548 



JUVEKILE GLEANIKOS. 



Oct. 



There are a great many wild and tame flowers in 

 bloom here, and the bees are gathering honey and 

 pollen. Papa is using one of the wax extractors 

 that he got from you to melt his wax in, and when 

 all the wax is melted out we burn the waste and it 

 helps to melt the rest. Ella Porter, age 10. 



Sunny Side, Napa, Cal., Jan. 3, 1883. 



HOW BELLA'S BROTHER FED THE BEES. 



My brother keeps bees; he bought three colonies 

 last summer, and one of them swarmed twice. He 

 fed them melted sugar, as they had very little hon- 

 ey. He fed them in the evening, and put the sugar 

 la dishes, and covered it with a cloth, and let the 

 bees suck it out. I sometimes held the dishes for 

 him. One day quite a large piece of the new comb 

 fell off, and my brother gave me a piece of it to eat. 

 I thought it very nice for such a young swarm of 

 bees to make; but my brother said it was not very 

 good. Now, will you tell me why that new piece of 

 comb fell off? Was it because the young bees did 

 not know how to fasten it on? Bella Echlin. 



West Flamboro, Ont., Can. 



I do not know why the comb fell down, 

 Bella, unless it was some that they built 

 from the feed you gave them. When bees 

 are fed heavily they often fill the combs be- 

 fore they have time to strengthen them, as 

 they usually do with honey they gather nat- 

 urally, and then they break bowu. Was it 

 after they had been fed, or when they had 

 been gathering honey ? If the former, it 

 would not be honey that you tasted, but only 

 sugar syrup in honey-comb. 



WHAT TO DO WITH LITTLE SWARMS, ETC. 



My pa keeps bees; he has 16 stands. I help him 

 take care of them. One day last September I found 

 a little cluster of bees on a peach-tree, right over 

 one of pa's hives. I thought they belonged in the 

 hive, and shook them off two or three times, but 

 they went back every time. My pa was gone. In 

 the morning I told him, and he found them there. 

 He put them into a hive with some frames of hatch- 

 ing brood, and they are now a nice swarm. There 

 was not over a pint of bees in the swarm. My pa's 

 bees come out a great deal in cold weather, and lots 

 of them die. Pa takes Gleanings, and I like the 

 Juvenile. I have two little sisters and one brother. 

 My brother and I go to Sunday-school. I won the 

 prize in my class, and I went for three months. 

 Which is the middle verse in the Bible? 



Chester X Roads, Ohio. Lyle Reed, 



the queen with two yellow BANDS. 



Mamma bought her an Italian queen from Mr. J. 

 Q. Ayers. She has only two yellow bands. Is she 

 a pure Italian? We thought there ought to be three 

 bands. Mamma has a young queen, and has given 

 me the old one and three frames of brood ; they are 

 hatching out nicely. We started with but one hive 

 of black bees in the spring; now have Ave. The 

 old hive was stolen about two months ago, or we 

 would have had six. Lizzie Witte, age 13. 



McGregor, Texas. 



Friend Lizzie, we are apt to think a queen 

 that has any bands has hybrid blood in her, 

 or Holy-Land blood. The Holy-Land bees 

 have so many bands that they are some- 

 times streaked, almost like a barber's pole. 

 A full-blood Italian queen does not, as a 

 rule, have any bands ; but her worker bees 

 should all have three bands. The color of 



the queen and drone has little to do with 

 purity, for they are often just as they happen 

 to be, and it is the workers only that are 

 marked uniformly. 



THE YOUNG QUAILS'iTHAT WERE HATCHED IN A 

 QUEEN NURSERY. 



I live with my uncle, J.^B. Rapp, the largest bee- 

 keeper in Clermont Co., O. He has about 300 colo- 

 nies of Italian bees. He takes Gleanings. I delight 

 in reading the Juvenile. He buys a great many 

 things of you. I heard him say thatj he met you at 

 the bee convention in Cincinnati. We havela pet 

 quail; we call him Bob White. When left alone he 

 will whistle and hunt for us from one room to an- 

 other. My uncle found the eggs in a meadow. Ten 

 out of fifteen hatched. It was funny to see them 

 run around in the nursery. They would see them- 

 selves in the sides, and pick at the tin as if they 

 were going right through it. We have a new use for 

 your smoker. Take and put tobacco In it, in place 

 of rotten wood, and smoke the roses with it, to kill 

 the aphides. I have no use for whisky and tobacco. 

 Whitcomb Motsinqer, age 11. 



Owensville, Ohio. 



Thank you, Whitcomb. l''ou didn't quite 

 make it clear whether those quails hatched 

 in the nursery or not. If so, it is quite an 

 important fact. W^e are glad to know about 

 your uncle, J. B. Rapp, for we have had a 

 great deal of trade with him for a good many 

 years. — Any bee-smoker may be used as a 

 fumigator. Perhaps that is one way in 

 which tobacco may be made useful. It is 

 such a virulent poison that it is no wonder 

 that it kills the insects. 



ABOUT THE HONEY THAT GOT TIPPED OVER, AND 

 DID NOT GET SPILLED, EITHER, ETC. 



It is some time since I wrote to you, and I thought 

 you might want another California letter. We live 

 in the foot-hills, five miles from town. Papa goes 

 to town evei-y Saturday, and sometimes twice a 

 week, for the mail. Papa sells honey every time he 

 goes to town. We got the last Juvenile to-day. 

 Papa has honey in two stores in town, and to-day he 

 went in one of them to change one of the jars. 

 When he drove up to the store there were several 

 teams along the sidewalk (as it is just before Christ- 

 mast), so papa had to leave his wagon outside of an- 

 other wagon. He was not gone very long; but when 

 he came, he found a man holding the horses, and 

 another man picking up the things. It seems a 

 runaway team upset the wagon, and spilled every 

 thing on the ground. Tin cans, bottles, boxes that 

 the bottles were in, comb honey, and the seat of 

 the wagon all in a heap on the ground, but there 

 was nothing broken. Papa says the wagon must 

 have been completely upset, but it was all right 

 when he came out of the store. He could have 

 been gone but a few minutes. He didn't know any 

 thing about the accident until he came out. The 

 bees did very well in the early part of the season. 

 Papa's bees increased from 60 to 80 swarms, and he 

 took out 2500 lbs. of honey, mostly extracted. Papa 

 was sick last season and the bees began to rob; and 

 when he got well he doubled up the swarms, and 

 kept doubling, until he has only 30 swarms left. 

 Papa had to feed back about 300 lbs. of honey to the 

 bees. He sold a good many queens last season, and 

 he sold a good many of your extractors. 



Napa, Cal. Mary E. Enas. 



