It seems some of the other sex are determined to have the “last word” in regard to bee stings; a privilege we accord them with all the good will imaginable, after we have mentioned for the benefit of beginners, that no matter how distressing are the symptoms at first, they will very soon get inured to the poison, and finally, no swelling will ensue at all.
This is the month for feeding the rye and oat meal, with most of our readers. Put in shallow boxes out of the wind, but in the sun as much as possible. Here is a chance for you to exercise your ingenuity in so arranging a glass sash, as to secure these conditions, and yet not trouble the bees by having them bump against the glass by mistake. If they don’t notice the meal, as some complain they will not, start them by giving a piece of comb honey laid in the midst of the meal; get a few bees on the comb from several hives until they have got a taste, if you cannot start them otherwise. When they begin on natural pollen they will take little notice of the meal. Equal parts of oats and rye ground fine seems to please our bees best.
We are very sorry indeed to be obliged to say that we think “Money in the Apiary” by H. A. Burch, by no means worth the price (25c.) asked for it. The more so as our relations with Mr. B. of late have been of the most friendly nature, and he has uniformly spoken well of Gleanings. The book is entirely too small, containing only about one-fourth the matter of a single number of any one of our Bee Journals. King’s Bee-Keeper’s Text book, only costs 15c. more, and yet it is a work of 140 pages, condensed, and to the point, alphabetically indexed, etc. etc. Money in the Apiary contains less than 20 pages, less in size, and some of it unimportant matter at that. We advertised the work without seeing it which we regret, but it would be unkind, and do no good now to find fault with what is past; shall we not rather consider a remedy that will do justice all around? Our advice would be that Mr. Burch give his patrons four just such pamphlets, for the 25c. he has received, and make it a quarterly. If he will do this, we will give him a standing advertisement gratis.
Feb. 24th.—All three of the hives, that we are wintering out-doors, have come through so far in good condition so far as bees are concerned, although they spot their hives and the ground badly. The hive bro’t from a distance worst of all; the one prepared with woolen by Miss A., next, and the Standard hive best of all. The latter stands just where, and just as it did when we left off extracting, has had no preparation nor tinkering, and is all in complete trim to extract again, so soon as its 20 combs are filled. Could we be sure of making a whole Apiary winter like this one, we should feel quite relieved, even if we were obliged to put two fair colonies into every hive to do it. The Queen has just commenced laying. We were agreeably surprised to find that almost every bee from these three safely regained their hives, while those in the forcing house, collect in masses on the glass, get nearly all of them into one hive, and seem in a fair way at present to become utterly demoralized, although they have reared quite a patch of brood during this month in some of the hives. Will others using the cold frames, please send us minute reports? Even though our own now looks discouraging, we are going to give it a careful test to the best of our ability, clear through.