340 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 30, 1901. 



Contributed Articles. | 



Depending Upon Bees Alone for a Living. 



BV C. DAVENPORT. 



I HAVE noticed that the question, "Is it safe for one to 

 depend upon bees alone for a living- ?" is one that is 

 frequently asked, and Dr. Miller has abU' handled the 

 subject a number of times, but perhaps a few words from 

 me in reg-ard to the matter may not be considered out of 

 place, for I am one of the few who are specialists, that is, 

 I have no other business or occupation of any kind except 

 beekeeping, and I have made a living- and enough so I 

 could stand a few failures without going to the poor-house. 

 But my localit)' is a good one, and I have had nobody but 

 myself to support, for I have never been able to secure one 

 of those "queens " that wear dresses and other clothes, so 

 the prospect of a crop-failure, with me, has never caused 

 the fear of having children crying for bread. 



If I had my life to live over again I should not be a bee- 

 keeper, for I believe the work I have done to make what 

 might be called a success in our pursuit, would, in some 

 others, have resulted in better success financiallj', and 

 also in other ways. But I am now too old to change my 

 occupation, and it is not likely that I will ever do so. And 

 while I should not advise a young man to take up bee-keep- 

 ing as a life work, in my opinion there is no question but 

 what a living can be made at it in a good locality, if one 

 understands the business. There is, though, no need for a 

 man with a family to depend altogether on bees for a liv- 

 ing, for he should own at least a few acres where the home 

 yard is located, so that a few cows and pigs, and a large 

 flock of poultry, could be kept. These with 300 or 400 colo- 

 nies of bees would, in a good locality, insure a living for a 

 family, aud a bank account as well. 



I am acquainted with a bee-keeper who has about the 

 above number of colonies, and his income last year was 

 about S1800 ; though this to some might be considered a 

 small amount, here it is considered a large income, and by 

 some would be looked upon as a small fortune. Though we 

 are not as bad here in this respect as a man from one rival 

 region who wrote to a firm in regard to their lowest-priced 

 saw-mills. Soon after the information was sent, the firm 

 received the following letter from him : 



■■DerSurs: — I aint a gointer buy any saw-mil. Wat do yer take 

 me fer '. If I hail .-^awi what dn yer "think I wud want a saw-mil fer '." 



It seems that in his locality S300 was considered enough 

 so that any further business enterprise to increase the 

 amount was needless. And as with this man, some may 

 find that it costs more to secure and properly equip 300 or 

 400 colonies for either comb or extracted honej' than they 

 think it does; and to make a success of bee-keeping at the 

 present time, modern hives and appliances must be used. 

 It is so now in any business or pursuit. To succeed one 

 must keep abreast of the times, and the profession of bee- 

 keeping is not as easily acquired or mastered in all the 

 many details essential to success as many imagine, for 

 probabl)' in few if in any other pursuits is there so much 

 conflict of opinion as there is in ours. So many of these 

 important details must be settled and determined individu- 

 ally, for the methods and appliances that work well with 

 some, may with others in a difi'erent, or even the same, local- 

 ity, be a failure. 



For instance, about the worst investment I ever made 

 in our fixtures was for 40 wood-zinc queen-excluders. Do 

 not think that I am condemning excluders, for I use a large 

 number of them, but they are all-zinc. I know that many 

 prefer wood-zinc to all-zinc, but with me they are worth- 

 less. 



The way I remove an excluder from a hive is to insert 

 ■ the thin edge of my hive-tool under it, and strip it right off. 

 When this is done here with wood-zinc, the very thin pieces 

 of wood that hold the zinc strips to the wood partitions are 

 also stripped off, and the whole thing soon comes to pieces. 

 It is the amount and character or stickiness of the propolis 

 gathered in my locality that causes this. Even with the all- 

 zinc wood-bound ones, the thin part of the wood frame that 

 holds the zinc soon peels off, so that I have to make new 

 frames ; but frames can be made for them that will hold to 

 be stripped right off, no matter how badly stuck to the hive 



and top-bars they are. Of course, one could use enough 

 care to remove any kind without injury, but I have not 

 time for this. During the busy season I have to make 

 things move quickly, and it is money worse than wasted 

 for me to invest in, or keep any appliances with which much 

 unnecessary care has to be used, or that requires needless 

 time to handle. 



To illustrate again, last season I was explaining to a 

 bee-keeper the great superiority of hives that did not have 

 an entrance cut in the hive itself, which allowed them to be 

 quickly tiered up, mouse, bee, and even dust tight. His 

 reply was that if entrances were cut in the hives, and it 

 was desired to tier them up, it did not take long to stuff in 

 rags. It takes more time, though, than I can spend for 

 this purpose. When a hive body or cover, with me, needs 

 to be stuffed with rags, it soon goes to the wood-pile. Not 

 but what they can be used so as to help secure as much sur- 

 plus honey as those which are not defective, but with me the 

 time lost in fussing with them is soon worth more than the 

 cost of new ones. And in regard to bees themselves, I want 

 the German, or what I call the brown bees, for comb honey. 

 I believe I stand practically alone in this matter, but after 

 years of experience in a large way with both races side \>y 

 side in the same yard, I am convinced that I can secure 

 more surplus white cotnb honey here with brown bees than 

 I can with Italians. The main trouble I find with Italians 

 is their determination to stuff the brood-chamber at the 

 commencement of the flow, and I have never been able to 

 overcome this trait. And then, after they have put any- 

 where from IS to 30 pounds of white honey in the brood- 

 chamber which should have been in sections, instead of 

 then being willing to work in sections, they are usually 

 determined to swarm, and Italian swarms do not, with me, 

 do as much section-work as do the swarms of brown bees. 

 With the latter I can secure practically all the white honey 

 in the sections, whether they swarm or not. 



But in my opinion there is as much dift'erence in brown 

 bees as there is in Italians. For extracted honey I pre- 

 fer Italians ; they will gather more honey, go a greater 

 distance, and protect their hive and combs from the rav- 

 ages of the moth-worms much better than will brown bees, 

 and this is no small matter in my locality. 



Some claim that moth-worms never injure strong colo- 

 nies of any kind of bees, but this is a mistake, for the 

 combs will be injured, and hundreds of eggs, larva?, and 

 hatching brood, will sometimes be destroyed here by moth- 

 worms in strong, thrifty colonies of brown bees. 



Southern Minnesota. 



Sliort-Cuts in Extracting Honey. 



Read at the Wisconsin State Bee-Keepers' Convention, at Jfadison. 

 BY FRANK MINNICK. 



SOLOMON says, in Ecclesiastes 1;9, "The thing that 

 hath been it is that which shall be ; and that which is 

 done is that which shall be done ; and there is no new 

 thing under the sun." In passing through the historical 

 rooms of our beautiful capitol some years ago, I saw the 

 hand of an Egyptian mummy, and wondered if it had not 

 wrought in accord with Solomon's words; or, in the words 

 of the poet with a line of my own added, 



•■ l'riliai>^ this iiuTry hand now pinioned fast, 



lias holMiiililii-d with Pharaoh, g-lass to glass; 



DrdiiU'i-.l his hat to let Queen Dido pass;" 



Or handled Langstroth or similar hives, which are tirst-clas.s. 



But whatever may have been, or whatever of lost arts 

 are buried in the sediment of the Nile, or wherever they 

 may be, we are where we are. Historians look into the 

 past, poets into the future, but we have to deal with the 

 present, so let us get down to business. 



Very often the shortest way across is the longest way 

 around, but I wish to call to your minds a few of the short- 

 cuts that I have discovered in reading a few works on bee- 

 culture, and in the 20 short years that I have made bee- 

 keeping a means of gaining a livelihood. 



In the first place, it is very desirable that the bee-yard 

 be laid out in such a way that the backs of the hives are 

 toward each other, and the rows far enough apart to leave 

 plenty of room for the " honej'-carriage," and a space to 

 work in where scarcelj' any bees are flj'ing. It is also well 

 to have the extracting-room lower than the yard, for one 

 can wheel very much more down hill than up. 



After handling many different sizes of combs I have 

 settled down to what the " father of American bee-keep- 



