40 



THE AMERICAN BEE J0L1<«AC. 



Jan. 21, 1904. 



scales, and if the weight is not up to my requirement I 

 mark the weight on a slip of paper, which is put under the 

 brick on top of the hive. I also mark it down on a sheet 

 of paper opposite the number of the hive. When I did the 

 last extractiug- I set aside a sufficient number of full combs 

 for feeding, and I now go over the hives and give those 

 that are short in weight, in these combs, sufficient honey to 

 bring them safely through the winter. After this is done I' 

 lay a Hill's device of my own construction— I call it a bridge 

 — over the center of the frames. These bridges are made 

 out of 6 pieces of plastering lath, each about 10 inches long, 

 by laying two pieces fiat down parallel to each other about 6 

 inches apart, and nailing the other four pieces across, with 

 their ends flat on the first ones about ^4 of an inch apart. 

 I then put an empty section-super on the hive, cover over 

 the bridge a piece of cotton sheeting, or any other cheap 

 material. This piece of sheeting is of a size to cover the 

 bridge fully and the frames in the hive. On this sheet I 

 lay a cushion made out of an oats sack filled with leaves 

 or corn-husks. I now place the winter cover over the hive, 

 and the bees are safe for winter. 



I have some winter-cases which I bought from supply- 

 dealers, which I put together carefully, puttied them up 

 and painted them, but the covers soon cracked and leaked. 

 I then covced them with tar-paper, and since then I have no 

 more winter-cases. I now make winter-cases usually out of 

 empty shoe-boxes, which are made of thin, light, matched 

 lumber, and which I can buy at a low price from shoe- 

 stores. I make them of a size to fit easily over the hives, 

 and to cover them down to about an inch from the bottom- 

 board. I cover the top case with tar-paper. If these cases 

 are handled carefully, and are stored away during the sum- 

 mer, the paper will last for years. 



My reason for placing a piece of sheeting over the 

 frames before I put the cushion on is this : The sheeting 

 prevents the bees from gluing the cushion to the bridge and 

 frames. If I wish, for some reason, to lift out the cushion I 

 can do this without disturbing the bees. 



When there is a nice, sunny day in winter I go through 

 the apiary, lift the winter-cases off the hives, and let the 

 sun shine on the cushion. It will dry out any dampness 

 which may have accumulated in the hive, and if I desire to 

 turn the cushion I can do it. 



Last year Host a few colonies by mice eating the honey 

 out of the hives. I had been away from home, and during 

 this time the mice did the mischief without being noticed. 

 To prevent a recurrence of this, I am going to put entrance- 

 guards on all the hives this fall. 



I have noticed complaints in the bee-papers about leaky 

 hive-covers. For winter covers I have found the tar-paper 

 to be very satisfactory, it being also inexpensive. 



My colonies are all very strong this fall, as I succeeded 

 in preventing swarming this year, but I have had in other 

 years some very weak colonies, and have wintered them 

 successfully in the above-described manner. 



St. Louis Co.. Mo., Nov. 16. 



I Our Bee-Hcepins Sisters j 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson. Marengo, 111. 



The Smoking Habit Among- Bee-Keepers. 



In the Progressive Bee-Keeper is found the following 

 aragraph written by Somnambulist : 



" G. C. Greiner says : ' I am not a very heavy smoker, 

 but when I expect a very hot time I always light it, and lay 

 it in a great measure to my pipe (md gentle treatment) that 

 I can handle my bees almost entirely without a veil, and 

 mittens I never use.' Small comfort this to most lady bee- 

 keepers." 



Now, Somnambulist, I must enter a mild protest. When 

 you say, "Small comfort to ntosi lady bee-keepers," that's 

 a pretty strong insinuation that at least some of them use 

 the nasty weed. Is there a single lady beekeeper in the 

 circle of your acquaintance that does ? Did you ever hear 

 of one ? I didn't. 



Furthermore, your saying it is small comfort to most of 

 the lady bee-keepers sounds too much like saying it will be 



large comfort to most of the geniletnen bee-keepers. Please 

 call up in your imagination a procession of gentlemen bee- 

 keepers and see how many of them are given to the tobacco 

 habit I Don't you know that at conventions of bee-keepers 

 it has been a very noticeable thing, during the recesses, 

 that scarcely a man of them was ever seen smoking ? I'm 

 pretty sure you don't smoke yourself, for if you did you 

 might set the house on fire some night when sleep-walking 1 

 Besides, I don't believe a man with a pipe in his mouth 

 would always write in so clean and interesting a manner as 

 you do. 



A Hard-Working Sister in Oregon. 



I have no bee-keeping sisters in this neighborhood, and 

 it is only through the " Sisters' corner " that I find what 

 other women are doing with bees. I could tell Sarah J. 

 Griffith (page 680) that I, too, make hives — in fact, my 

 hands are more used to the kind of work she describes than 

 they are to the use of the pen, as you no doubt can see. 

 Although I have only about 30 colonies of bees, I do all the 

 work about them myself. As I am in a little out-of-the-way 

 place in the mountains, it is not always easy to obtain bee- 

 supplies. I usually get good crops of honey, which is never 

 sold for less than 12'2 cents per pound ; frequently it brings 

 IS cents. The past season was the poorest for honey that I 

 have known since I kept bees, which has been about IS 

 years. Mrs. R. M. Hornbr. 



Marion Co., Oreg., Dec. 6. 



"Peddling Out" Wives Among Arizona Bee- 

 Keepers. 



On page 12, Mr. Hadsell seems to object to what is said 

 on page 746 about wives being " peddled out " to Arizona 

 bee-keepers, and Mr. York lays upon me the responsibility of 

 the suggestion. It doesn't belong here, Mr. York. I merely 

 christened the suggestion — and I pass along the responsi- 

 bility to where it properly belongs — to the man who wrote 

 that clippling on page 746, where he says : "J. Few Brown 

 is asked to send a car-load of Virginia wives to the bachelor 

 bee-farmers of Arizona." If that doesn't suggest "ped- 

 dling out," I don't know what would. 



It was to that clipping that I referred, and not to what 

 Mr. Hadsell says on page 12, which is quite another matter, 

 and of which I knew nothing. What he says is all right, 

 unless it be in the last paragraph, which is open to more 

 than one interpretation. If Mr. Hadsell's wife was an old 

 acquaintance, and followed from Pennsylvania the man 

 who was too busy to come back after her, she did entirely 

 right. All honor to the girl who has grit enough to follow 

 to the ends of the earth the man whom she loves ! But if 

 she went all the way to Arizona to marry a man whom she 

 did not previously know — well, I've already said all I need 

 to on that score. 



I must also enter a protest against the Editor's foot- 

 note, if he means that an Eastern girl " might do well " to go 

 to Arizona to marry an unknown man. But I don't believe 

 he means that; that"A"«a/ trip " rather infers that the 

 man had thought enough of her to make one or tyro previous 

 trips her way. 



[We — we — we — that is, we — some of us — we — we — got 

 hit pretty hard by Miss Wilson, didn't we, Mr. Hadsell ? 

 We " might do well " now to turn this whole subject over to 

 "Our Homes" department of Gleanings in Bee-Culture, 

 and let A. I. Root " figure it out," and may be he can get 

 the right answer to it. As Mr. Hadsell and the writer are 

 not at all interested in getting married (and Miss Wilson, 

 herself, has persistently stood out against it for — well, some 

 decades 1), perhaps we'd better let the Eastern bachelor 

 girls do the hunting themselves for the Western bachelor 

 bee-keepers, if they want them for husbands. Or, if the 

 latter want any of the former, why in Grand Canyon don't 

 they take a trip to the East in the winter-time and help 

 themselves— to what is " left " down there ?— Editor.] 



Amerikanische Bienenzucht, by Hans Buschbauer, is 

 a bee-keeper's handbook of 138 pages, which is just what 

 our German friends will want. It is fully illustrated, and 

 neatly bound in cloth. Price, postpaid, $1.00 ; or with the 

 American Bee Journal one year — both for S1.7S. Address 

 all orders to this office. 



