SEVENTH ANNITAL YEAR BOOK-PART X. 585 



existence. Many of us understand the advantage we receive, by keeping 

 a few colonies of bees in easy range of our orchards. And they furnish 

 us with the important food honey, some species being semi-domesticated 

 for the purpose of malting it in large and manageable quantities for man's 

 benefit. Our description will therefore apply more especially to the com- 

 mon or well known specie, the honey-bee, which is the one particularly 

 prized on account of the rich product it affords. The honey-bees begin 

 their search for honey with the opening of the first blossom in the spring 

 and do not cease It until the withering of the last blossom in the fall 

 compels the insect to go into winter quarters. It is their habit to de- 

 vote their researches to a single sort of flower as long as it serves their 

 purpose, each individual searching after blossoms of the same kind in- 

 stead of searching flowers discriminately and to this habit is due the 

 great service they accomplish in cross fertilization. The honey-bee is 

 supposed to be of Asiatic origin and was found at the eastern end of the 

 Mediterranean sea in a partially domesticated state at the early dawn 

 of history, and the bee keepers of Egypt, Syria and Greece practiced many 

 of the arts used at the present time. 



Bee keeping traveled into Europe with the Roman civilization and 

 came to America with the early colonies. Several races have been de- 

 veloped in the course of this long history of semi-domestication and the 

 best of them have long ago reached the United States. 



Bee keeping is not only a source of pleasure, but is interesting and 

 profitable as well, and we find that a great many people are drawing 

 a large income from this source every season. 



The instinct and social economy of the honey-bee, having been studied 

 with great attention both in ancient and modern times, and discoveries 

 that which perhaps nature presents nothing more Interesting and won- 

 derful, have rewarded the patient observer. Apiarian societies have been 

 formed, books and papers have been published for the purpose of prose- 

 cuting this single branch of natural history and for promoting apricultive 

 ■or the economical keeping of bees, and to these largely we owe our 

 knowledge of the culture of bees. 



I do not think it necessary to enter largely into the subject of apri- 

 culture or the management of bees in this paper for the want of space 

 and for the reason that but few people in this community are inter- 

 ested in the culture of bees or have any desire to engage in bee keeping. 

 I will only give a short explanation of the modern, human and scientific 

 system of bee keeping, which today supersedes the ignorance and cruelty 

 of past ages and give a few of the best points to new beginners in get- 

 ting properly started. 



I do not advise anyone without experience to start with more than 

 two or three colonies, for it might be all that would be of any profit to 

 them. They can be moved at any time of the year except in very cold 

 weather. Select a location which is high and dry, that is a place par- 

 tially shaded by trees during the heated part of the summer, place the 

 hives to the south or east upon stands four or six inches high; see that 

 they are level crosswise and a little lower in front to keep out the 

 water and be particular to choose a place well protected from hgih winds, 

 as it is very essential in this community. In taking them from their 



