230 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 11, 1901. 



I Contributed Articles. | 



No. 2.— Practical Lessons for Beginners in Bee- 

 Cuiture. 



BV J. D. GEHRIXG. 

 Contioued from pa^e Wl.) 



AT the dinner table my wife past the honey to Mr. 

 Bond, saj'ing- as she did so : " Honey is almost as in- 

 dispensable at our table as butter, Mr. Bond. We use 

 it at the rate of a pound per day the year thru. My hus- 

 band thinks it is both food and medicine. Our children all 

 like it, and grow fat on it. I presume you are a bee-keeper, 

 too, Mr. Bond," she concluded, looking at him for his an- 

 swer as she spoke. Mr. Bond, however, lookt at me when 

 he answered and said : 



"I guess Mrs. Gehring thinks because you have enter- 

 tained me in the honey-house I must belong to the bee-keeper 

 fraternity ; but I am quite sure that if she had seen me 

 when I was running into her cellar with several hundred 

 bees after me. she wouldn't have made such a bad guess." 

 Then, turning to my wife he continued : 



" Mrs. Gehring, if you had askt about the matter before 

 10 o'clock this morning I would have said yes. But I am 

 now of the opinion that I am only a keeper of bees, not a 

 bee-keeper. But I am going to take lessons of your hus- 

 band. He convinced me this morning that I have a lot to 

 learn. The fact is, I never knew until to-day that there is 

 such a creature as a queen-bee. I inherited most of the 

 bees I have on my farm from my father, and I guess he 

 knew no more than I did this morning about bees, for I 

 remember hearing him mention the ' king-bee,' but never 

 the queen-bee, of the hive. He had some very queer 

 notions about bees, as the Pennsylvania Dutch all have — 

 and I never knew one that didn't keep a colony or more. 

 You may have heard about their superstitious notion that 

 when any one dies in the family all the bees will die, too, 

 unless some one goes out at midnight and whispers the sad 

 news to each hive." 



" How many colonies of bees have )'ou now, Mr. Bond ?" 

 I inquired. 



••There are some 45 or more. They are not all in one 

 place, like yours, so I can't tell exactly how many there 

 are. You see, I have always been in the habit of leaving 

 them just where I found the swarm when I hived it. My 

 hives are all the old style that my father us^— square boxes 

 with cross-sticks in them." 



After rfinner Mr. Bond returned with me to the honey- 

 house, and, at his request, I took him to the honey-room 

 and showed him my 1,600 pounds of honey, all in one-pound 

 sections, and packt in cases ready for the market. After a 

 minute's contemplation of the stack of white boxes, Mr. 

 Bond exclaimed: "Never, in all my life, have I seen so 

 much beautiful sweetness 1" 



Returning to my work-room, Mr. Bond turned to me, 

 before he sat down, and said : 



•' Now, then, Mr. Gehring, will you please tell me, as 

 briefly and plainly as you can, how you manage to get at 

 the rate of 100 pounds of honey to the colony, and inside of 

 30 days' time ?" 



"lean tell you plainly enough how it is done," I re- 

 plied, " but I fear I am not equal to the task of telling it 

 very briefly. It is quite a lengthy and complicated story. 

 Mr. Bond. The best way will be, I think, to take one hive 

 as an object-lesson, and illustrate the whole story as I go 

 along. To do that, however, it will be necessary for you to 

 go with me to the spot where the hive stands, so that I can 

 explain everything to your eyes, as well as to your ears. 

 What do you say to my plan, Mr. Bond ?" 



Mr. Bond did not reply as promptly as I had expected 

 he would, having in mind his manifest enthusiasm. He 

 lookt meditatively at the floor between his feet, twirling 

 his straw hat slowly with his right hand, while with his left 

 he gently stroked his nose, which, by the way, had not 

 quite regained its normal size and color. At last he lookt 

 up and said : 



" Your plan is no doubt all right so far as you are con- 

 cerned ; but it looks a leedle bit risky-like for me. You see, 

 I can't quite forget my little unpleasantness with your ' well- 

 behaved bees' this morning." 



"I can't blame you for that, Mr. Bond," I replied. 

 "But I shall fit you out with a bee-knight armor that 

 thoroly protects your face. Your hands you can put into 

 your pockets, if any attack is made on them." Saying this 

 I procured from a small closet two bee-veils and a Bingham 

 bee-smoker, and, handing one of the veils to him, I said : 



"The right kind of a bee-veil is a valuable article to 

 any person who has to handle bees under all sorts of cir- 

 cumstances. This is my own invention, tho not patented. 

 I have seen some that are patented that I wouldn't have as 

 a gift. This one, you see, is a very simple afl'air, not much 

 larger in bulk than a cotton handkerchief. I will tell you 

 how to make one like it, then you can get the material 

 before you go home, and show your wife how to make one : 



"Take half a yard of cheese-cloth and double it length- 

 wise. Sew up the open side about halfway. Cut the other 

 side open to correspond with the length left open. Hem or 

 bind the raw edges. Insert a rubber-cord into the end 

 intended for the top, short enough to fit tightly around the 

 crown of your hat, like a pucker-string. Now take a piece 

 of silk bobbinet large enough to reach from the middle of 

 your forehead to your chin, and from one ear to the other, 

 and insert it in a square hole in the front of the upper end 

 of your cheese-cloth sack in such a way that when the veil 

 is in place the little silk veil is directly in front of your 

 face. The open end of the veil — as the whole contrivance 

 is now called — is carefuU)' tuckt inside j'our vest, or your 

 coat when you wear one — which is then buttoned up, and — 

 there you are I Your hat-rim should not be very wide, of 

 course, unless you make the veil a little longer than I have 

 described. The meshes of the silk bobbinet should be rather 

 fine, but not too close to obstruct your vision. 



" Now, when you call for this bobbinet stuff at the store 

 the clerk will possibly tell you that the cotton kind will do 

 just as well, and is cheaper. But, let me caution you, never 

 allow any one to induce you to take anything but just what 

 I have told you. If you ever do, you will find out why I 

 have warned 3-0U, without my telling it now. 



" Now," I continued, " I will start this little machine 

 we call a smoker, and then we are ready for business. Let 

 me show you how to manage the thing properly, Mr. Bond. 

 First, you see, I remove the end, or nozzle, taking care not 

 to let the circular screen fire-guard drop out as I do so. 

 Next, I take a cotton or an old linen rag, light it with a 

 match and drop it to the bottom of the cylinder. Then I 

 carefully drop in some more rags, gradually filling the 

 smoker, but rather looselj-. so that the fire is not extin- 

 guisht. I leave the smoker standing nozzle-end upward all . 

 this time, you see, because in that position it acts like a 

 chimney. When it is full and well started I replace the 

 nozzle, put a handful of fuel-rags in my coat-pocket, take 

 the smoker and give it a few gentle puffs, and off we go." 



On the way to the hive I said to Mr. Bond : " All the 

 bee-books in use recommend the use of broken corn-cobs or 

 punk wood as smoker-fuel. But I don't like either. Both 

 are liable to become damp, and they are not as easy to start 

 as rags are. Besides, when they once get under full head- 

 way in the smoker they make too much heat. When I need 

 a smoker in a hurry — and that is almost always the case — 

 give me cotton-rags for smoker-fuel every time." 



" Well, here we are," I said, proceeding to remove the 

 cover of the hive I had selected for the purpose in hand. 

 Then taking the smoker and giving it two or three vigorous 

 puffs to start a good volume of smoke, I went to one side of 

 the front of the hive and blew smoke into the hive thru the 

 bee-entrance for about 30 seconds, working the bellows of 

 the smoker with slow, steady pressure, so as not to alarm 

 the bees with the puffing noise made by the smoker when 

 workt with a short, quick motion. 



" This I do to induce the bees to fill themselves with 

 honey," I explained to Mr. Bond, who was standing a few^ 

 feet away with his hands in his pockets, watching the pro- 

 ceedings. •'We will now wait a few minutes until they 

 have gorged themselves." 



"What do j'ou do that for?" askt Mr. Bond. Instead 

 of giving him a direct answer I said, "Come and put your 

 ear down near the top of the hive and listen for a moment." 

 Mr. Bond did so, rather reluctantly, of course, and I said : 



" You hear them make a humming noise, don't you ? 

 Well, they make that noise to express their satisfaction. It 

 makes them lazy and good-natured when they are full of 

 honey. Bee-keepers know this, and take advantage of the 

 fact when they have a tedious job of manipulation to per- 

 form in the apiarj'. These bees, you see, will be less liable 

 to fight now, or to take wing and give the alarm signal to 

 the hives close by." 



(To be contLaued.] 



