1878. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



71 



combs in the center of the brood nest. The queen 

 will at once deposit eggs in every cell, and the young' 

 bees constantly hatching from the other combs, your 

 hive is continually filling- up with bees and as they 

 fill up the hive you ought to add an empty comb oc- 

 casionally. 



In February ! why it is time to go and 

 spread our combs now, and before this reach- 

 es you, I fear it will be too late. I would 

 not dare to advise such work before May, 

 with our usual seasons. The last is the best 

 news of all, and if our friend could only 

 raise queens in Feb. all our troubles about 

 getting queens early, would be at an end. 



Sandusky CtTY, Ohio.— About the first of May, 

 1878, we intend to remove to the above named city. 

 We go there for the reason that it is a much better 

 country for bees than this, and we there have the ad- 

 A'antage of those beautiful islands in the lake out of 

 the reach of black bees, where we can raise queens 

 as pure as if we were in sunny Italy. We will take 

 with us at least lOOvT stands of bees, which will be 

 kept on the main land near the city, and all our 

 queens will be raised in our Queen Bpeeding Apiary, 

 and as soon as hatched will be sent to the Island to 

 be fertilized. We have made preparations to raise 

 1030 queens per month. We can give you but an 

 outline of the work before us, but that you may see 

 the great work we are engaged in, we extend to you 

 and every bee-keeper of the country, a cordial invi- 

 tation to visit us at Sandusky, and see for yourself 

 that our new system of bee culture is all that we 

 claim for it and even more. 



1000 GOOD AGENTS WANTED. 



This is all very nice and commendable, 

 but the letters that keep coming, seem to 

 indicate it may be well to continue to keep a 

 watch over Kelley's island even if the foul 

 broody stocks should all be removed. 



I notice you touch up N. C. Mitchell, or your cor- 

 respondents do, occasionally. He sent me an adver- 

 tisement stating that if I would call at his place of 

 business in Indianapolis, I could see Italian bees in 

 all their beauty. I called and he had two small col- 

 onies of the scrubbiest kind of blacks; but before I 

 left he insisted on selling me the right to his famous 

 (?) hive. I did not buy. Last fall he had an apiary 

 at Clermont, 5 miles from here, and I am told he ex- 

 tracted so closely that nearly all the little innocents 

 starved to death before winter was half over. He 

 has printed a small pamphlet (.50 cts.) on apiculture. 

 His chapter on keeping bees good natured is taken 

 almost verbatim from Quinby. 



J. F. HiCKEY, M. D. 



Trader's Point, Indiana. 



He says in regard to Italians that will 

 sting : 



This comes of selling dollar queens; and we have 

 been told by those who visited the apiary of the fath- 

 er or instigator of the dollar queen movement that 

 they saw him go among his bees with gauntletts up- 

 on his hands and a protector over both head and face 

 and seemed to be in every way sting proof, and yet 

 his bees drove himself and visitor out of his own 

 apiary. If bee-keepers want Italian bees they want 

 them in their purity or not at all, and that we may 

 be able to furnish them in their purity, wo have de- 

 termined to remove our queen breeding apiary to 

 Sandusky City, Ohio, where we will have the advan- 

 tage of Kelley's Island. Upon it we propose to have 

 all our queens fertilized. 



Now, that was "awful naughty" in me 

 was it not, brother Mitchell, to put rubber 

 gloves among humbugs and swindles so 

 long, and then wear 'em myself, when I 

 wanted to show the bees to visitorsV I nev- 

 er in my life had on a pair of rubber gloves, 

 but my neighbors have, and after seeing 

 them covered with the stings of the poor 

 little martyrs, they decided, as I have so 

 often said, that the bees would sting rubber 

 gloves, when they would not think of 

 stinging the naked liand, and so all have 

 thrown them aside, as worse than useless,' 



and money wasted. I earnestly protest 

 against their being offered for sale to 

 beginners who do not know what is needed. 

 The broad margin of profit, at $2.00 per 

 pair, is I presume one secret of the per- 

 tinacity with which they are urged on the 

 inexperienced. 



To go back to our subject; if friend 

 Mitchell will go onto Kelley's island and do 

 an honest business, raising and selling 

 queens, I will give him a nice standing 

 advertisement gratis. The foul brood that 

 now exists there, can easily be eradicated, 

 and the island can be stocked with pure 

 Italians, just from Italy. As Ave have a 

 subscriber there, I can easily keep track of 

 the project and will be extremely glad to 

 help any such enterprise ; but it must be 

 done honestly and squarely. 



I have never realized a cent of the money sent 

 Mitchell for extractor, &c. Jas. McCook. 



Natchitoches, La., Jan. 3Vth, 1878. 



REPORT FROm NEBRASKA. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT HONEY PLANTS. 



^ SEND you my report of last year's results with 

 Jb[| 97 stocks of bees. The season was very peculiar 

 '-^ as no surplus honey was gathered until Aug. 8th. 

 In March, I set out 97 stocks of bees; in the latter 

 part of the month, pollen was gathered quite freely 

 from hazel and willow bushes, and on the 10th of 

 April they stored honey and built comb. The tiow 

 of honey was from red elm, which, when the weather 

 is warm, furnishes considerable honey for a few 

 days. Rainy weather set in about the first of May 

 and continued until the middle of June. We had 

 drones by the middle of May and raised queens; but 

 lost 9-10 of them, up to the 15th of June, when the 

 weather became favorable and we met with better 

 success. We had 14 acres of red clover, upon which 

 bees, both black and Italian, work freely in this sec- 

 tion of country owing to its shortness of growth, but 

 some of them starved to death while busily working 

 on it. It blooms the fore part of June. Then fol- 

 lowed hot and dry winds which prevented any flow 

 of honey from the basswood, but sweet clover fur- 

 nished a scant supply and was worked on all day 

 long with the greatest perseverance. 



It is apparent from the results of this year, that 

 unless the conditions of the atmosphere and soil are 

 right, there will be but little honey secreted by any 

 plant or tree; but if all the conditions are favorable 

 at any time in the season there will be a fair flow of 

 honey from such honey plants as maybe in blossom: 

 for, even dogwood, for a few days, furnishes a good 

 flow of honey, circumstances being favorable. 



Lucerne is of no value for honey; in fact, is not 

 worked on at all, and Simpson weed, which grows 

 among timber all over the country here, is too scat- 

 tering to be depended upon for a surplus of honey. 

 The great honey plant of the West, is English smart- 

 weed which blooms the first of August and continues 

 until frost, furnishing light colored honey of good 

 quality, without nauseating properties; and if not 

 the equal of basswood, in other respects, it is far 

 ahead in that. This, with buckwheat, from the first 

 of Aug. up to the 8th of Sept., furnished us with 

 5iW lbs. of surplus honey (mostly extracted) and 

 caused our bees to increase to 145 stocks; about 50 

 per cent of honey and 30 per cent of increase per 

 stock on that of Inst year. 



My impression i-4 that sweet clover is a very val- 

 uiible lioiicy plant. That, with English smartweed 

 will furnish a supply in grasshopper years, in sec- 

 tions tliiit are overrun by these pests, for they do 

 not eat sweet clover the first year of its growth, nor 

 smartweed to injure it at all; neither do they the 

 Rocky mountain bee plant. 



Rulo, Nebraska. Jerome Wiltse. 



The Simpson honey plant needs some pro- 

 tection, or it will be broken and trampled 

 down by stock. While we found none in 

 the open fields, wlierever there was a tree 

 top, or something tliat kept the cattle away 

 from it, we found it in great luxuriance. 



