10 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
.TAN, 
sudden change with rain raised the atmosphere 
outside to 50 or more, and the stream of warm 
damp air coming in the ventilator was con- 
densed in dew all over the hives, wall, etc., and 
even the quilts felt damp. Now under such 
circumstances straw hives would be much the 
most comfortable. 
Dec 10th, the following has just come to 
hand : 
I am very glad my straw mats found your approba- 
tion, and I supposed it would. I shall not have time 
enough to make mats for sale this winter, hut Mr. M. 
Nevins, of Cheviot, O., will always have plenty on 
hand, and leave a lot at my store ready for shipment, 
lit* will sell them at $4.50 a doz. 
Any body wishing straw mats may address myself 
or M. Nevins, Cheviot, Hamilton Co?, O. 
I have imported from Germany, vetch and summer 
rape seed. Vetch— in German, Wicke — affords excel- 
lent food for bees, and is besides, good food for horses 
and cattle. It is sown like rape, and about the same 
time, and grows like peas, with flowers in all colors. 
Rape we all know already. It takes 50 lbs. vetch 
seed and 4 lbs. of rape seed to sow an acre, at least, so 
I am informed by my German correspondent. 
I can sell rape seed at. 85c. per lb., and vetch seed at 
20c. per lb.; or if sent by mail at an advance on the 
above rate of 5c. per lb. 
C. F. Miith, 
Cincinnati, O. 
The mats at the price would be rather ex- 
pensive for making the sides of hives, but will 
well repay expense, to be used on top for out- 
door wintering. As to whether they would be 
beneficial where bees are housed, we are un- 
prepared to say. As the expense is but a trifle 
more than wire cloth, it would certainly be a 
good idea to try them if they can be arranged 
readily so as to confine the bees. 
We certainly must have some vetches next sea- 
son. The “flowers in all colors,” captivate our 
fancy in anticipation already. 
Dear Gleanings:— T he two pieces of comb that I 
got, I positively think had no larvse, only eggs and a 
Few bees just biting the caps open. I* had ID cells 
reared, 14 I could cut out, 4 destroyed. Ten good 
oucens for fifty cents. Mr. Crall built a bee-house and 
I got my bees in it too; we have 92 colonies in it and 
it is only a little more than half full, the house Is 
12x10 feet, wall 10 inches thick. We put our bees in 
Nov. 13th. They appear all right, nice and quiet. 
S. II. Miller, 
Ashland, O. 
Is it not possible that those same hatching 
bees kept the eggs warm, and thus contributed 
to the unusual success of friend M ? See page 
70, Vol. 1. 
I am a beginner in Bee Culture; I have read 
“Langstroth on the Honey Rce,” “Mysteries of Bee 
Keening,” by Quinby, and one volume of the Ameri- 
can liee Journal, lama subscriber for the A. B. J. 
I commenced last spring with six stands, two Italian 
and four Black ones, three of them were very weak ; 
they swarmed out after they were set on their summer 
stand. 1 have raised my own Queens and Italianized 
all my bees. I have now twenty-two strong stands, 
and they all have honey enough to winter. I am going 
to follow Bee-Keeping, and have read all of “AW/ce's” 
writing for a year and am interested. 
Mrs. I). M. Hall, Linn Center, 
Rock County, Wis. 
We are particularly pleased with the above 
report, principally because it comes from a 
married woman ; not that we have less sympa- 
thy for the Misses, but that Vis too often the 
case, the former have too many cares to really 
enjoy Bee Culture or anything else. We opine 
many of the veterans would find it a task to 
make a better summer's work with the same 
start than has our friend, Mrs. II.; will she 
please report again next season V 
WINTERING. 
’jCTjMJRIEND NOVICE Gleanings for August, is at 
hand, aud if you could have seen the smile of 
satisfaction with which its arrival was greeted, 
you would have been repaid in part, at least, for the 
disagree abre things some of the patent right men say 
about vou for pitching into them. 
On this subject 1 would only say ; “Keep on In well 
doing,” and “give ’em tits.” 
I cannot, however, subscribe to all the teachings 
contained in Gleanings. For Instance: I do not be- 
lieve it will pay a majority of our bee-keepers to ex- 
tract the honey and try to winter their bees on syrup, 
in order to escape dysentery, for 1 believe the severit y 
of tlie winter had more to do with the loss of bees in 
this section at least, than the quality of their honey 
bad; and in proof of this 1 will give yon a few facts 
that occurred in this neighborhood. 
A neighbor living half a mile south of here had 
eight swarms that he undertook to winter in a cold 
shed, and lost six of them by dysentery. Another liv- 
ing half a mile west wintered his on their summer 
stands, and lost all be had by the same disease. A 
friend living one-fourth of a mile east brought his 
bees, consisting of four swarms, and put them in my 
bee-house. One of them, a late swarm, died of star- 
vation. The other three were in splendid condition 
when he took them away, about the first of March: 
but after that date he lost two of them, having no 
warm place in which to put them during the severe 
cold that occurred in March. Another friend living 
5 or 6 miles west undertook to winter his bees, con- 
sisting of 38 swarms, out doors. He had lost 7 up to 
Jan. 1st.; and then came and told me that a number of 
the remaining stocks were so reduced that lie thought 
they could not live until spring, and asked me what to 
do with them. I advised him to put them in his cel- 
lar. lie did so, and now tells me he only lost one 
stock after putting them in the cellar, and he now 
thinks that perhaps the bees were nearly all dead in 
that before they were carried In. 
1 put 88 swarms in the house to winter. Three of 
these consisted of bees taken out of my nucleus hives. 
One of the three was nut. in as an experiment, being 
queenless: and the other two had young queens that 
had not laid any eggs when winter set in, and I do not 
know that they ever did. I lost the above three, and 
one of my regular swarms by some unknown cause, 
probably old age, as the bees from the nucleus hives 
were nearly all old ; and two swarms by starvation, 
leaving from 15 to 30 lbs. of honey; the bees having 
clustered at one side of the hive, their stores being at 
the other. 
My bees were put on their summer st ands Feb. 19th, 
but when the weather turned cold all the weakest 
stocks were put back in the house again, and remain- 
ed there until wo had pleasant weather. As a conse- 
quence, 1 did not lose a swarm by dysentery, the 
combs of those that died being as clean as they’ were 
in the fall. 
You will please notice that in the above case, the 
bees that were lost had been kept near to and almost 
all around me, so that their honey could differ but lit- 
tle in quality from what my bees had, and if It does 
not indicate* that cold was the main cause of the losses 
bee-keepers sustained ; I shall have to conclude that 
straws do not always show which way the wind 
blows. 
James Bolin, West Lodi, O. 
Thanks, friend B., you have given us an ex- 
cellent proof of the advantage of a good frost- 
proof repository, and as Mr. Quinby says : (see 
notice of his article,) Cold must be one part of 
the trouble, as bees do not die thus in summer. 
Now we should be very sorry indeed to 
have our friends think we were so firmly astride 
of our “sugar” hobby that we were Incapable 
of accepting proper proof that, wc were in error. 
’Tis not the winters alone that have produced 
the trouble, we believe all admit, and if it shall 
be found necessary to combine the sugar diet 
with careful housing, providing we can thus 
get through the winter safely, we think few 
will complain. We have not personally made 
the experiment of out door wintering with 
sugar stores, but a neighbor has, and the dif- 
ference was too marked to admit a doubt of 
which diet was healthiest. 
