600 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTtJRE. 



Oct. 



queens live after being two weeks on the 

 route ; that is, where they were misdirected, 

 or something of that sort. Now, friends, the 

 way is open toward having queens mailed 

 direct from Italy. We must forward cages 

 to our foreign friends, and get them to put 

 the queens up so carefully that at least a 

 part of them will reach our shores. If it can 

 be done, a very great saving indeed will be 

 made over the expensive and comparatively 

 slow way of having them sent by express. 



FROM Li. m. SHUIWAKER; THE FIRST 

 1000 liHS. OF HOIVEV. 



SHALL WE GO TO FLORIDA? 



^mjpV Ji'RlEND, T wrote you a very gloomy letter 

 WW in February, on the subject of bees, honey, 

 ■ ' pasturage, and failure, and asked your ad- 

 vice as to a removal to Florida. The sum of your 

 answer wae, that you dmCbted if I knew enough to 

 travel so fur from home; that Florida was no better 

 than Virginia to a green hand, and advised me to 

 study — Icflin, and to get and keep ready for the 

 harvest when It came. Of course, the phraseology 

 was courteous, but the substance is about photo- 

 graphed. Well, T didn't go to Florida, but pulled off 

 my coat, donned my apron, and set to work to get 

 ready. I doubled down from 43 to 34. fed 200 lbs. of 

 grRnulated-sugar syrup; but, with all my work and 

 skill, I had only 26 colonies that gave me as much as 

 .50 lbs. of surplus. These, witli about half a dozen 

 large swarms, gave me 1220 lbs. of extracted honey, 

 and a few over 700 perfect sections. I took off 

 about 300 unfinished sections, and put bick 250 over 

 colonies that had brood - chambers full, but they 

 seemed to consume the 100 lbs. of honey I fed back, 

 as they did not complete more than a couple of 

 dozen. Friend Root, when I looked upon my first 

 barrel (42 gallons) of pure white honey, and, turning, 

 saw stacked up eleven of your large shipping-cases 

 filled with white capped sections, T felt very grate- 

 ful for the timely words of advice. 



HELP IN THE APIARY. 



I am almost an invalid; have been a sufferer from 

 gvavel and stone from the time of the war with 

 Mexico; I am now sixty years old. and the only as- 

 sistant 1 could get was a dram-drinking, pipe-smok- 

 ing negro, whom I found idling around the depot. 

 Nevertheless he is a good-tempered, willing, and in- 

 dustrious soul, and doesn't care a button for the 

 Btlngs. If he were not so very forgetful, and would 

 not get tipsy on Saturday night when he gets his 

 money, he would become a fair help. Have T done 

 well, or not? White clover and sourwood boomed; 

 and if we could have had two or three timely rains, 

 our harvest would have been doubled; but a drought 

 of eleven weeks dried up the blossoms. II is now 

 storming and raining — the only rain but one, the 

 3l8t of August, since the middle of June; yet horse- 

 mint and sumac have given us some honey. If I 

 had been stronger, or had had better assistance, T 

 would have taken six or seven hundred pounds 

 more; still, three-fourths of my 51 colonies (increas- 

 ed 17) have the brood-combs, all ten, filled. I lost 

 four swarms, and, singularly enough, two of them 

 left without clustering within a mile. Alec follow- 

 ed the first one about a mile, and they made him 

 cross Dun River twice. The other circled up and 

 up, an<J away down the river. I think both left be- 



cause the entrance, being the full width of the hive, 

 and blocks being removed on account of the heat, 

 they came out with a rush — all in a minute. I at 

 once narrowed all my entrances to four inches — 

 widening them at dark. 



SECTIONS, TROUBLE WITH. 



T have had some trouble with the last 1000 sections. 

 They do not fit close, and hold where dovetailed. I 

 have had to clinch them by bruising with a small 

 hammer; and in casing them for the hives they 

 then very often came apart. In other respects they 

 are satisfactory. 



PUTTING IN STARTERS; ANOTHER WAY. 



T have adopted a very satisfactory and much more 

 expeditious way of fastening the fdn. starters. Be- 

 fore folding the section, I fasten the starter firmly, 

 and exactly in the middle of the top side, and so that 

 it hangs square. I find my bees work it as they find 

 it; if it hangs crooked, they work it crooked. I lay 

 the one piece out on my bench, the wide or uncut 

 side to me, and with a piece of narrow yellow wax I 

 rub back and forth on the middle of second side, or 

 the one next beyond the saw-cut; then with my left 

 hand I take a starter from the pile and lay it square 

 on the wax-rubbed line, and a little beyond the line; 

 then with the right hand T take up mv try-square, 

 wet the end of blade, lay it on the fdn., and press 

 hard, drawing the square from left to right, to make 

 it firm. I then put both thumbs to the wide piece, 

 pressing it down into the slot, and lifting the other 

 end nearly to a right angle; I then move thumbs 

 forward to third side, and repeat. I then turn the 

 piece end for end, and bend the third wide side. 

 Now bend the second from me in the same way, 

 gently pressing the dovetailed ends together, and 

 tapping with small mallet or hammer, and put it In 

 the case which is ready for it. I very rarely see a 

 broken or warped starter. 



MAKING WOODEN MATS WITH WIRE INSTEAD OF 



TWINE. 



While following your advice T learned one or two 

 things that I am persuaded can be utilized to the 

 good of bees and keepers. I find that the bees will 

 bite through the best enameled cloth, and will bite 

 and fray the twine on the wooden mats. Suppose 

 that, in place of tiax or hemp twine, you weave the 

 mats with fine plated wire, and then weave them so 

 that the slats run crosswise, and make them of 

 tough sapling or poplar, and only pj in. instead of \i 

 in. wide. I think you will get the very best cover- 

 ing for the frames yet made or discovered. I am 

 willing to back my opinion by asking you to make 

 me fifty, as per above, to lie over ten L. frames, in 

 L. hive, crosswise. 



PATENT RIGHTS. 



Friend Root, T salute you, and say amen to the 

 firm resolve and purpose expressed in Sept. Glean- 

 ings, on the subject of the one-piece section. I felt 

 concerned lest, in your extreme reluctance to go to 

 law. you would permit Forncrook to win by default 

 a case that every lawyer will say Is only prima facia 

 as to title. His patent is not conclusive, by any 

 means, and Fiddes' letter, the three sketches, and 

 McConnel's testimony, prove that he did not inveni, 

 and can not claim even priority in its use, or In any 

 combination of the several principles involved In 

 forming the one-piece section. Why. we had here 

 in Danville, a year ago, just such a case, or cases. 

 Our planters for years have been curing the bright 

 yellow tobacco with fines made of stone, and covered 

 with cast-iron, then with sheet iron, then with com- 



