412 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



In my next, will give you :ui ad. for my hives, and 

 I deem" it no es^otism to say that my saw worlcs beau- 

 tifully, and that I multe an article that will almost 

 compare with yours. C. H. Deane. 



Mortonsville, Ivy., Nov. 5, 1H78. 



I want to see my pupils all do better work 

 tliuii I do, friend D. 



BEE CAVES. 



1 am anxioTis about the bee cave question. I have 

 sometimes ddubtcil that bees work in caves, but ray 

 wife says slie lias ^cen them working in rocks. Now 

 I want to kniiw how they fix things; do they have 

 several quecnsV and, if so, are they all together? or 

 does each queen have her own room? 



We know they mvist have more than one queen; 

 if we can tind out how they ai-range things In those 

 caves, we can build as many bee houses as we 

 please, and the bees will work in them too. ()! how 

 I want to Sec inside a bee cave! Is there not some 

 reliable man that will open two or three bee caves 

 and tell us about them in our bee papers, or print it 

 in pamphlet form, giving drawings? 



Now, Mr. Root, don't say it will do no good to know 

 these things, for we all want to know all that can be 

 known. I would be willing to pay double for Glean- 

 ings next j^ear, if it would contain the information 

 I want on the above question, or I would be willing 

 to pay something towards the expense of tindingout 

 about it. May be, some of the many readers of our 

 dear Gleanings can tell us something about bee 

 caves; if so, "rise and explain," and you will have 

 the thanks of your brother, D. G. Parker. 



St. Joe, Mo., Nov. 6, 187S. 



The above letter is a fair sample of the 

 way in which the minds of different indi- 

 viduals run in different and out of the way 

 channels. Bee caves ! Did you ever? All 

 right, friend P., go ahead. I never saw any 

 bees in a cave, but I think they must work 

 much as they do in trees, or even in the 

 house apiary. Each colony must have an 

 ai)artment of its own, or the queens would 

 constantly be liable to be killed. The en- 

 trances, too, I should say would need to be a 

 foot or more apart. Of course, they will get 

 along differently for awhile, but there are al- 

 ways risks, that it does not pay to incur. 

 You can easily make a bee cave, if you can 

 find a soft dry rock, large enough. Home lo- 

 calities would furnish them almost natural- 

 ly. If you have no rocks, build a stone 

 house apiary, or even one of brick. The 

 great objection to such places would be 

 dampness, unless it was in a very warm cli- 

 mate, where bees seek clefts in the rocks 

 naturally. Some one of our readers has 

 written in regard to them ; who is itV 



AN A B C SCHOLAR 66 YEARS OLD. 



I am very much pleased with fdn., and shall want 

 more next spring. This is my first year with bees. 

 I bought 2 swarms last winter, and now have 8, after 

 losing 3. I am 66 years old, so you will not expect 

 great things from me. although I study ABC very 

 closely. >iy bees are all Italians. E. T. 



Kewanee, 111., Nov. i, 1878. 



A TIMELY WARNING TO BEGINNERS; ALSO SOME- 

 THING ABOUT UTAH. 



I am a bee man. Eight years ago, I bought a colo- 

 ny of bees for $100.00; have disposed of a hundred or 

 more colonies, and have now remaining 300 working 

 stands. I commenced a novice, and in my eager- 

 ness, did too much, as most beginners do, stretching 

 out too fast, and lost hundreds of colonies too weak 

 to stand an open winter. Had I the time, and the 

 same opportunity over again, I might have now 

 thousands of colonies. This is only a moderate hon- 

 ey region; the climate being hot aiid dry. Through 

 the summer, we get very little honey pasturage ex- 

 cept from the cultivated fields, orchards, and gar- 

 dens, as plants and flow(>rs dry up. 



From May till Sept., the mercui-y runs up dailv, 

 in shade, from 80° to 100° Fahrenheit. Last year, I 



took about 4 tons of honey; this year, 1 won't have 

 half that amount, althougli, from indications, and 

 better growth of plants, i expected a better crop 

 than last year. 



Bees propagated heavily, but it seems that their 

 secretions of nectar have not been abundant. 



Haviiig a large; garden, I raise plenty of mignon- 

 nette, sweet clover, great American bee plant, cat- 

 nip, and many assorted garden tlowers that make 

 bee food. At times, Alfalfa or Lucerne makes line 

 pasture, and yields plenty of tine honey; at other 

 times, bees don't work on it at all. We have broad 

 fields of it, so when it does yield nectar we are gain- 

 ers. J. E. Johnson. 



St. George, Utah, Sept. 16, 1878. 



HONEY DEW. 



I was raised in the lonely mountains, in West Va., 

 and was a mill boy from 35 to 45 years ago. The mill 

 was 7 miles distant, and I had to go 3 times a week; 

 3 miles of that distance was a "blazed out" bridle 

 path, the bushes thick, apparently, as nature could 

 plant them. There were a great many chestnut 

 trees and chestnut bushes. I am certain that I 

 would not exaggerate if I should say that I have 

 licked off gallons upon gallons of that sweet, drip- 

 ping honey dew from those chestnut leaves. 



There were mornings after there had been heavy 

 dews, when I have seen it drip from the leaves. 

 Why the chestnut leaves were its home, I am sure I 

 can't tell; but, friend Root, there are a great many 

 things in this world that we don't know; if it were 

 all put in one book, it certainly would be a very 

 large book. 



I have been in this country 20 years, and if I have 

 ever seen one drop of honey dew, I don't know it. I 

 don't believe this country affords any honey dew 

 whatever. J. Wills. 



Greenfield, Ind., Nov. 8, 1878. 



SWEET CLOVER. 



You ought just to have seen the bee^ working on 

 a small patch of sweet clover, and you would not, 

 for a single moment, doubt its value as a honej' pro- 

 ducing plant. Although only about 'a of nn acre, I 

 am sure the bees that were on it would have made a 

 very extra largo swarm; it was fairly alive with 

 them. H. Smith. 



New Hamburg, Out., Can., Aug. 13, 1878. 



Very likely, an acre of sweet clover would 

 keep 8 swarms busy, when they could find 

 nothing else, but it might be, even then, if 

 my observations are correct, that they would 

 not get enough to keep them from starving. 

 I do not mean to saj^ that sweet clover does 

 not produce honey in large quantities, but 

 only that their being so busy on it does not 

 necessarily prove it. Watch a bee, and see 

 liow many blossoms he is obliged to visit, to 

 get a load. We need more exi)eriments such 

 as our friend MoUie made with the spider 

 plant. 



WOODEN SEPARATORS, SALT FOR BEES, ETC. 



As an answer to what you said in Gleanings, in 

 regard to the thickness of our wooden separator, we 

 will say that we found I3 of an inch thick enough. 

 Thei'e "would not be much room wasted by having 

 the separators only ^i of an inch thick. Those wo 

 have used, and the one we sent you, were 3-16 of an 

 inch thick, and not ';'8, as you stated in Gleanings. 



The basswood we get here is not all as nice and 

 white as that of which those sections were made, but 

 as we use a great deal for honey crates, frames for 

 brood nest, broad frames to hold sections, etc., we 

 always use the dark colored wood for these purpo- 

 ses, and keep the whitest for sections. 



Now, we have one more question to ask you; is 

 salt necessary for bees? If it is, there should be 

 something said about it in your ABC. 



Greinek Bro's. 



Naples, N. Y., Nov. 5, 1878. 



I beg pardon ; I did make a mistake on the 

 thickness of the wood separators, and I pre- 

 sume they can be used only i thick. One 

 objection to even this thickness would be 

 that they se])arate the frames, and allow the 

 bees to put in propolis between the top and 



