1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



19 



W^IIY FRIEXn TOHNSON'^ BEES DIDN'T 

 " PAY." 



iRIENl) IirTCIIINSOX makessoffOPcl 

 a point in the followin ;, we copy it en- 

 tire from the Bcc- Keepers'' Exchange: — 



My queen-reariug- nuclei were all unitcfl, every 

 colony was ready tor winter, and I was in the shop 

 "putting- things to rig-hts" when there came a rap 

 at the door. Upon opening the door I found stand- 

 ing there a gentleman past middle age; at the gate 

 stood his horse and carriage. He introduced him- 

 self as Mr. Johnson, of Forest, and said,— 



" I saw in the Tdcgntm your bee-keeping account 

 for the year. I have kept bees several years, have 

 tried to manage them upon the most approved plans; 

 but, for some reason, I have never made any such 

 profits as arc shown bv your account. I have driven 

 over here purposely to see you and talk with you, 

 and see if I could learn where I have made my mis- 

 takes." 



'• I may not be able to point out your mistakes, but 

 I should be glad to hear how you have managed your 

 bees." 



"Well, now, see here: if you are not Loo busy, just 

 get into my carriage, and in less than an hour 1 will 

 set you down at my place; and then I wish you to 

 criticise every bee-keeping arrangement that you 

 sec." 



" fn the honey season it would be dilficult to grant 

 such a request: but at present I can leave for an 

 hour's ride and a lengthy bee-chat, without fpeling 

 that my absence may cause a loss of several dollars." 



I stepped over to the house and told the "folks" 

 that I should be gone two or three hours, over to 

 Mr. Johnson's. When I came back to the gate, Mr. 

 J. had the horse untied and turned around. 1 climbed 

 into the conveyance, and we were off. How I did en- 

 .ioy that ride! The forests were dressed in their 

 gorgeous October robes: maples, with wide-spread- 

 ing tops, standing alone in some field, would exhibit 

 several colors — bright green, rod, yellow, and brown ; 

 and, again, the eye would take in at a glance some 

 distant piece of woods with its masses of chromatic 

 coloring. I was roused from my reveries by the 

 sight of several rows of brightly painted bee-iiives. 

 The paint was put on in several different styles, and 

 exhibited almost as many tints as the maples that I 

 had just been admiring. 



" And so this is you>' apiary, is it. friend Johnson? 

 and pray tell me what was the cost of those fancy 

 iron handles that adorn the sides of your hives?" 



You ought to have seen the looks that he e-ave me. 

 Evidently he thought it a strange question with 

 which to " lead off," but he finally managed to say 

 that they cost him five cents each. 



"Two handles on each hive? " said T. 



"Yes." 



"Ten cents for each hive. How manv hives have 

 vou?" 



"Sixty." 



"Six dollars f.ir handles. There is where some of 

 your profits went." 



"Yes: but it would be very inconvenient lifting 

 hives with no handles." 



"Certainly; but slots cut with a wabbling saw in 

 the sides of the hives would be just as (rood, and 

 they could be made quicker than you could put on 

 those handles." 



"But I have no saw as you have, with which to do 

 such work." 



"Well, wooden handles, nailed on, would have 

 been less expensive." 



"But they would not have looked so well." 



"Now see here, friend Johnson; if you are keep- 

 ing bees for the fun of it, and have plenty of money 

 to spare, you can indulge in fancy and expensive 

 hives and fixtures, the same as some amateur poul- 

 try-men hoxise their fancy chickens at an expense 

 of ?5.00 per head; but if you arc in the business to 

 make money, the cheaper your hives and imple- 

 ments, provided they are durable and well adapted 

 to the purpose for which they are designed, the 

 greater will be .your pnilits. Bvthe way, what is 

 that running down, or. rather, that has been run- 

 ning down, upon that lumber pile?" 



"That, which has drained out of that box up 

 there? Why, that must be beeswax. I set some 

 cappings up there a month or two ago, for the bees 

 to clean up, and the sun must have melted the wax." 



"That will make your beeswax crop a little short, 

 this year." 



"Oh! I have so little wax that I don't bother with 

 it." 



"How many colonics did you have last spring?" 



"Thirty." 



"Well, I started with eighteen. I saved all the 

 odds and ends of comb when transferring, also the 

 cappings, and how much wax do you suppose 1 

 had?" 



"Ten or twelve pounds, perhaps." 



" I had twenty-five pounds. Now, if you bad saved 

 all of the (jappings and pieces of comb, and melted 

 them up into wax, you would probably have had as 

 much wax as I did, and there would have been $0.00 

 more to put with your profits. Saving beeswa.x is 

 something like saving paper rags; it is just about 

 as easy to save, by throwing the odds and ends into 

 a box, as it is to throw them away. How much hon- 

 ey did you have this year?" 



"About seven hundred pounds." 



"Comb, or extracted?" 



" Mostly extracted." 



"And you have only doubled the number of your 

 stocks. You must have made some bad move." 



"Yes; and I can tell now what that bad move was; 

 it was the selling of my queens early in the season." 



" What do you mean?" 



"Well, 1 thought I would try the Holy-Land bees, 

 and so I bought a queen early in the spring, started 

 a lot of queen-cells from the eggs, and then as the 

 demand for queens was good, 1 sold nearly all my 

 old queens, and furnished the queenless hives with 

 queen-cell->. The bees destroyed some of the cells, 

 some queens were lost, and those that, became fer- 

 tile did not lay tintil they were more than two weeks 

 old. I think, "taking it upon an aver.age, that nearly 

 every hive was queenless three weeks, in the fore 

 part of Juno." 



"That explains it. Even 'Blessed Bees,' that 

 somewhat unfairly criticised book, could have told 

 you better than tliat. You should have had your 

 queens fertilized, and commence laying in nuclei, 

 before disposing of your old queens. Whv did you 

 get the Holy-Land bees; did you think of rearing 

 queens for sale?" 



"Yes; I thought thoy were going to be all the 

 'rnge,' and that I had better secure them at once." 



" Do you hatch your queens in a lamp nursery?" 



"Yes; 1 have a nursery, but have never used it 

 verv much. Come in the shop and see it." 



The nursery was made of galvanized iron, and was 

 fastened inside of a tall box that was also made of 

 galvanized iron. There were four drawers made of 

 perforated tin and glass. These ilrawers were divid- 

 ed into compartments, each compartment being 

 furnished with a cunningly contrived door. These 

 drawers and ditferent apartments were to enable 

 the queen-breeder to hatch queens in separate 

 apartments, as mentioned in "Bee Chat No. (i." 



" You have a nice nursery, friend Johnson, but 

 there is no place in which to hang frames; your 

 queen-cells all have to bo cut out, don't they?" 



" Yes." 



"Well, there is another question; how much did it 

 cost?" 



" I had it made to order at a tin shop, and they 

 charged me $24.50." 



"Twenty-foiu" dollars and fifty cents! Well, there 

 are at least .$20.00 that might just as well have been 

 placed upon the profit side of your bee-keeping ac- 

 coinit. My nursery is simply a tin hive, with double 

 walls, and a tinner made it for two dollars. It is 

 placed in the top of a tall wooden box, and is heated 

 by a tin non-explosive lamp. One trouble with you, 

 friend Johnson, is that you have been getting too 

 manj' expensive (and in some cases useless) im- 

 provements. What you paid for your nursery would 

 have nearly paid for a foot-power saw, and it would 

 have been of more use to you than this lamp nursery 

 has ever been. AVhat arc those hives piled up there 

 back of the barn, as hich as a man can reach?" 



"Oh! those are the different kinds of hives that I 

 have tried." 



"There are more than a hundred hives, and at 

 least four different styles. How mucSi dead capital 

 do you suppose is represented by that pile of hives? 

 and, if I am not mistaken, there is another new style 

 of hive there upon the work-bench." 



"Yes; but that one will take the same size frame 

 that I am now using." 



" All right, then. I have had three different styles 

 of hives in my apiary at the same time, but the.v all 

 had the same kind of frame. Did you notice that 

 hive standing near the path, by the gate?" 



"The one made of lath, with a shingle cover?" 



