506 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



Aug. 



HOW TO GET GOOD SMOKER FUEL, AND HOW TO 

 PREVENT THE GAPES IN CHICKENS. 



My pa and my brother have 8 swarms now; some 

 of them are large ones too. He cuts up corn-cobs 

 flue, and uses them In his smoker. Last fall I 

 gathered leaves for him to pack the bees in for 

 winter. They all wintered well; but this spring 

 some of them died. 1 have a black cat 13 years old, 

 and I have a little black chicken that was hatched 

 in an incubator, and chicby sometimes will follow 

 the cat. We salt our chickens' food just as we do 

 ours, and they never have the gapes. 



Harlie B. Morse, age 8. 



New Woodstock, N. Y., June 31, 1883. 



I presume, friend Ilarlie, why the chicken 

 followed the cat around was because, being 

 hatched in an incubator, it never had any 

 mother, and so chased after the first object 

 it saw that looked as if it might possibly be 

 its mother. Were you not sorry for the 

 poor lone chicken V I am not quite sure 

 about your gape remedy. The used to tell 

 me, when I was a poultry-boy, that salt 

 would kill chickens. 



MINERVA, UNCLE WILL, AND THE REST OF THEM. 



1 like to read baby Gleanings. I see in your last 

 number you have had sickness too. My aunt Mag- 

 gie has been sick for 8 months, and this summer 

 mamma took down sick with the fever. We could 

 not get any one to come to help do the work, so 

 Uncle Will and I had to do it ourselves. One day, 

 when mamma had got able to go around a little, 

 Daisy and I were watching the bees, and we saw a 

 swarm come off. Mamma went out to see what 

 hive they were coming out of, and we went for 

 Uncle Will. Mimma got stung in the forehead, and 

 it swelled both her eyes shut. A colored woman 

 told her if she had hf\d a mud ball, and had rubbed 

 the place when she was stung, it would not have 

 swollen. 



I hunt the eggs and feed the chickens. I have 60 

 young chickens. If you will come to see us this 

 fall, you can have fried chicken to eat. Is the 

 wheelbarrow still full of books? Three swarms to- 

 day, and not a very good day for swarms either. 



Minerva Duncan. 



Black Lick, Ind. Co., Pa., July 3, 1883. 



Well, Minerva, there is one part of your 

 letter that is very interesting to me ; I mean 

 that part about the fried chicken. It is now 

 just about my supper time, and may be that 

 has something to do with it. I should very 

 much like to go and see you, but 1 am so 

 busy that I fear I can not. 



A place to keep honey over winter. 



My pa has 17 stands of bees; when they swarm he 

 sprinkles them with a watering-pot just before he 

 put3 them into the hive, so that they will not rise 

 up and lly away. Pa says in the attic over the 

 kitchen stove is the place to winter honey. My 

 grandma sent me a book last Christmas — the Roby 

 Family. I think the bees ought to do pretty well by 

 you, as you have been such a great friend to them. 

 Genevieve Hill, age 8. 



Randolph, N. Y., July 33, 1883. 



My little friend, your pa is perhaps right 

 about the best place to keep honey over win- 

 ter; but we are beginning to think, a great 

 many of us, that it is a pretty hard matter 

 to keep honev just as it is when recently 

 taken from the hives. I believe that, in 

 many of our honey markets, the honey of 



last year's crop has been sold at a lower 

 price than the new honey. It candies and 

 sometimes sweats, and then it gets a slight- 

 ly old flavor that some way seems to rob it 

 of its delicious purity that we notice when it 

 is first thoroughly ripened in the hives. I 

 have been wondering if there was not some 

 way to keep even extracted honey so the fla- 

 vor would be just as clear and pure as when 

 freshly gathered. If ]n\t in barrels, the bar- 

 rels are pretty sure to give it some sort of a 

 taint. 1 am "not quite ceriain lliat the flavor 

 will not ctiange a little by being kept a year 

 or moie, even if i)ut in glass and tin. \Vlio 

 can tell us more about this V If you can not 

 answer, friend Genevieve, perhaps your fa- 

 ther can. 



A PEACH-BASKKT niVING-UOX, AND SOME OTHER 

 MATTERS. 



I livi- 20 rods from the niouih oC Biiffal'-i Creek, 40 

 rods from the mouth of the Elkhorn, and ten rods 

 from the Spring Branch. My father is a bee-keeper; 

 he thinks we have as nice a place for bees as any 

 one around here. We moved here in 1879; in 1880 we 

 commenced beekeeping. We started with four 

 swarms in the winter. They all died, so he was not 

 a " Blasted Hoper"yet. Then he bought a swarm 

 In 1881. In '83 we had e swarms, and one died in the 

 spring. This spring we started with 7; now we have 

 20. They are all getting along nicely. Father gave 

 me one swarm of bees. He says he calculates to 

 keep 100 stand . He makes his own chaff hives. We 

 use all chaff hives. We think they are the best. We 

 put a newspaper in front of the hives when we hive 

 them with a peach-basket. Father bent a hickory 

 stick around it in the shape of a hoop, end left the 

 handle from Ave to six feet long. We have had bees 

 to go up into trees over 20 feet high, and father 

 would climb up on a ladder and get them down with 

 this hiving-basket. We think it is a very nice thing 

 to hive bees with. 



Our school is out. We have been having vacation. 

 It let out the 13ih of June, and it begins the last 

 Monday in August. I have almost three miles to go 

 to school; in the winter 1 get to ride part of the 

 time. We h-ive quite a large school. I like to go, 

 and I like my teacher. Irene Wilson and I are near 

 neighbors. I go over there to their Sunday-school, 

 and I like to go. I think it is very kind of friend 

 Wilson to have a Sunday-school, since we live so far 

 from church. It is about four miles, I think. 



My little sister Mattie is only six years old. She 

 goes to Sunday-school too; she can not read, so she 

 learns a verse for every Sunday. I had another 

 sister who went too, and she liked to go so well she 

 would not miss a Sunday, even if it was rainy. It 

 was so rainy and nasty a couple of Sundays that 

 mother would not let her go. She took sick on the 

 33d of June, and on the 10th of July she died. Her 

 name was Bertheniah, and her age 11 years 10 

 months and 3 days. We all feel very lonesome 

 without her. 



I like to read the Juvenile. My father, Sanford 

 Deyo, takes Gleanings. Rusella Deyo, age 14. 



Penrose, III., July 24, 1883. 



Thank you, Rosella. Very likely your 

 pa's hiving-basket is as good as any. No 

 doubt you feel sad since your little sister is 

 gone ; but remember that she is with God, 

 and you shall see her again if you live iu 

 obedience to his commands. 



