1«T7 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



135 



ties in the way aside from the great amount of 

 store room that is needed for so many made 

 up. besides the bulky packages they make for 

 shipping. We doubt if the glue joints will be 

 louud strong enough in practice to stand the 

 .^itraiu of such large saws in sawing them up, 

 although we have made very good boxes in 

 the manner mentioned. We think friend R., 

 you will find you have stated it pretty strong, 

 i)efove you have made many thousand at a 

 cent apiece. 



Uec'd Simplicity and contents on the 3d of this 

 month, came through all sound and am well pleased 

 with them. We have one hive put together in our 

 i-arpenter sliop and it takes the eye of everybody that 

 Jius looked at it. Have 4-. colonies, packed in chaff and 

 refuse from flax on the sides and over the brood. It 

 Ivceps them warm and dry. 



BiKU Webster, Bedlord, Iowa, April lOlh, '77. 



long boxes at once. There are several diflicul- can smell it in fresh honey, you may bet your "bot- 

 tom dollar" that honey won't candy. JJon't laugh at 

 this but try it. 



Hans and I took our bees out April 4th in gond or- 

 der. I iiavc .'{.") stocks, and no hives made. I have fed 

 /i bushel rye since. A neighbor had 2 stocks leave 

 their hives and enter others in the cellar, during win- 

 ter. Did you ever hear of that before ^ I saw a hive 

 set out of a cellar the other day that had consumed 

 •40 Iba. of honey without a fly. The bodies of the bees 

 were so distended, that they could not fly but crawled 

 out on the ground and died by thousands. They had 

 not been disturbed and a hive silting by the side of it 

 wintered well. 



Your "traci" in last Gleanings is valuable, and I 

 will distribute some April No"s if you will send me 

 some. Hans is going to make his own hives and 

 frames, but the metal corners make him covetous. 

 He lost all his bees once and he is "going slow," and 

 ••learning to peddle" now, and I think will succeed. 

 R. L. .Joiner, Wyoming. Wis. 



We never heard of bees deserting their hives 

 in the cellar, but we saw a colony swarm out 

 in the green house,, and cluster on the sash. 

 Was the cellar dark enough V Go slow and 

 work carefully, is a good motto. Our own 

 losses this past winter have been less than 5 

 per cent — the best result we have ever made, 

 and it was accomplished mainly, by going 

 slow on increase, and being careful to have 

 each colony just as it should be ; the chaff cush- 

 ions, were doubtless the means of making the 

 house apiary a success. 



Commenced in the spring of 187t) with 10 weak col- 

 onies. I increased to 25, with $1'25.00 net profit. All 

 remained on summer stands through the winter; 6 

 froze or starved as yours did, the honey on one side of 

 the hive and the bees on the other. In your April 

 price list you say the Quinby smoker has been im- 

 ]ji'ove<', being stronger and more duraldo. I think 

 it should be so, for the one I ordered of you last year 

 did not last me half through the season and I know 

 it WHS not abused; the cover seemed rotton. 



Benj. F. Clardy, Rolling Home, M». 



RIPEMNG HONEY. 



You say, " If we are correct, perfectly ripened Jion- 

 t'y, neither candies nor oozes out of jars and barrels." 

 1 have extracted sealed honey and bad it to candy or 

 iHugar in six weeks ; have had the same hoaey to can- 

 <!y after being placed in a vessel and putting that in 

 sHother containing water and boiling the water (or 

 Uaif an hour ; would you not call that honey ripe ? 

 T. B. Parker, Goldsboro, N. C, April 11th, 77. 



I have been in the habit of calling all sealed 

 tioney ripe, but the honey we mentioned that 

 did not candy, was clover honey that remained 

 ij". the hives all summer. Whether such treat- 

 ment will produce the same kind every time, 

 <»r whether the honey when gathered had s-ome 

 peculiar property of resisting granulation, are 

 matters on which we are unable to decide. 

 Many of our readers have reported honey that 

 would not candy, and we have been in the 

 habit of ascribing this property to the source 

 from which it was gathered. Who will give 

 us more light on the matter? This honey that 

 will not candy, is certainly the finest flavored 

 cJover honey it has ever been our fortune to 

 taste. The flavor is slightly like very fine ma- I 

 pie syrup and when held up to the light in a | 

 glass jar, it has none of the greenish tinge that ] 

 is seen in the unripened extracted honey, but \ 

 has a crystal clearness. ' 



Halloo ! Here comes friend Joiner with a 

 word on the subject, and we guess he must be 

 tbout right, for he generally is. 



V'ou are wrong in your conclusion that riptned 

 honey wonH candy. The ripening process lias noth- 

 ing to do with it. I can tell by the smell whether my 

 honey will candy or not. I can show you honey that 

 has had nothing added to it that will not candy under 

 any circumstances, and other honey that rnU candy 

 under amj circumsiances. Catch a wasi>, crush and 

 si'iell of if, now remember that smell, and when you 



We hardly get time to laugh during the 

 mouths of April and May, but sometimes some 

 one who is just learning, in this vast sea of 

 humanity, makes such a queer mistake, that 

 even our "postal scribes" laugh. Listen : 



Enclosed find §2,00 for which please send me by 

 mail one set of iron corners for making frames over, 

 and the balance in comb fdn., about? lbs. to the foot. 

 Henry Gulp, Hilliard, O., April 11th, 1877. 

 P. S.— Gleanings gets better and better. 



Many seem to get our corners mixed up 

 with Quinby's corners for hives, and not a few 

 have queer fancies in regard to the way fdn. 

 should be made, but we do not know that we 

 ever before had a customer who wanted it so 

 thick that 7 lbs. would be required for a square 

 foot. That kind would not "sag," would it 

 friend C. ? 



CLirPING QUEEN'S WIN«S. 



I clip my queen's wings in this way. I cut both 

 large wings ofl"very close to the body leaving only the 

 small ones. The beauty of the queen is not impaired 

 and the object is easily effected. The time consumed 

 in the operation is greater but I think one is fully 

 compensated by avoiding the buggy appearance. 



Richard Ferris, Belleville, N. Y. 



DRONE LARV^, HOW TO GET IT OUT. 



We commenced the winter with 88 colonies, their 

 condition to date as follows ; "S A No. 1 colonies, 2 

 queenless, and 2 dead. The balance are rather weak- 

 er but will come through. The first natural pollen on 

 the 12th of April. J. Butler. 



P. S.— Tell Bro. Dooliftle when he wants to get lar- 

 vse out of drone combs, to pump water on the combs, 

 letting it fall 2 feet or more, and most of the larvaj will 

 jump out; afterwards i)ut into extractor and throw 

 out the water. 



•Jackson, Mich., April 16th, 1877. 



