NOVICES GLEANINGS IN iiEE CULTURE 
NOVICE’S 
ilcaniugs in $lcc ©nltuic. 
A. I. ROOT & CO., 
EDITORS AND PROPRIETORS. 
Published Monthly, at Medina, Ohio. 
Terms: 75c. per Annum. 
Any one sending us 5 Subscribers can retain 75c. for 
their trouble, and in the same proportion 
for a larger number. 
[PRINTED AT MEDINA COUNTY GAZETTE OFFICE.] 
Medina, February 1, 1873. 
As we are now a monthly, those who wish 
the whole 12 numbers will please remit us 
50 cts additional. To those who pay but 
25 cts, we shall send Gleanings quarterly 
as at first proposed, after this number, which 
will be sent to all, making five numbers for 
25 cents instead of the four we promised. 
Several irresponsible persons have had 
advertisements inserted in some of the Bee 
Journals, and in one case considerable sums 
of money were lost by our bee-keepers send- 
ing to them. 
Will it not be advisable for our Editors to 
require reference in regard to the standing 
of their advertising patrons. It will be far less 
trouble than to require each separate indi- 
vidual to determine who is to be relied on 
and who is not. 
We must positively refuse to advertise any 
receipts or methods of doing desirable things 
in the Apiary ; for the first person sending 
the needed 25 cts or $1.00, could, if he chose, 
then publish it to to the world. Let infor- 
mation of all kinds be free, through our 
Journals, each one presuming that he will 
receive as much as he furnishes. 
Samples, models to work from, or imple- 
ments themselves, of course, have a cash 
value, but not secrets, as a general rule. 
Reports of dysentery have already reached 
us in three cases. In the latter it affected 
only those colonies having natural stores ; 
a part of them that were fed on sugar syrup 
were entirely heatlhy. A friend near us, 
fed all his colonies, 20 or over, except one, 
with syrup made by pouring boiling water on 
coffee sugar in a tin sap bucket. This was 
stirred well, and the syrup poured off' when 
cold and fed in tin milk pans, with a cloth 
laid over the top. Nothing more All are 
healthy. One strong colony, and that was 
fed with poor maple syrup, died with an ag- 
gravated form of dysentery, in December, 
soiling every part of the hive badly, lie 
forgot our instructions to use Cream of Tartar 
in his syrup, but the syrup did not grain in 
spite of what “Confectioners” tell us, see 
A. B. J., page 91, Vol. 8., and his bees are 
in as good shape so far as can be desired. 
At the convention at Indianapolis, Mr. 
Hoagland says he lost bees that were fed on 
syrup. 
Now as this is the very first case 
that has ever come to our knowledge, of the 
kind, we would ask Mr H. to give us full 
facts. Was the syrup made of good coffee 
sugar, and had the bees no natural stores? 
Our experiments have all pointed so posi- 
tively in one direction, that we think we 
cannot be mistaken. 
HEADS OF GRAIN FROM DIFFERENT 
FIELDS. 
‘KDGAR SAGER, Hudson, 111., writes: 
if “ Signs of disease were noticed in some 
places quite early in the Fall,” and that it 
looks rather discouraging ; but it need not 
be so, for whenever they really commence to 
soil their combs, take them in a warm room 
and give them clean, empty combs in place 
of their old ones, and confine them to their 
hive with wire cloth until they can store 
some pure coffee sugar syrup in the combs 
and if a day occurs that they can be allowed 
to fly out of doors, all the better. In severe 
cases they must have a wire basket attached 
to the hive to allow them to come out in, 
while in the warm room, without soiling 
their hive and combs. 
James Ferguson of Surgeons Hall, Pa., 
writes : “lam using King’s hive, although 
it does not matter much what hive is used, 
during a dry June that dries up all the white 
clover which is our main dependence here ” 
But it does, friend F. Suppose you take 
your bees about April 1st, your very weakest 
colony for instance, put them on three combs 
only, and in a hive small enough so that the 
bees and combs fill it completely. 
Now feed them, keeping the entrance al- 
most closed and a warm quilt over them 
until brood begins to hatch ; enlarge their 
hive as they increase, but always have them 
fill it, and they will bear considerable crowd- 
ing in cool weather, and your hive must not 
be so tall as the one you menlion or you 
will not be able to keep them clustered clear 
down to the bottom of it, which you must do 
always. 
By May Is*, you will have a colony that 
will send out a host of workers if you keep 
them crowded, and by June, if you keep their 
