1883 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



487 



literature to those in need of it — not with any view 

 of profit, but to place others in possession of neces- 

 sary knowledge for their own good. I have already 

 made a soul happy by inducing him to buy an A B C, 

 which he has done, and is now reading it carefully. 

 Although keeping bees for two years, he did not 

 even know how the inside of a hive looked. Comb 

 foundation, section starters, etc., he had never heard 

 of. To bring the ignorant to the fountain of knowl- 

 edge is a pleasure I never deny myself. 



Louis C. Schwekdtfeqeh. 

 Lincoln, 111., Aug. 3, 1883. 



Friend S., I am very much obliged indeed 

 for your kind letter. I enjoy it almost as 

 much as you do, hearing- how you followed 

 up the subject, and saw it unfold before your 

 pMQ-pv eyes. Are not the little chaps funny 

 and pieity too V And those stings, I sup- 

 pose you took them with about the same 

 heroic spirit that you would take a pull on 

 your whiskers from your six -months -old 

 baby. They hurt, to be sure ; but suppose 

 they do; the little chaps mean well, and 

 really have not learned better yet. Go on, 

 my good friend S., and let us hear from you 

 again. When busy throngs make the air 

 resound, and the honey comes tumbling in 

 at the rate of a hundred pounds a day dur- 

 ing the basswood bloom, sit down and think 

 how it all came about, and raise your lieart 

 to God in thankfulness and praise that he 

 has in his wisdom prepared these avenues 

 and labyrinths of knowledge, ready to yield 

 their rich stores to him who will work and 

 study. " Knock, and it shall be opened un- 

 to you." Friend S., dare 1 take the liberty 

 of asking if you are on the Lord's side too, 

 as well as a devotee at the fountain of knowl- 

 edge, as you so graphically put it in your 

 closing sentence V 



OUR LiITTLF: FKIKND VICTORIA 

 FIELDS BY THIS TimE. 



HER BEES, HER GARDEN, ETC. 



^yjpl^O not say "blasted hopes" to me before next 

 MM spring, for I think our bees are doing so well 

 that 1 do not know in what words to express 

 my gratitlcation to the "blessed bees." One colony 

 has given us two good swarms, and a good lot of 

 honey; I can not say just how much, as part of it 

 was not weighed. 



Now I must tell you something about one swarm 

 that was new to me. They swarmed out and partly 

 clustered; but before we could do any thing with 

 them they returned to the old hive, and the next 

 day they came out again and clustered; but before 

 we could do any thing with them they returned to 

 the old hive. So we left the hive and all ready, just 

 as we had them, to put them in. On the next day, 

 June 28, they came out and clustered on the same 

 limb, and as they had each time before; and this 

 time we got them in the hive. As we were hiving 

 them, we found the queen as pretty a hybrid, with 

 two bands, as you would wish to see. But now 

 comes the mystery. As we had them nearly all in 

 the hive, in crawls a young black queen. Now, pa- 

 pa says (he was helping me what be could), ''They 

 have two queens; that is the reason they went back, 

 and were so hard to do any thing with." But they 

 went to work nicely, and we put the upper story on, 



and cover, and in the evening we went to look at 

 them, and removed the cover, and by some means 

 the black queen had made her way up past the cloth, 

 and she and a few bees were clustered in the upper 

 story. Papa said, as they had a couple of frames of 

 comb we would huntjor the hybrid queen; so the 

 first frame we lifted, here was our queen all right, 

 and she had been laying eggs. We ^shut them up 

 just as we found them, until morning; but In the 

 morning all bees were below, and the black queen 

 gone. She was found in front of the hive dead, and 

 the bees are doing finely now. Our first swarm has 

 their hive filled the lower story, and storing honey 

 above. 



I wonder if all the little bee-folks are'as busy now 

 as I. I have to hoe in the garden, and attend to the 

 bees. I hoe corn sometimes, and potatoes, and at- 

 tend to Myrtle while mother works. I suppose the 

 little folks in the Juvenile will not think much of 

 a little girl who does such rough work. Well, one 

 whom I honor and labor to assist says that honest 

 labor degrades no person. Papa says, give his re- 

 gards to Mr. Root, and to thank him for the many 

 hours enjoyment he has afforded him in perusing 

 Gleanings and the ABC, while unable to work. 



Valley Point, Pa. V. J. Fields. 



Your case is a little hard to explain, Vic- 

 toria. I should have said that the queen 

 was crippled, and unable to fly, as an ex- 

 planation of the bees going back so many 

 limes ; but when you tell us about finding 

 two queens in the swarm, it becomes a little 

 more puzzling. Is it not possible that a 

 small swarm with an unfertile black queen 

 united with your swarm without your ob- 

 serving itV This would explain matters 

 fully. When you found the young black 

 queen in the top of the hive, she, with her 

 retinne of bees, should have been given 

 some combs, and a new colony started some- 

 where else. It is always unsafe to leave two 

 queens in a hive. In your case it happened 

 luckily for you that it was the small black 

 queen that was killed. It might have been 

 otherwise. We know the hybrid queen was 

 an old one, for you say you found eggs which 

 she began depositing immediately.— Do not 

 feel sad, friend Victoria, because your cir- 

 cumstances happen to be such as to oblige 

 you to work every day, and some days pret- 

 ty hard, perhaps. I have often thought it a 

 sad misfortune to those who are brought up 

 where there is no necessity for steady and 

 constant work.— Thanks for your very kind 

 words; and may God's blessing rest with 

 you and your little household. 



QUEENS SOMETIWIES STING. 



POSITIVE PROOF GIVEN US BY ONE OF THE JUVE- 

 NILES. 



fi WILL give you my experience about queens 

 stinging, as you do not think they sting. We 

 — ' divided a stand of bees the 28th of May; when 

 (he queens hatched they swarmed; and when we 

 bad hived them, we opened the hive where the 

 swarm came from, and found one queen and two 

 queen-cells. We took them out; and when they 

 ran on my hands, I laid my hand across my arm 

 80 she should not get under my sleeve, and I sup- 

 pose I must have hurt her, for she stung me. You 



