THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



259 



THOMAS 0. NEWMAN, 



yflimi. April 27, 1887. No. 17. 



A W^ord of good counsel we ne'er should 



forget ; 

 And to keep out of danger is to keep out 



debt 1 

 If peace and contentment and joy you would 



know. 

 Don't live upon credit, but pay as you go I 



"Practical Turkey Raisins" is the 



title of a new pamphlet just received. It is 

 written by Fanny Field, the most experi- 

 enced breeder of turkeys in America, and 

 published by H. B. Mitchell, of Chicago, Ills. 

 It Is written expressly for those who are 

 interested In profitable breeding of turkeys 

 for the market. Price 2.t cents. It can be 

 obtained at this office. 



lOrs. M. Cmmrlne, of Bryan, O., one of 

 Mrs. Lizzie Cotton's pupils, reports the re- 

 ception of a pencil drawing of her hive 

 (costing $.3) and states that she has made 

 some and found them successful in winter- 

 ing bees on the summer stands. She also 

 thinks that Mrs. Cotton's book is a plain 

 and practical work. In justice we give the 

 above, as we have published several com- 

 plaints. Three dollars Is still very high for 

 a " pencil drawing of a hive." 



making Honey Vinegar.— Mr. C. F. 



Muth gives these instructions in QUanings : 



When making vinegar, one must know 

 that water will turn into vinegar providing 

 It contains the necessary quantity of sugar 

 stuff, and is exposed to fresh air and a warm 

 temperature. The warmer the temperature 

 and the better the circulation of air, the 

 sooner vinegar forms. A barrel is laid 

 down, and an inch hole is bored in the upper 

 end of each head, near the upper stave. 

 This admits of a good air-passago over the 

 body of the honey water. Tins with fine 

 perforations nailed over these holes, with 

 the rough side outward, exclude flies and 

 skippers. Take about one pound of honey 

 to one gallon of water, thoroughly mixed 

 up, and nail a perforated tin oh the bung- 

 hole. We take ■!.'> to 40 pounds of honey for 

 a barrel containing 40 to4o gallons of water. 

 The warmest place In the yard is the best 

 place for the barrel. If the sun shines on 

 the barrel all day. it requires from the be- 

 ginning of April to the end of October to 

 make vinegar satisfactory for all purposes. 

 If not sour enough by fall, it will be all 

 right bv Christmas or spring, If placed in 

 the cellar or a warm room. 



Kissing Bees* — In a woman's conven- 

 tion lately held, Mrs. Thomas, of Tacony, 

 Pa., when speaking of the subject of "bee- 

 keeping for women," said she had kept bees 

 "for M5 years, and her earliest memory was 

 of bees and tubs of honey," and then stated 

 that she " had learned all the practical 

 operations of bee-management before she 

 ever saw a man lift a comb or transfer a 

 colony." It win be seen that she was a 

 wonderful woman, but her bees were still 

 more wonderful I I She added : " My bees 

 know me, and often hiss my hand." We 

 know of hundreds who would prefer not to 

 have any such familiarity exhibited by bees 

 — Bro. Clarke, for instance I When they 

 kiss him, his lips swell up and he is appar- 

 ently filled with poison I 



But Mrs. Thomas has a splendid honey 

 market, as well as wonderful bees. She says 

 that when she began, she " received 50 cents 

 a pound for comb honey in eight and ten 

 pound boxes, and never had to go out after 

 buyers." Two years ago she had .3,000 

 pounds of surplus from 25 colonies, and 

 sold $750 worth of boney 1 Prodigious I 

 Honey 50 cents a pound 1 Profits. $30 per 

 colony I Wonderful bees — market — woman 

 —and all I 



Now see how unselfish she Is. She wants 

 every other woman to become an apiarist 

 too, and puts it thus : " A woman who can 

 obtain money to buy her bees and fixtures, 

 may count on a return of $200 to $300 the 

 second year, beside paying for the stock 1" 



This is clinched by the following : " Miss 

 Angle Creed borrowed money and bought 

 her stock, and two years after exhibited at 

 the State Fair beautiful honey which sold at 

 40 to 50 cents a pound. It paid off her out- 

 lay and left a balance." 



This rosy account is being extensively 

 copied into the papers, and will, no doubt, 

 induce many to embark in the business only 

 to become disgusted when they find that the 

 price of honey Is less than one-fourth of 

 that quoted above ; and much of the rosy 

 speech at the convention proves to be but a 

 "delusion and a snare 1" 



Feeding Bees In May.— Mr. Wm. B. 



Treadwell, in the American Agriculturist for 

 May gives these instructions for beginners : 



Large quantities of brood are reared in 

 May, and after the red buds of the soft 

 maple have put forth their heads there will 

 be plenty of natural pollen for the bees to 

 gather. If there are no maples or willows 

 near, take some unbolted rye flour, mix it 

 with sawdust or cut straw, and set in a 

 sunny corner, sheltered from the wind, 

 when, if the bees require it, they will carry 

 It freely. In localities where there is honey 

 in the blossoms at this season, the bees will 

 gather it very rapidly, and the more honey 

 the.v get the faster the colony increases. 

 Where there are not enough honey-produc- 

 ing flowers, by all means feed, at the en- 

 trance, say about a gill of hot feed every 

 night. By feeding thus, your colonies will 

 Increase very rapidly, and when the honey 

 commences to flow, they will be strong to 

 gather it. Again, should there be honey in 

 the blossoms, and cold and rainy weather 

 set in, feed as above, for should the weather 

 continue cold, the bees would naturally 

 commence to destroy the work already 

 accomplished, by tearing out and destroying 

 the hatching brood. If bees are kept for 

 increase alone, feed them every night, and 

 continue to do so until honey can be gath- 

 ered in abundance. 



Bee-Catalogne of Tbos. L. Thornton, 

 Dividing Ridge, Ky., is received. 



Building Air-Castles.— How often this 

 is done, and how disappointed is the 

 "builder" when light, truth and facts cause 

 the air-castles to vanish. Mr. J. W. Sanders, 

 of Le Grand, Iowa, writes us as follows con- 

 cerning what ho is pleased to call a " silver- 

 plated alr-castle :" 



During the social talk of our last bee- 

 meeting, there was a person present from 

 some out-of-the-way rural district. He 

 wanted to know how we fixed sugar to feed 

 bees in order for them to make It into 

 honey. He said there was being lots of it 

 fed now for that purpose, and money could 

 be made at it. 



We told him he was mistaken, that sugar 

 was not fed for that purpose, and could not 

 be, with profit, even if desired. He thought 

 it could, and said that parties in the East 

 were doing it. 



In order to prove it to us, he took an old 

 circular from his pocket, handed it to ni« 

 and said to me : "Read that," referring to 

 a particular item in the circular. 



The part referred to gave the great advan- 

 tages of a bee-feeder, and how easy it was to 

 feed bees with it. I turned the paper over, 

 and found that it was James Heddon's cir- 

 cular, and the Item referred to bis bee- 

 feeder. 



A general smile came over those present. 

 We told him what was meant by a bee- 

 feeder, and what they were used for. I 

 advised him to take the American Bee 

 JOURNAL, and invited him to attend our 

 bee-meetings. 



A disappointed look came over him, and 

 he failed to make his appearance at our 

 meeting in the afternoon. We think he re- 

 turned home with his silver-plated "air- 

 castle " all vanished I 



Many prefer to do a fraudulent business 

 rather than one which is honorable and 

 honest. This man had no idea of " keeping 

 bees"— but he wanted to "make honey I" 

 He snapped at the Idea of using a feeder 

 (which was intended to keep bees from 

 starving), when he supposed it could bo used 

 to feed the sugar, and have the bees make 

 honey 1 I But when he found that the bees 

 must gather the honey from the flowers, 

 ready-made, distilled drop by drop in Na- 

 ture's laboratory— pure, healthy, and nour- 

 ishing—then he wanted none of it I He must 

 have a fraudulent article or nothing I 



Bumble-Bees and dover Blossoms. 



—Prof. W. J. Beal, of the Michigan Agricul- 

 tural College, writes thus on this subject In 



the Farmer's Advocate : 



An inquiring friend would know "why 

 the first crop of clover has no seed ; whether 

 it is possible to distinguish the difference, if 

 any, between the blossoms of the plant 

 bearing the seed and that which contains 

 the fertilizing quality ; and has the bumble- 

 bee anything to do with it." So far as ex- 

 amined—the blossoms of the first crop of 

 red clover have good pistils throughout, and 

 good stamens, with plenty of what we 

 should call good pollen. In other words, we 

 cannot see why they are not just as capable 

 of fertilization as those which come later. 

 Experiments, repeated on the second crop 

 for six years, give varying results, but in 

 all cases tbey show that bumblebees in 

 Central Michigan increased the crop from 

 100 to 400 per <;ent. Other insects may also 

 help in this matter. In Kansas they tell me 

 bumble-bees are scarce, but clover seeds 

 freely. Honey-bees at the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College, without any question, in- 

 crease the yield of seeds of white clover 

 enormously, in one case as 2.3fi exceeds 5. I 

 am satisfied that in some locations at least 

 bumblebees should be encouraged for the 

 good they do to red clover. Now the prob- 

 lem is this : How can the entomologists 

 rear and keep over winter large numbers of 

 fertile queens .' It seems to me not improb- 

 able that the time may come when bumble- 

 bee queens will be reared, bought and sold 

 for their benefit to the crop of clover seed. 



