makes all his frames by 

 having the iron block driven in the end of a 

 post, or piece of scantling, which stands up 

 between his knees. I wonder what'helwill 

 say when he sees what is told about him here. 

 1 should not wonder if he would write a let- 

 ter for the next Juvenile, for^he loves 

 children, and he loves company. He says 

 he gets awful lonesome when no one comes 

 to see him. One other thing that makes 

 him lonesome sometimes is, that he used to 

 be a great smoker ; and one of the condi- 



