526 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



I want plenty, yes, plenty of honey and pollen in the hives early in 

 the spring so the bees never feel skimped. I want them to feel as Brother 

 Doolittle says, "millions of honey at our house," and brood rearing can 

 go on unhindered, and replenish the hive with young bees just as soon 

 as possible to take the place of the old ones that die off. If brood rearing 

 is hindered early in the spring the results are a lot of weak colonies. The 

 old bees will die and they die mighty fast in the spring too. It takes 

 bees to make honey and also honey to make bees. If your colony hasn't 

 got the honey give it to them if you ever hope to get any surplus. Do 

 not kill the goose that lays the golden egg. 



Beekeeping is made up of little details and the beekeeper who pays 

 attention to the little details at the proper time is the man who gets a 

 crop of honey if there is any to get. 



FIFTY YEARS OF BEEKEEPING IN IOWA. 



EDWARD KEETCHMEE, COUNCIL BLUFFS. 



I hastily w-ill give a few reminiscences on the subject assigned me, 

 namely — "Fifty Years of Beekeeping in Iowa." In order to make the mat- 

 ter a little more complete, I have to go back to the year of 1860 when Mr. 

 Parson of Flushing, Long Island, brought the first Italian bees to the 

 United States. It was in the fall of that year when I obtained the first 

 queen of Italian bees that crossed the Mississippi, and as such the first 

 Italian bees in the state of Iowa. 



From this queen, several queens w^ere raised the next year until the 

 writer entered the service of the United States, and during his absence, 

 his father sold the original colony to W. H. Furman of Cedar Rapids, 

 Iowa, who then owned the patent for the Langstroth hive for the state 

 of Iowa. On my return from the service I again purchased a colony of 

 Italian bees from Mr. Furman, and again entered actively into beekeep- 

 ing in the state of Iowa. 



During the Iowa State Fair the writer showed to a vendor of so-called 

 bee charmer that bees could be handled with a little smoke, creating quite 

 a sensation on the fair ground, which was exaggerated by newspaper re- 

 porters, resulting, however, in numerous inquiries as to his manner of 

 handling bees, and was soon followed by a demand and description of his 

 hive. 



In order to more fully outline my method of handling, I wrote a small 

 pamphlet entitled "Winke fur Bienen Zuchter," followed by an English 

 edition "Intimation to Beekeepers," followed by "The Beekeepers' Guide," 

 a small volume of 244 pages, and two years later another book entitled 

 "The American Beekeepers' Guide," of a slightly larger edition. 



About that time much was said about the Langstroth frame being too 

 shallow for our Iowa climate, and to settle this question a number of the 

 enthusiastic beekeepers met in Des Moines, at which meeting there were 



