292 ^he Honey Bee. [July, 



chaser, would be absorbed. This is the last and greatest swindle in 

 the bee business we have seen. The agent informed us, that he sold 

 in one year in this single State of Ohio, seventy-five thousand rights. 

 Wc make a discount of one half for its being something of a Black 

 Crow Story ; then, at five dollars a right, which was but half his 

 price, it would amount to over one hundred and eighty thousand 

 dollars — a profitable business still ! 



The last we heard of this agent, he was doing a land office busi- 

 ness in the State of Michigan. He may with the tide westward 

 have reached Iowa, or Wisconsin by this time. But further; this 

 whole process of making honey was complete; if you wanted to 

 make your honey fragrant and give it a fine aroma, add to your feed 

 a little vanilla or rose, or strawbery essence to suit the taste. This 

 is no fancy sketch, but a simple detail of what has been palmed off, 

 as profitable, on the subject of bee-feeding. There is a valuable 

 lesson connected with it all, to the skilful Apiarian. There is econ- 

 omy in feeding your bees in July, August, and September, on cheap 

 feed, prepared as recommended by the hero alluded to. You thus 

 prepare your weak swarms for winter, removing also your stored 

 honey, you can supply its place to your strong swarms if needed 

 with a less expensive article. They should be fed again a little in 

 the spring while it is yet too cold for the bees to leave the hive. It 

 greatly encourages and strengthens them. This feeding must be 

 done with care in the fall ; least you induce a spirit of plunder 

 among the bees. 



What of patent hives? Will not some of our patent hives 

 greatly aid in making this business profitable ? It will make it pro- 

 fitable to the mechanic. We have tried some sixteen difi"erent pat- 

 ents about with equal success, varying just in proportion to their 

 departures from simplicity; the simplest being uniformly the best; 

 and we now frankly say, we believe the old straw hive or hollow log 

 is as good as any of them, with but a single exception. The glass 

 in the rear of most of our patent hives enables us to discover more 

 readily the condition of a hive. Perhaps more has been said and 

 written upon patent bee hives of late years, than on any improve- 

 ment in agriculture, and certainly to as little purpose. And after 

 all that luis been done in England, France and America, the bee is 

 more successfully cultivated, and finer honey produced in Poland, 

 by persons who never saw a book on the subject, or heard of a pat- 

 ent hive, or know the difference between a queen or drone, or the 



