1883 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



.571 



Papa told me that he counted the erowth of one la 

 Fayett'3 County, Ind , that was 240 years old, and 6 

 feet in diameter. They bloom from the tirst to the 

 15th of May, and l^st usually from one to three 

 weeks. The honey is very rich and thick, but rather 

 dark. The bloom come3 before our bees get strone 

 enough to store much surplus, and I think it would 

 be better for bee-keepers to feed their bees six 

 weeks before the poplar blooms, where it grows. 

 Galena, Til. Freddik L. Craycraft. 



Well done, old friend Fieddie. I tlionght 

 before I {?ot through with your letter it 

 raust be written by some one who is an old 

 frieaid. if I may be pardoned tlie expression. 

 Now, if our young friends will take to writ- 

 ing up honey-bearing trees in the way Fred- 

 die has described the poplar, it will be a fund 

 of quite general interest and importance. 



ANOTHER REMKDY FOR THE CHICKEN CHOLERA. 



Here we are again. Theb^esare all right. I got 

 3 stings o.ie day on mj' head. I have some white 

 chickens. Bleeding under the wing is good for 

 chickens and turkeys when they have the cholera. 

 My brother has a nice watermelon patch. Don't 

 you think it nice? Mv mother is 8ta> ing with my 

 grandmother. Si) T have all to do. If you like, you 

 may name Peter, Levin Robert, or Willie Winfry. 



Shadwell, Va Julia A. Griffin. 



Friend Julia, did you not kmw that it 

 used to be a fashion to bleed people for al- 

 most every thing that happened to them? 

 Well, this plan of bleeding has passed away, 

 or at least pretty nearly so. and I do not be- 

 lieve bleeding chickens will do them much 

 more good than to bleed human beings. 

 When chickens have the cholera they gener- 

 ally need ail the blood tliey have got. — 

 Thank you for the picture yoii sent to Peter. 

 I do not see but that lie will have to be call- 

 ed Peter still, even though a great array of 

 names has been sent in for him. 



HONEY FROM BASSWOOP ON THE ]5TH OF AUGUST. 



My uncle's bees are getting alonir well. He has 11 

 sivarms now. We bad '■) swarms all on one day, and 

 I thought I would get tired of them. The bees are 

 busy gathering honey off the basswood-trees. They 

 are .iust out in bloom. We had some swarras go 

 buck to their old box after they s.varmed, and Ci>me 

 out again the next day and swarm, and be all rif!ht. 



Bella Fraser. 



Campbellville, Ont., Can., Aug. 15, 1883. 



Friend Bella, you have given ns quite'an 

 important fact, altliough I suppose you did 

 not know it, and that is, that we may get 

 basswood honey in Canada as late as the 

 middle of August; and I lirmly believe the 

 time will come when bees will be moved 

 from Florida to Canada, just to keep pace 

 with the basswood and clover bloom. We 

 have got now the latest period that basswood 

 blooms in the Nortli, and we should be very 

 glad to have some of the friends in the 

 South; tell us ho>n early they get basswood 

 honey.' Who will tell us V 



30i4 LBS. IN A DAY FROM A SINGLE COLONY, RE- 

 PORTED BY A jnVENILE. 



We had one swarm on a pair of scales that gained 

 WYi lbs. one day in basswood time, and they gftiued 

 over 10 lbs. a day for three weeks, and lay still some 

 of the time for want of storage room. They were 



Italians. Pa has 80 swarms and I have have three — 

 one in a chaff hive: and from that one we have ex- 

 tracted twenty dollars' worth of honey. Pa will get 

 about 3C00 lbs. —2000 lbs. extracted, and 1000 in sec- 

 tions; the most of it from basswood. He would 

 have got more, if be had net burned his eye. He 

 has extracted from 11 hives. We had 43 hives with 

 bees in them at the beginning of the swarming sea- 

 son, so you see we have doubled our number, and 

 they have Qlled up well. The honey season is over. 



Pa never had a cigar nor a chew of tobacco in his 

 mouth, and he is 16 years old; and he never drank a 

 drop of liquor. I am never going to smoke nor 

 drink. Willie H. Darling, age U. 



Lincblaen, N- Y. 



Why, my little friend, your report is a 

 rousing good one. I am glad to know that 

 you are going to follow your father's exam- 

 ple in regard to cisrars and tobacco ; and, by 

 the way. I think there is a pretty good ser- 

 mon right here. If fathers want their boys 

 to 1)6 clean and temperate, let them set them 

 a good example. 



HATCHING QUEENS IN AN INCUBATOR. 



I read the account, of how Mattie's father hatched 

 queens. In the Jan. number of Gleanings of this 

 year. Two years ago papa had a lot of queen-cells 

 nearly ready to hatch. It was early in the sprinsr. 

 and the weather wouldn't remain clear long enough 

 for papa to make his nucleus. He didn't want to 

 lose his queens, as they wore from fine Italian bees; 

 so he got a piece of soft pine board, about 2]i inches 

 wide, and bored holes nearly through it, edgewise, 

 at an equal distance ap.irt, so as to saw between and 

 separate them. He then bored at right angles across 

 the previous borings, through the block, and nailed 

 wire cloth on both sides, and put a cork in the open- 

 ing. He then cut the queen-cells out, and put them 

 in the cages, so they could gnaw themselves out 

 easily. He then placfd th^m in an "Eclipse" in- 

 cubator, with three hundred eggs, and the most of 

 them were saved. A few corks got out of the cages, 

 and papa found some of the queens crawling among 

 the eges. He had to make some of his nucleus 

 swarms, and introduce queens, between showers. 

 The showers come and g > quickly in the spring, and 

 bees Hy here directU' after a shower, and the weath- 

 er is nice while it lasts. Eunice A. Enas, age 13. 



Napa, Cal. 



Yours is a tiptop letter, friend Eunice. 

 You demonstrate that an incubator will 

 answer nicely in place of a lamp nursery. 

 How much will the incubator cost V You 

 liave given u.s some very impartant facts, 

 and have told them very nicely. 



A STORY ABOUT A QUEEN. 



We have four colonies of bees; they are working 

 very bard. We have extracted 159 lbs. of honey 

 from three colonies. I carry the frames to and from 

 I the hives. The qu-^en, we got of you; we introduc- 

 ed her according to directions, and two hours after 

 we let her out, the bees balled her. Mrs. Gillam 

 took the ballon a siick near the house, where it is 

 sandy. As soon as she got the queen loose from 

 them she flew away, and she had only the empty 

 cage left, and lookf d as though she had lost a dear 

 friend. In a minute or more she heard a peculiar 

 buzzing, and, on looking up, s.iw the queen circling 

 around her hat. She caught her in her apron, took 

 her into a closed room, and the queen flew against 



