1S7-4 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
03 
5 J t- ;i (Is of Cii’aln, 
FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS. 
m I, ROOT, Dear Sir:— -It’ Bee-keepers are as 
//Jiv busy as we are this warm weather you will 
not hear much from them. We are writing 
from our extracting room where we keep one eye on 
the bees through the wire screens and use the other 
mim* to guide the pen. 
We pride ourselves on a comfortably arranged ex- 
tracting room. Our table is about 7 11. long by 2 wide 
set right in front of the reversible wire screen window 
inline and has a boxed off apartment at one end big 
enough to hold the extractor and just high enough to 
let a 15 gal. bbl. under. We did try to have it arranged 
sn that a little wooden boy (or similar device) would 
kick up his heels and notify us when the barrel was 
nearly full, and he didn't* work worth a cent, so for 
want of time to get him llxed just right, we had to 
discharge him and rely on a gimlet hole bored so 
the honey runs out (just enough to notify us when the 
barrel is nearly full) and is caught in a pan. 
We have used a Gray & Winder and other extract- 
ors but never had one to suit us so well as our old 
borne made one, li ved over with your improved gear- 
ing and frame. 
our cappings drop through a hole cut In the middle 
of the table and are caught in a vessel set for the pur- 
pose. 
We can attest to the usefulness of It. II. Dickson's 
lrninc racks, as we have lour similar ones in use, on 
which we carry 14 or 1(» frames as easily as u or 8 for- 
merly. In regard to extracted honey-* we will sell 
most of ours by commission put lip in neat jars hold- 
ing from .'4 pt. to 2 qls. some four or live sizes. We 
bought our glass ware at Pittsburgh from some of 
our old friends. Tlios. J. Walton, Salem, O. got. us 
up some labels of our own designing partly, at $3.75 
per thousand, fry placing the label at a distance, you 
will notice the advantage of the large letters in bronze. 
Our apiary is laid out after your hexagonal plan, 
and we like it very much, being much the handiest 
arrangement we ever had. Our 115 Concord vines are 
growing beautifully. 
We use a J.angstroth frame from necessity, will 
probably continue to do so, alt hough we would other- 
wise willingly conform to a standard, for we think 
ilm idea of Apiarians arriving at some degree of uni- 
loimiiy, an excellent one. 
Our hives range from 10- 12-11 to 20 frames, the lat- 
ter of which we had adopted belore the “Standard 
hive” articles appeared, as best suited to our use. We 
thought then that the .‘10 Inch idea was large but it 
has been growing in our head and has not diminished 
since, tor we now find it hard work to keep our 20 
triune stocks from casting swarms. 
Now I must tell you all I know of smokers. One of 
our visitors wanted to know on hearing that we burnt 
"Buffalo chips” if we “sent West tor it ?” That’s just 
" here we get it. Alter a dry spell we take our basket 
<»n our arm and “go west” to the barn-yard or pasture 
lot and till it. with chips, llibsc a couple of inches 
thick, sawed into st rips, leaving each piece a couple 
of inches square, when dry are splendidly adapted to 
to the wants ol the Apiarian, fry pouring lrom the 
benzine jug a few drops il can be lit in a minute's time, 
"111 burn nearly al 1 day, giving the best kind of smoke, 
and .‘■carcely ever blazing unless caught bv a high 
Mind. VYe keep ours constantly burning while going 
‘he rounds, and it is then reauy lor use when we run 
across one of our hj brid stocks that want to go for 
the eyes. 1\ hen one giv es out we lay the coal remain- 
on the end of another and Unis keep the smoke 
Suing. 
ton honey season still continues good and the hon- 
ey is now nearly as clear as water, and of good consis- 
'* ncy. We have taken over 2U0 gallons (and ready to 
<u ii again) from 48 colonies. 
” e will have all our bees pure before long and hope 
t" enti r the Held w iili good pure stock next spring. 
' )id not a black bee within several miles ol us. 
rossibh \ve may enter tile $1,00 list next season for 
' v 'V»i * l 11 * le 11111 bl rearing Queens. 
Please send me a few Queen Registers and find en- 
closed 25c. tor same. lours respectlully, 
Indianapolis, 1ml. June 2bth. D. Lyons Browne. 
1 also have one item on early free Pasture which I 
consider of value, if you are of the same mind, you 
r;m publish it for the henetit of the frrolherhood. You 
are aw are that in tile West and Last perhaps, growing 
< i forest timber is becoming part of the farmer’s occu- 
) almn, anil Maple is one ol the kinds most used ; now 
11 bee-keepers will go into the plantations of young 
Maples and trim off small limbs, or wound in any oth- 
er manner the trees early in the season, the sap will 
j How dow'n the trunk of the trees forming a syrup 
which Is excellent for tile bees, comes when we most 
need it, no danger of drowning the bees and it will 
not Injure the trees In the least. 
James Scott, Epworth, Iowa. 
A very good idea without doubt, and the 
blossoms of these young Maples are also an 
important source of honey, when the weather 
is such that the bees can gather. Would not 
letting the sap run down the trunk be a waste- 
ful way of doing it and would it not induce 
the bees to go out in unsuitable weather? yon 
see friend 8. we feel like a "burnt child” in re- 
gard to the latter idea. We would hazard the 
suggestion that it might injure the trees after- 
ward, if we hadn’t raised so many objections 
already, but we heartily advise planting forest 
trees by all means. Our 4000 Basswoods arc 
looking beautiful now in spite of the abuse the 
grasshoppers gave them last season. We have 
just had them trimmed up and the ground spa- 
ded around each one and they are making a 
line growth. 
DEAR NOVICE Gleanings for May (the missing 
number) is at hand. A postal card is not half big 
enough to express my sympathy on ; “1 know how it is 
myself.” Four years ago I lost almost all my bees— 
cause— -late transferring. I am sutisUed that you arc 
right, that lack of pollen did the business. ‘We are 
not ready for you to abdicate the editorial chair vet. 
If we can timrthe reason your bees stored no pollen, 
your loss may be more useful to us than Bolin's sue* 
cess. You say that for the last three years you have 
found but little old pollen in your combs in the spring. 
Is that not about the time that you have run the ex- 
tractor exclusively, and fed up In the fall? Is it not 
barely possible that bees, when kept robbed with the 
extractor, in their eagerness to store honey for winter 
neglect to store pollen, except for immediate use? 1 
robbed one stock last season of all their honey as fast 
as gathered: they gave me double as much honey as 
any other stock, and kept up the supply of brood, but 
as soon as flowers failed anil the brood ’was all hatch- 
ed I gave the bees to an adjoining stock. An examin- 
ation of their combs to-day, shows them to be perfect- 
ly empty— no pollen— a fact 1 never noticed before. 
If we could feed pollen bad weather, all would go 
well. But if your system of extracting all the honev, 
and feeding for winter on syrup, makes us entirely 
dependant on an early spring for success, I think wc 
had better “go slow” in tills climate, where early 
springs are an exception. The fact that Bolin’s bee's 
were wintered on natural stores Is proof to me that 
they also stored pollen. 
I do not use the extractor as a general thing during 
the last half of July, and the first half of August, (the 
time Indian corn is in bloom) and when I begin again 
I llnd the combs half tilled with pollen. 
1 think more of my bees than of any thing else I 
have, (wife and children excepted) and* I tremble lest 
1 lose them again. Bingham of Mich., I see has come 
to the conclusion that it is all luck, and I was always 
an unlucky chap, so you had better reserve a place 
for me in “Blasted Hopes” corner. 
Heavy losses occurred In this vicinity tills spring, 
chiefly from attempting to winter weak swarms. I 
lost three such, all the weak ones 1 had. My strong- 
est swarms wintered best, though their combs moul- 
ded some, but they soon cleaned them. It is very 
unfavorable weather now for bees, cold rainy w in- 
dy, and has been for two weeks. 1 had my bees in 
prime order for honey gathering- made some swarms 
the 20th of May was raising some Queens— had 
thousands of Italian drones, and no black ones to 
speak of— had begun to “go” for some of the strong- 
est a In Novice to prevent swaiming, when this bad 
weather came on, cold as March, i have done all I 
could to keep my bees up. but they are killing drones, 
destroying Queen cells, throwing* out brood, and cut- 
ting up Jack generally. If the weather don't change 
1 w ill be put back to the 1st of May. “Nh/i” is bee- 
keeping. Yours truly, R. L. JOIN Lit. 
Wyoming, Wis. June 14th, 1874. 
This is a new view of the matter we must 
confess, but it will hardly apply in our locali- 
ty, for we seldom if ever use the extractor after 
