May 9, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



295 



souri then, where they tax bees, honey on hand, corn in the 

 crib, and potatoes in the cellar — not forgetting- the poor 

 man's working tools and the poor woman's sewing machine. 



" About a mile distant from my home lived a man — I 

 shall not tell you his name because he is out of business for 

 good — who kept bees, had kept them, he told me, ' for 

 more'n 15 years.' He had 14 colonies, mostly in 'Lang- 

 stroth hives,' when I made his acquaintance. I tried to 

 take lessons of him that summer, but I soon found out that 

 he had never been in Father Langstroth's school, tho he 

 used his hive invention. Besides, he crankt several queer 

 notions about bees — their nature, and ways of doing things 

 — that I could not make up my mind to adopt. 



" Well, one beautiful day in early May this friend sent 

 me word that he had a very large swarm out on an apple- 

 tree, which I could have for one dollar if I cared to bother 

 with it. Of course I went for that swarm and brought it 

 home in my bee-box. Within a week I got three more 

 swarms in the same way, and at the same price, and of the 

 same kind friend. 



" I had learned from 'Bees and Honey' — an excellent 

 little book on bee-culture, for beginners especially — how to 

 house a new swarm so that it would lose no time monkey- 

 ing around, but go right to work storing honey for me. As 

 compensation for knowing how, I took from those four one- 

 dollar swarms 350 pounds of white clover honey, in sec- 

 tions most beautifully filled and finisht — all before the end 

 of the same month. 



" Some time during the following October my friend 

 sent for me one day. The messenger said: 'Would you 

 please come down and take some honey off the hives ?' But 

 it was already late in the day, and misty clouds shut out the 

 sun's cheery shine and heat, hence I sent word back by the 

 messenger that I wouldn't do such work on such a day for 

 the best friend I had ; but that I would come down the first 

 suitable day in the morning. 



" Well, a few days later I went down. My friend 

 pointed out to me two hives, of the 14, from which he wisht 

 me to take what surplus honey I might find. The others, 

 he thought, hadn't done anything ; and most of them had 

 no supers on, anyway. 



" The two hives he showed me were a sort of a hopper- 

 shaped concern ; ' The Mother-Hubbard hive ' — or some- 

 thing like it — I think he called it. The bee-entrance was at 

 the small end of the hopper, which stood grandly upon four 

 short legs, and wore a conical-shaped hat or roof. But that 

 cunningly devised bee-entrance at the extreme lower end of 

 this so-called ' hive ' made such a deep impression upon my 

 then very susceptible mind that I have never forgotten it. 

 Besides, ray friend — who was evidently quite proud of those 

 two hives — took especial pains to explain to me the superior 

 excellence of that particular feature of the hive. 



"'You see, Mr. Gehring," he said, 'that bee-entrance, 

 located as it is, acts as a ventilator to the hive, like a chim- 

 ney to a house ; for there are holes bored near to the roof, 

 you know. Then, again, that opening acts as an automatic 

 dirt-trap — the hive cleans itself, you see, because the dirt 

 and dead bees fall right down thru. Besides all that, Mr. 

 Gehring, you can see for yourself that mice can't very 

 easily get into the hive by way of such a contrivance as 

 that.' 



" Well, I opened one of the hives and found quite a 

 viess of honey, mostly in small frames inside of a sort of a 

 box-arrangement on top of the three-cornered brood-frames, 

 and some of it between and above these little frames. The 

 second hive was in the same condition. I called at the 

 kitchen-door and got a large dish-pan, into which I put the 

 honey from the frames, and from odd spaces in the hives. 

 Then I examined all the other hives for honey, but found 

 none. The dish-pan full was the whole yield from 14 hives 1 



" When I carried the honey to the house my friend— 

 who had kept himself out of sight while the honey harvest 

 ■was going on — ventured to come to the door to settle with 

 me, as he said. He seemed to be well pleased with his crop 

 of honey, and smilingly inquired how much I got from those 

 four swarms. I told him, and added that I would probably 

 get another hundred or more from those same swarms be- 

 fore the season ended ; and leave them enough each to win- 

 ter on very nicely. 



" I don't know what he thought when I told him that : 

 but I shall never forget how he lookt. It was easy to guess. 

 however, how he estimated the comparative difference lie- 

 tween his way of keeping bees and my way of bee-keepinir. 

 for he sold me his whole outfit before winter for the paltry 

 sum of S15 1 



" The second case to which I alluded, as I presume you. 

 remember, Mr. Bond, happened in this way : 



" One of my near neighbors had two colonies of bees in 

 his back yard — both in box-hives. One Sunday morning 

 word was sent to me that a big swarm had come out of one 

 of the hives and was hanging in a bunch from a limb of an 

 apple-tree in the front yard, and that I could have it by 

 coming after it. 



" My neighbor was a member of the United Presbyte- 

 rian Church, and a strict Sabbatarian ; hence he could not 

 violate his conscience by furnishing that swarm of bees a 

 home. But I, being a minister in good standing in the 

 ' U. S." Presbyterian Church, had no such scruples to bother 

 me ; hence I secured the swarm — cut the limb with a small 

 saw, and carried it home with the cluster hanging to it — 

 and hived it, and gave it a frame of brood, and two of 

 honey, that same Sunday. 



"It was a late swarm, and it was a rather poor honey 

 season ; but that swarm filled, and finisht nicely, two 

 supers of 28 sections each. One evening I took four of the 

 nicest sections and presented them to my Presbyterian 

 brother, and told him all about that swarm's doings under 

 my care ; and that, if he wanted it, I would sell it to him 

 for SIO, hive and all." 



(To be conliaued.) 



No. 4— Drone-Bees and Their ttility. 



Can We, and Shall We, Control their Production ? 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



IF the reader remembers my previous articles on the sub- 

 ject, he knows that we have plainly shown that there is 

 a decided advantage in decreasing the number of drones 

 in hives that are undesirable for breeding purposes, and 

 that this advantage will be derived, in part, from a greater 

 saving of honey. The approximate amount of profit to be 

 earned from the prevention of drone-rearing, or from the 

 excess of it, is, however, ditTScult to establish. By follow- 

 ing the method mentioned, of removing drone-comb, and 

 replacing it with worker-comb, we not only prevent in a 

 large measure the production of the idlers, but increase our 

 chances of a greater production of worker-bees, which, 

 costing no more to rear, will yet help increase the stores 

 instead of consuming them. 



In the relation of my summer trip to Europe, and of 

 my attendance at the International Bee-Keepers' Congress, 

 I mentioned the discussion that took place on this very 

 question. The matter had perhaps more importance to the 

 bee-keepers of Europe than we could place upon it, because 

 of the very great divergence of opinions exprest over 

 there, by some noted bee-keepers. A French bee-lover, by 

 the name of C. M. Weber, has written a poem on bees, some- 

 what after the fashion of the English Dr. Evans, and in 

 this work he has asserted t'nat each drone consumes during 

 his life, at least five grammes of honey, or in other words, that 

 it takes but a hundred drones to consume, from their birth 

 to their death, over a pound of honey. If we take such an 

 assertion seriously, the honey consumption by the drones of 

 a colony would be enormous. This would mean that the 

 drones produced in a square foot of comb could do away 

 with 50 pounds of honey. To me it is almost to be consid- 

 ered as an absurdity. Some other men have gone still 

 farther and have endeavored to prove that a drone maj' con- 

 sume as much as 11 grammes of honey in his life, which 

 would be the equivalent of a pound of honey for 40 drones. 

 These assertions, however ludicrous they may appear, have 

 caused considerable comment, and some discussion, and the 

 experiments that were brought to light before the Congress 

 were evidently intended to refute these too-magnified ideas 

 of the utility of removing drone-combs. 



A gentleman by the name of Dufour gave notice of 

 quite extensive experiments which he has made on the sub- 

 ject, and reported weighing 10 colonies at different times 

 during the summer. Half of these colonies contained but 

 little drone-comb and consequently produced but few 

 drones, while the other five contained many drones, and the 

 total result was a difference in production of 15'.. pounds 

 of honey in favor of the hives having the least number of 

 drones. The necessity of experimenting on a large scale, 

 in matters of this kind, is shown by the fact that out of 

 these 10 colonies two were selected which were apparently 

 of equal strength, to be weighed regularly, and the differ- 

 ence between the two, in the results, was in favor of the 

 one having the most drones, but it was a mere trifle, less 

 than a pound. So we must recognize the wisdom of this 



