1877 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



195 



En exclamations such as "there! see if you 

 won't go down," " break then ! you sinner" as 

 be strikes a tremendous blow with his ham- 

 mer, or throws his tools across the shop if 

 they do not please him, is certainly worse than 

 a man with one ana, if he can not rid himself 

 of such a temper. 



There should l)e no "blasting," nor "blasted 

 Slopes," for a good workman is seldom disap- 

 (Pointed or surprised at the way his work be- 

 haves. His nails do not split out, because he 

 does not undertake to drive them where he is 

 not sure they can be driven, and when he un- 

 dertakes to drive a nail, he sees at a glance 

 what kind of a nail he holds, his hammer is 

 one that is not loose in the handle, is neither 

 too light nor too heavy, and in his practiced 

 hand it does exactly the work he wishes it to 

 do. Perhaps boys are much more inclined to 

 get nervous and fidgety with their work than 

 are girls, and in these days of young America, 

 when many are ambitious to do a good job 

 without very much showing, there is very 

 much of a liability to disappointment and dis- 

 gust with mechanical work. Take my advice 

 boys, and when you find out what you can not 

 do, instead of giving up, get the best m'.>chanic 

 you know of, to show you, and pracMce pa- 

 tiently after his showing, keep trying, and 

 study the subject in all its branches. Study 

 saws, study hammers and nails; whenever you 

 see a box nicely made, look it over carefully. 

 When you go into the stores, look at the small 

 light boxes goods are put up in, and do not 

 rest satisfied until you can make a neat job of 

 everything about a bee hive, even if it takes 

 you weeks to do just one. The last thing per- 

 haps I shall talk of this mouth, is 



ACCURACY, 



and the subject is of so mucli importance that 

 I have given it a heading by itself as you see. 

 What can, I say to the boys and girls, aye and 

 to the older ones too, to make them more care- 

 ful to be accurate? Great numbers of girls 

 come to me for work, and they are perfectly 

 willing to work for fifty cents per day. The 

 work is light, and would be pleasant and easy, 

 yet I dare not trust them to undertake it, be- 

 cause they would not be accurate. They 

 would forget, or be thinking of something else, 

 and rather than take the responsibility of keep- 

 ing a constant watch on them, we choose to 

 pay from one to two dollars per day, just to 

 get somebody that will be careful. An order 

 came for frames from away down in Mississip- 

 pi. The hand who put them up forgot to put 

 in the side bars, and after our distant custom- 

 er had put his money safely in our hands, and 

 paid the expensive express charges to such a 

 distant point, he had no frames to use in his 

 hives after all. He sent a telegram at once 

 asking me to pay for it as well as the express 

 charges, and I think it was right that I should 

 do so. Now all this expense, delay and troub- 

 le came from — I do not know positively, but 1 

 rather think, from talking to some of the oth- 

 er hands while the work was being put up. 

 Had the one who did it, said menially, "There 

 are the top bars, and no mistake, for they have 

 the grooves in them for the com!) guides, and 

 these arc the side bars, for they are grooved 

 across the ends, and there are just twice as 

 many of them as of the top bars, here are the 



bottom bars for they are not grooved at all. 

 These are the corners, and thete the comb 

 guides and everything is certainly just as it 

 should be." 



Now although it has taken some time to tell 

 this, it can be gone over in the mind, as fast as 

 the hands can possibly travel, but the eyes 

 must be on the work, and the tongue still. Is 

 this too severe? It all resls with you my 

 friends ; if you are unwilling to pay the price, 

 you must l)e content with ordinary wages. 



Many people excuse themselves for inaccura- 

 cy, by saying the fault belonged to some one 

 else. (Juite a nurat)er of our May journals 

 were reported as being folded wrongly, the 

 first page being on the leaf next the last. No 

 one could tell how it came so. As the June 

 No. was being mailed, I picked up one at ran- 

 dom, :ind found it in the same predicament. 

 Three more were opened, and found the same; 

 of course the v,'hole lot were overhauled, and I 

 fear the girls who folded and sewed them were 

 overhauled a little roughly too, for it is a rath- 

 er serious matter to have hands who pay so 

 little attention to their work that they do not 

 know whether the books they are making are 

 readable or not. I presume each one of them 

 feels sure i/i^^y did not do it, but for all that, 

 they will probably keep a sharp lookout for 

 more such mischief, and as the fault all really 

 rests on myself, /shall try to look sharp too, 

 or you my friends will be obliged to cut down 

 my wages. If you do, I shall not blame you, 

 but will try to think I deserve it. 

 Continued next month. 



^ 



DEPOSITORY OF 



Or S^etters from Tliosc WIio Have Made 

 Bee Culture a Failure. 



^I? AST fall I had .56 swarms of bees in f^ood condition, 

 ISlj/i] have now but ten. Seven packed in chnfT and lef tr 

 r ' l | on summer stand camo throuRh, but were very 

 weak in numbers ; one dwindled away until only about 

 one-half pint of bees was left, then swarmed cut and the 

 queen K<>t killed. The six left, I think will succeed. Ten. 

 left on summer stand with chaff pillows over frames, all 

 dead; some of them lived till tlie last of April. Four 

 swarms buried, all dead when I unearthed them the 

 forepart of April. Thirty-five swarms I put in bee cellar 

 Nov. 14th, and j?ave them a fly three or four times in the 

 warm days of Feb., but they trot caught out in a bijr snow 

 storm the first of March ; some hives were entirely cov- 

 ered with snow. When I could Ret them in apiin, I found 

 1(5 of them dead, and the rest have since dwindled to four 

 stocks. My hofies are blasted. Aveey liKOWir. 



P. S.— Dr. Maxoii, of Whitewater, Wis., put 8t swarms 

 in hLs cellar uniler his dwellinif house last Nov., took 

 them out April 10th, nave them no fly durini^ that time. 

 I saw several of his liives opened April 1 fth, no mould, no 

 dead bees on bfittom of hive — bees plenty and honey also 

 — had (lone nothintr to them only set ihem out till I saw 

 him open several hives— every one of the said St appeared 

 in first rate condition. He uses one story Lan^stroth 

 hives with 8 frames ; runs for box honey almost exclu- 

 sively. AvEKY Brown. 

 Delavim, Wis., May 1,5th, 1877. 



Many reports seem to strengthen the idea 

 that it i.s a disease — that our bees may winter 

 beautifully one winter, and die badly the next, 

 with precisely the same treatment. 



My bees wintered poorly. I had too many in a small 

 place ; 10;i in a cellar lixl t. The cellar bottom was about 

 l^i inches deep with dead bees this spring. I set them 

 out April 12tb. Ninety-three were alive but some had 

 only a few bees and they have since dwindled down to 



