26 GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. BONHAM'S IMPROVED PROCESS OF T PATENTED NOV. 9TH, 1880. HE machine consists of two semi-molds, or plates, made of best quality of dental plaster. The frames which hold the plates are put together with strong butts, and so hinged that the frames are thrown half an inch apart when the mold is closed. In this way the faces of the plates are raised inch above the wood. On the back of each plate, a convenient and substantial handle is firmly fastened, by which the machine is easily manipulated. To use the mold, open wide the plates s0 that the face of one is on a plane with the other. Having previously wet the mold, place the face of the machine on the surface of the melted wax; raise the plates and immediately close them, exerting some pressure, but not slapping them. Dip the mold then into a water bath, not too cold, to chill the wax; open the mold, and your sheet thus molded will be easily removed. You need wet the molds only occasionally before dipping on the wax, as there will be no trouble about shedding. After you have made a few sheets, and got things started up all right, it is nice work to turn out the beautiful sheets of fdn. If you want heavy fdn., do not have your wax very hot; if light fan. is desired, have your wax pretty hot, and exert a little more pressure on the handles of the mold. To make starters for section boxes, I use a smaller mold. The advantages of my process I claim to be these: 1. There is necessarily no daubing of wax, as the plates are raised so that no wax need touch the wooden frame, unless dipped too deep into the wax. 2. Its cheapness. With care it will last a long time. The handles give strength and support to the plates. 3. Less dipping in water to make shed. You 4. You can work up all your wax, thus enabling you to conveniently work small lots of wax. can have your wax floating on hot water, if you wish, so that you need never scorch it. 5. Fewer boxes and vessels are required. All you need is a tin basin about 21 or 22 inches square (for L. frame), and 4 inches deep, to set on a common flat-top cooking-stove, in which to have your melted wax, and a wash-tub, or any vessel that will answer for a bath. 6. Both sides of your fan. sheet are made precise- thus having wax of different degrees of hardness or 7. The fdn. being molded, the wax is in its natur- A. F. BONHAM. 8. It is the "machine for the million." Faris now writes he has succeeded with met- GREAT YIELD OF HONEY FROM FIRE- AM almost a beginner, having kept bees only 5 It I believe that we have a fine bee country here. There are thousands of acres of hard-wood timber, consisting of rock maple, soft maple, birch, beech, etc., etc. The clover very seldom winter-kills. In the spring the fields are yellow with dandelions, followed immediately by honeysuckle or white clover. But the greatest plant for honey is the fireweed, called, by some, mooseweed, bloodweed, etc. springs up the next year after a forest fire, and continues about 3 years, when another fire is needed to renew it. It grows from 4 to 7 feet high, and usually commences to blossom about the first of August, and continues in blossom 8 or 10 weeks. It bears a bright purple flower, and somewhat resembles In September I had occasion to visit a lake phlox. four miles from my place. The whole distance (after the first half-mile) lay through a perfect sea of purple flowers, with the honey glistening in the blossoms, and, in some cases, a drop hanging in the center of the blossoms. There were thousands of acres in one solid body, loaded with nectar, and only a few bees around the outer edges. The honey from this plant is a pure white, and has a fine flavor. I have sent some to the cities of Massachusetts, and it sells well, and my customers always praise it. I presume that this plant grows in all of the northern timbered States. Why has it not been mentioned among the great honey-plants? There are some beekeepers in the neighboring towns who are producing honey by tons; but bee culture is in its infancy E. TARR. here yet. Castle Hill, Aroostook Co., Me., Nov. 18, 1880. Well, I declare, friend T., I do not know but that we shall have to drop the Spider plant, and go for fireweed if that is the way it does every season. Your statement will, I fear, almost set some of the A B C class crazy. When I was in Michigan I saw some of the most beautiful white honey, and of what I should call a most exquisite flavor too, that was said to be fireweed honey. The woods were then full of it, but it had gone to seed, and I was under the impression that it had a white instead of purple blossom. Are there different varieties of fireweed? and what is the color of the blossom? Hurrah! Gray's Botany explains it all. The kind you speak of, friend T., is (hold your breath) Epilobium augustifolium. Don't you think it ought to bear honey? Give us some seeds. friend T., and don't think of monopolizing all those miles of honey away down there in Maine. Heads of Grain, From Different Fields. BLUE THISTLE; HOW TO RAISE THE INCE it has been shown that blue thistle is not a thistle at all (see p. 466, Oct. No. of last year), we may welcome it among our honey-plants. I had thought of calling it by another name; but as the present one, blue thistle, is in such general and widespread use, it would probably be a hard matter, should we undertake it. If sown in winter, sow in a small box, not larger than 8x10 inches, nor deeper than 6 inches. Fill even full with leaf mold and sand, mixed; then sow seed on top. On this, put inch of same mixture, and then with a board press down level, then moisten a little. On this, place a 10x12 glass to prevent moisture from escaping. In 4 or 5 days, the young plants will come up. Then remove glass, place box in a warm window, and as the plants grow, transplant to larger boxes; and when warm weather comes, set out in almost any kind of soil, and by the last of July you will see a fine lot of blossoming plants with plenty of bees on them. Berryville, Va., Nov. 29, 1880. J. L. BOWERS. CANDY-MAKING; A VALUABLE SUGGESTION. Allow a novice to make a suggestion relating to the formula for making candy for bees, in winter. Instead of mixing your sugar and flour with water, and boiling it, first mix sugar and water, and boil, as suggested in A B C. When done, take it off, and then, to the amount of flour that you wish, add just enough of the hot syrup to make a batter, with all the lumps worked out. Then pour this batter slowly into your syrup, and stir it vigorously; then pour. By this method all danger of scorching is avoided. Kirksville, Mo., Nov 27, 1880. I. D. PEARCE. BEES LEAVING THEIR HIVES IN COLD WEATHER. I have a very large swarm of Italians that are acting so strangely that I wish to ask you if you know what I can do to quiet them. About two weeks ago I noticed they were flying out. It was then so cold that they would drop into the snow within five or six feet of their hive, and they continued to do so right along through the last cold weather up to last Friday, when I fastened them in by nailing wire cloth over the entrance. They will now come down to the entrance and try to get out, and they will stay there until they die in great numbers of cold or hunger, I can't say which. They are in one of your chaff hives, with a cushion that fills the whole top. I laid this off for two or three days, thinking it might be too warm. It is now over them, with one of your wood mats lying loosely under it, the entrance is all open, and they are on eight frames, with one division-board on one side of them. Ravenna, O., Nov. 20, 1880. less the weather changes enough so you can FIFTEEN NEW SWARMS FROM ONE IN ONE SEASON; The queen you sent to J. J. Taylor came all right. My 154 stands of bees are doing well, and are still gathering some honey. I have not killed their drones yet. I had 85 swarms of bees come out from July 26th to August 27th. I extracted all the honey from all of my young swarms twice, and all are full now. The fore part of the season was bad. Bees gathered very little honey till September. Since then I have taken 3389 lbs., as nice as the nicest extracted. I find ready sale at 15c. I had one stand of bees last spring which sent out 3 swarms, In July they sent out 3 swarms. The 3 swarms that came out in the spring all swarmed 3 times apiece. That makes 15 swarms from one hive in one year, and all in good condition for winter; that is, if winter comes. Sometimes it don't come here. R. DEVENPort. Richland Spring, Tex., Nov. 15, 1880. BLOWING BEES OUT OF THE HONEY-BOXES. A bellows is the best thing that I ever tried or read of to get bees out of open-bottom boxes. By blowing in at one side, the reaction of the wind will bring them out at the other side in a stream. It is a well-known fact, that bees, if allowed to remain long on comb honey after it is taken from the hive, if there is no honey coming from the field, uncap a portion of it. Therefore, we should hasten to remove them. A bellows will do it quickly. My bellows is made of boards 11x14xs, rounded off and brought to a point at one end. F. C. WHITE. Euclid, Cuyahoga Co., O., Nov. 12, 1880. Quite an idea, friend W.; but will not our smokers answer just as well as a bellows made expressly? And do you think a stream of pure air better than smoke? I often blow bees from the sections with a smart puff of my breath; but it is apt to make one dizzy, to try to blow off a great many Italians. I presume we want a pretty good-sized bellows to make them git right fast." A GOOD REPORT FROM FLORIDA. As it is now Oct. 8, perhaps I had better hand in my report, although my bees have begun to gather quite fast in the last few days, and to-day they are fairly boiling out of some of my hives. So, here goes: Spring count, 14; increased to 40 by natural swarming and dividing, when they were about to swarm naturally; comb fdn. used, 0; extracted honey, 1900 lbs.; price obtained in Boston, $1.10 per gal.; price obtained in other parts of Massachusetts, 12c per lb. The parties who sold the honey said, in their returns. "Your honey is the finest that ever came to this market from the South, and the price obtained is from 15 to 200 higher per gal. than other honey is selling at here." I will also state, that if I had let The cushion is not too warm; in fact, I my bees do as they wished, I should have had at fear it is the opposite. Put some loose chaff least 20 swarms more; but as it took me 3 months to under the cushion so as to make all tight get a bill of lumber from Jacksonville, I could not above. I should be inclined to think the make hives for them, and so I kept them back from trouble comes from a sort of dysentery swarming. This has been an unusually poor year caused by unwholesome stores. When bees for bees and honey here, and many have got neither are so affected as to come out of their hives honey nor increase from their hives. I am still in cold weather, it is a pretty hard case, un-ahead, although the gale that wrecked the steam J. C. CONVERSE. ship Vera Cruz and several other vessels within a few miles of me, destroyed 14 swarms for me. The rest are doing well, and are in good shape for winter. The way the gale destroyed the bees was by blowing down two large pine-trees upon the hives, and crushing several of them. Then the rain drowned the bees, and, as I was away from home, the exposed honey set the rest to robbing, and I found a fine "kettle of fish" (no bees) when I got home. W. S. HART. Smyrna, Florida. Pretty well done, friend II. Over 135 lbs. to the hive, and the original number almost trebled. Perhaps we had better go to Florida, after all, and raise oranges and keep bees. BLACKS AND ITALIANS. I commenced the season with 4 colonies-3 blacks and one Italian. The Italians swarmed May 6th, and as they seemed very strong, I opened the hive and took two frames that had queen-cells on them, and, with the adhering bees, made a nucleus. This, I thought, would put an end to any after-swarming; but they swarmed again on the 19th, and filled the brood-nest full of honey, but refused to work in the boxes. The whole ten frames were solid sheets of honey, and they looked nice, for they were all full sheets of fdn., built out snooth and straight. I had no extractor, and so I took half of them away and gave them to the other swarms, and replaced them with frames filled with fdn. My black bees gave me 40 lbs. of surplus to each colony, and did not swarm. If this is the usual way of the Italians, I prefer the blacks. W. E. FLOWER. Shoemakerstown, Pa., Dec. 6, 1880. QUEENS BEING THROWN OUT OF THE HIVE IN COLD WEATHER. Immediately after the recent cold snap, two of my strongest colonies of bees, in box hives, threw out their queen. This is unaccountable to me. What is your theory? and what would you advise me to do in the case? They were very strong colonies, and had not been disturbed. A. M. DUNN. Rutland, Meigs Co., Ohio, Dec. 4, 1880. I would not do any thing at all, friend D. If I am not mistaken, it is only the old queen that is dead, and the young one remains in the hive. At any rate, you can do nothing now, except to mark the hives and wait until spring. When the weather is warm enough for them to fly, give them some brood and let them raise a queen, providing they have not one already. SHIPPING BEES FROM THE SOUTH, INSTEAD OF FEEDING THEM THROUGH THE WINTER. I apprehend there will be a good demand for bees next season if the winter holds out as it has begun. Many colonies will die from starvation-more than usual. There was no surplus honey in this (Kane) county this year, and many colonies have already starved. I brought 190 strong hives to this county last May from New Orleans for Perrine. When we got here, many of them were strong enough to swarm. We have received no surplus, and no swarms; in fact, they would not average 5 lbs. of honey in brood-chamber in October. Many have since starved, as Perrine would not feed them up for winter. We do not now expect to winter through a single colony. We do not care if they all die, as we can restock the combs next May with strong nuclei from the South at less expense than it would have cost to winter them in safety. I wanted to kill them all in October, and save the honey for spring: but Perrine did not instruct me to do so, for which he is now sorry. These bees are on a par with most of the bees in this county. Marvin, Oatman, Thompson, Way, etc., have fed largely, to keep their apiaries alive; but I doubt their being in good condition next year in time for the honey harvest. Marvin has fed 2500 lbs. of old extracted honey to one of his apiaries of 100 colonies; but it won't pay, as the honey is worth about as much as the hives, bees, combs, honey, and all. It would have paid him better had he killed the bees in October, and restocked next May, before fruit blossoms. N. M. BALDRIDGE. St. Charles, Illinois, Dec. 9, 1880. I presume our readers are well aware that friend Baldridge has had much experience in keeping bees, both in the North and South; and, although he makes some very good points, I do not believe we shall ever prosper by killing our bees after the honey season is over, with a view of buying more in the spring, shipped from the South. It is expensive and troublesome to feed back the honey, or even a substitute, I know; but I should not extract, and thus be obliged to feed back; that is, I should not unless it shall so happen that bees will die on natural stores so much faster than they do on stores of Friend Jones, as I have bepure sugar. fore mentioned, is very positive that it will pay to replace the honey with stores made from granulated sugar; and as reports are tery on natural stores this winter, it may be already coming in of bad losses from dysenwell to consider this matter. "Pussy WILLOW AS A HONEY-PLANT. The best variety for bees is what is called Willow." It is a shrub or bush, that grows about 8 or 10 feet high, and is covered with blossoms and bees early in spring. In fact, it is the very earliest thing that blooms. I have one near my bees, and it is interesting to see them at work on it. It natural ly grows in wet ground, but will grow in dry ground. My neighbor has one on very dry ground, as an ornamental bush. They can be propagated, simply by sticking cuttings in the ground. They can be furnished one year old for 10c apiece. I shall start a lot in spring. They can be sent by mail, including packing, 2 for 25c., and any one who has only one, can, after that, grow his own by the 100 or 1000. My bees gathered pollen this year, Feb. 26th. This is the earliest year yet. M. D. DU BOIS. Newburgh, Orange Co., N. Y., Dec. 7, 1880. QUEEN-CAGES FOR ANOTHER SEASON, ETC. We started in the spring of 1880 with 15 stocks of bees, and took 202 lbs. of comb honey, and 917 lbs. of extracted, making a total of 1119 lbs., and increased to 23 stocks, and all are in good order to go through the winter. We also raised 27 Italian queens. Our main source for honey is from the poplar-tree and white clover. The drought cut our clover crop short. Now, allow us to ask a few questions. Which is the best mailing queen-cage? Do you send bees by the pound by mail, or by express? When you ship a queen, do you leave the bees with just the wire cloth over them, or wrap the cage up? and when will you have your Bee-keeper's Diary and Account-book ready? We are waiting patiently for one. T. & C. DUVALL. Spencerville, Mont. Co., Md., Dec. 10, 1880. Which is the best queen cage? is just the question I would like to have answered. At present. I feel most favorably toward something like the McCord cage, pictured on p. 445, Sept. No. We may adopt the plan of letting the queens out, embodied in the Peet cage. Friend Martin's remarks in this No. in regard to it, so nearly coincide with my own experience, that I feel anxious to get as many reports as we can, before making cages for another season. Most assuredly, we can not send a pound of bees by mail. How long do you think the department would allow us even to send queens, should such a thing be attempted?-Cover the wire cloth, by all means. McCord's cage accomplishes this nicely.-The account-book will be out some time this winter. GRAPE SUGAR. I am thankful that there is such an article as grape sugar. My bees take it up rapidly out of the barrel as it came from the factory, or in a liquid state out of inverted glass jars, or candy, molded in wooden butter-plates, inverted over the bees on the frames in hives. I have no fear that feeding grape sugar to my bees will injure the sale of my honey. Du Page, Ills, May 18, 1880. S. ANGLEMIRE. THE FARIS MACHINE; WHITE WAX FOR STARTERS; can not get perfect impressions on both sides by P. S.-I forgot to say, that the sections came all right. I was a little disappointed when I found that you did not go as per order; but when I found that "Parker machine" away down in the middle of one of the boxes, and tried it, well, I wilted. I suppose you know better what we want than we know ourselves; you did in this case, any how. How much shall I send you for that Parker machine? Washington, Pa., Dcc. 11, 1880. LEROY VANKIRK. you will have to make a new pair. This is why (or, rather, the constant liability of the machine to give out) I have declined to offer them for sale. However, if each bee-keeper makes his own, and can set to work and fill his machine anew as often as a plate fails, I do not know but that it may do very well. Now a word in regard to nice sheets of fdn. for making these plates. As we have to take unusual care, to get the cells perfect. and have also to take extraordinary care in packing, we shall have to charge, hereafter, double ordinary prices for sheets wanted for making plaster casts.-Many thanks for your P. S., friend V. Once in a great while we have a customer who orders his sections grooved for fdn.; but as we know very well he is making a mistake, and the trouble of grooving them will be more than the cost of a Parker machine," we have been in the habit of putting them in without charge, as we did yours. A GOOD REPORT FROM BOX HIVES AND BLACK BEES, I started this spring with 56 swarms, all blacks, except 3 that were hybrids, and all in box hives except 4, and those were in such bad shape that there was only one whose frames I could remove. In June, 5 of my swarms proved to be queenless from some cause. Perhaps the cause was old age of queen. I transferred them into Simplicity hives, and had some difficulty in getting them to raise queens and build up, as there came on a honey dearth just at that time, and I had to feed the most of them through July, as I took about all the honey from them when transferred. I have had only 5 natural swarms this season, and one of them went to the woods. I have made one artificial swarm, so that I have 61 good swarms; 10 in Simplicity hives, and 51 in box hives. Those in the Simplicity have not made any surplus honey this year, as three of the natural swarms came in August. Honey all told this year, from new swarms and transferred, would be about 50 lbs. My 51 other hives have done better for me this year than the average, I think. I have taken 5600 lbs. of honey in 2-lb. sections from the 51 swarms. Two swarms in box hives, and black bees, made 250 lbs. of honey apiece in 2-lb. sections. How is that "for high," and black bees and box hives? I have sold almost all of it, and could sell 5 tons here if I had it, at 14 to 15c per lb.; of course, it is not a very large price, but it pays at that. I shall use the Simplicity hive after this. They are the best style of hive that I ever had, and I have tried a good many different kinds. I have had bees for 23 years, but never paid any attention to them until lately, of any amount. There has always been I think you are succeeding as well as any trouble in getting bees through the winter here, and body, friend V.; for, if you will recollect, II was in hopes that somebody would find some plan have never yet decided the Faris machine to be a success all around. There is this to console us, however: although the work does not look just as we would like to have it, it is used by the bees, so far as I can see, just about as well. White wax is not good; it is too hard. This has been fully demonstrated by many experiments. If the yellow is light colored and very thin, it makes so little difference in the appearance of the honey, that it is really no object to have white. When one of the Faris plates gives out, I presume that would work well without loss. I have always let my bees remain on the summer stands with surplus-honey boxes on, and the last two or three winters they have done well-hardly losing a swarm. They face the south, and are under sheds; and when the sun shines too warmly I put boards up before them, if it was not warm enough for them to get back to the hives. I shall pack them this winter in straw, but shall leave them on the stands. R. RATHBUN. Millington, Tuscola Co., Mich., Dec. 8, 1880. STINGS AND RHEUMATISM, I saw a notice of stings and rheumatism in your magazine. I have been stung less than 500 times; but before being stung, I suffered from rheumatism in my shoulder, and it has all gone, and I have thanked the bees for it. A bee-sting poisoned me frightfully, and, as a remedy, I find nothing so good to keep down the swelling and allay the inflammation as the brine of mackerel. Rub on quickly and freely. MRS. A. E. JORDAN. Redding, Ct., Nov. 25, 1880. 1 LEARNING TO MAKE BARRELS FROM A BOOK, ETC. I see, in Nov. GLEANINGS, that Mr. Isaac B. Rumford, of Bakersfield, Cal., thinks he might be able to gain sufficient knowledge from books to enable him to make barrels to hold his honey, if there was any work published on the subject of cooperage. I worked at the coopering business nearly forty years, and yet never heard of a book on the subject. The thing is entirely impracticable, any way. know from experience that the trade can not be learned from books. There have been instances where men have picked up sufficient skill to make what we call slack work, -potato, apple, or salt barrels; but to make a barrel to hold honey requires a first-class workman, and even then, about every other one will leak. He had better offer some good cooper an interest in his apiary, and get him to locate with him. I am not saying this, thinking he will make me an offer, for I have quit the trade, and am raising honey. I think Northern Iowa, take it one year with another, will compare with California as a honey country. I have not had what might be called a poor season in the last ten years. Brush Creek, Iowa, Nov. 9, 1880. B. F. LITTLE. Now, friend L., I do not want you to say too much against book learning, and making things without learning the trade; for, first you know, somebody will tell us of having made barrels that will hold honey, without being any cooper at all. I know it requires skill to make à barrel that won't leak without waxing, for I have had some trials with leaky Larrels. I have just stepped into the A B C class at the foot. There is no one below me, and of course I wish to make some advance. Toward the latter part of last September I received a hive of bees from A. W. Cheney, Orange, Mass., said to be Italians, and I presume they are. I think I can see three yellow bands, and that is all I know about it. I took the hive to pieces, according to his directions, which was no small job, every thing being spiked together with 12d nails, wherever there was a place to drive one in. I noticed that the combs were not very full, and one or two had no honey at all, and I thought they would likely be short of stores before spring; and, as you gave directions for feeding coffee A sugar syrup, I sent to you last month and got two feeders, and have given them about 12 lbs. The bees will carry in a pint in an hour. I selected the warm pleasant days to feed them in. Since I began, they have appeared more lively; and when I go about the hive they come around me and seem to say, "I would like some more of that nice syrup you gave us the other day." Now, right here I am brought to a stand. On page 535, Nov. No. of GLEANINGS, you say, in answer to a correspondent, that there is danger in feeding liquid food to a weak colony. I had not noticed that you had intimated anywhere in your directions that you have given that sugar syrup is dangerous; and I am not capable of judging whether you would call my colony weak. I shall not feed any more until I hear or see something in next number of GLEANINGS. To-day has been mild and pleasant, and at noon, when I went to dinner, of course I went out to see the bees. There were a great many coming home to the hive with loads of pollen; and Mrs. J. watched them some time after I went away to work, and she said that some had very large loads of deep orange color, and some others had different shades of yellow, and others had large loads that had the color of light beeswax. Where could they get it? and why did they want it now? I do not believe this is much of a honey country, but I am going to see if I can get a little. DANIEL H. JOHNSON. Danielsonville, Ct., Nov. 9, 1880. The pollen is all right, you are all right, the feed is all right, and the bees are all right, if I mistake not, friend J. Yes, and your wife is all right too, in taking the responsibility of watching and interesting herself in the bees when you are away. If I am correct, you fed it to them a little at a time, much in the way natural stores come in, and this can not very well do harm. think, from the account you give, and I Your colony is a pretty good one, I should guess friend C. was about right. It is much better to make a package of bees too strong than have it break to pieces and become a wreck on the way. SILVER-DRIP SYRUP FOR BEES, ETC. Please send me your price list. I don't know yet that I want any supplies for next season, but I must have something to read these long evenings. I have read the back numbers of GLEANINGS over and over; but too much of a good thing will sour on one's stomach, like the 12 gallons of silver-drip syrup my bees were on May-day. Last year I fed them on yellow coffee sugar. I had to be content last spring in seeing my bees carrying the granulated sugar out of the hive. I think of the sugar was lost in this way. If the silver-drip syrup does not granulate nor give bees the dysentery, I think it the next best thing to honey. I thin the syrup and fill a frame, and hang it behind the division-board. This I shall do in Sept. instead of Nov., as I have done this year. Get a few prickly ash for your honey farm, and report next fall. No. of stands, 27; in good condition, 10. If next year does not "pan out" better than the last three, look out and enlarge the Blasted Hopes department. LOUIS HOFSTATTER. Louisville, Ky., Nov. 24, 1880. Please report, friend II., in regard to how the syrup answers; and tell us, too, what it costs. I have never yet found a fine white syrup, like that made from granulated or coffee sugar, for instance, that could be bought as cheaply as we can buy the sugar and make it. If they have a pure syrup that won't granulate, it may be a good thing; but how do you know this syrup is not made from grape sugar? If such is the case, you can make it yourself, and save money, by the directions I give you in our catalogue. |