Chapter C: M. JOSLIN, M. D. St. Charles, Mich

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I examined several of my colonies the 20th of Jan. and found brood
in all stages, from the egg to the hatching bee. One stock with
brood on four combs. Lost none to date, though one hive has soiled
its combs considerably.

H. PEDEN, Mitchellville, Tenn.

From several similar items, we see it is nothing very unusual to find brood even in Jan., in the Southern and Middle states, whether this is desirable or not, we are unprepared to say.

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Many thanks friend “Novice” for the binder you sent me, I never
expected such a nice premium. We have every number of “GLEANINGS” in
its proper place in the binder, and let me tell every bee-keeper, to
get Emerson’s Binder for “GLEANINGS,” then they can preserve them
for their children’s children if they like. But “Novice” I never
said “confound it” if I could not just find the desired number of
GLEANINGS. No indeed! we always kept them in a drawer by themselves
so that we always knew just where to find them. (Teach us order and
precision and then ask such a question as per advertisement.)

“Novice” tells us to “have every comb built between one and the side
of the hive” in order to have them straight, but it won’t always
work unless the old combs have brood or sealed honey at the top. I
have had the old combs widened out so as to fill the whole space,
and nothing put in the empty frame at all. I believe this will
always happen if empty frames are inserted immediately after
extracting. The remedy is, use the Standard hive, move back the
division board just to give room for one frame at a time, move back
the combs till you come to the middle of the brood nest, insert the
empty frame there, and, Ho! you will have the whole frame nearly
filled, with nice worker comb, _and eggs too_ before morning
perhaps. This should only be done when the bees are gathering honey
nicely.

Ila Michener, Low Banks, Ont., Can.

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If it is only yourself that reads GLEANINGS, they might easily be kept nice “in a drawer,” but we confess that we felt rather flattered a short time since in visiting several bee friends, to find the last number at one place conveniently on a stand with a pair of spectacles laid on the pages to keep the place, and at another the number, (although it had only been out a week) looked as if some urchin had used it for a spelling book during a whole term at a country school. It certainly had been _used_, and we went our way rejoicing. Friend Ila is right about strait combs, and we thank him for the correction. But beware of spreading the brood combs however, before the weather is quite warm.

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Mr. D. Dubois, Newburg, Orange Co., N. Y., sends us an ingenious plan for a movable portico to be applied to any kind of a hive. It is made of two boards 4×11 inches, fastened together at the top like a letter A. Now imagine the horizontal cross bar on this letter, a button, with a screw through the centre to hold it up firmly to the hive, and you have it all. Each end of this button is made with a projection that enters a slot cut in each of the boards, but not quite through them. By boring a hole just above the button, we have an upper entrance, with the button for an alighting board; in the winter by turning this button perpendicularly, it closes the upper entrance. To keep the portico from slipping down, a nail is driven just underneath the peak. This allows us to make the upper and lower story just alike and yet have a portico _if any body wants one_. After testing hives with, and without, for two seasons past, we really cannot think it makes any difference either way with the honey crop. Our friend Dean says a portico encourages the bees in hanging out of doors, and he wants _his_ bees in the hive. Now if the spiders should persist in making a new web in these porticos every morning, as they sometimes do in ours, we can easily lift them off and put them away. Some will probably always prefer porticos, while others will not, as in other things.

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DEAR NOVICE:—Please say to the inquisitive ones, through
“GLEANINGS,” that the $34.45 mentioned on front cover of No. 6, Vol.
2, was the cost of the iron work mentioned in the same sentence, at
the factory.

That the saws, bolts, belting, and lumber ran the bill for materials
up to about $48.00.

That I put the machine together myself, without adding to the
figures.

That while the machine does do more accurate work, than I have ever
succeeded in having done, by more portentous machinery;
nevertheless, the idea of using human muscles, as the motive power,
for the amount of work that looms up, prospectively, in the
immediate future, does not correspond, very well, with the boasted
ingenuity of this age and nation.

Therefore I am preparing to “attach” a lever horse power to the
machine, by means of a belt thrown over a pulley, placed on the
driving shaft.

This winter, in these parts, would do no discredit, to an arctic
region. This morning the mercury fell to 40° below zero, and was
still going down, when I took it in out of the cold; because it had
reached (and in fact was a little below) the end of the graduated
scale, at 40°. The mercury in the cellar, of late, keeps vibrating
about, and near to the freezing point. Bees quiet.