332 



November, 15 



American Hee Journal 



nearer. This made the old man so angry 

 that he scolded and went into the house 

 in a hasty way, and confident that she 

 could not get them. She folded her 

 lap-robe in a manner as to make a sack 

 by the aid of a few pins, and pinned 

 one of her bee-gloves, which she also 

 used for driving, on the inside of the 

 sack. As she expressed it, those bees 

 got on the inside in post-haste. In 5 

 minutes there was not a single bee out- 

 side. They had been traveling and clus- 

 tering so long that they were anxious 

 about the matter. She said she would 

 not have taken them if the man had 

 not acted so spitefully. 



When I kept less bess than now, I 

 practiced moving them several times a 

 year to catch the honey-flows from dif- 

 ferent sources. In the spring of a good 

 season my bees would be located in the 

 valley so that their removal to the sage- 

 fields was the first thing to be done at 

 the approach of a good season, or, 

 a good honey harvest. A part of this 

 operation is different from the usual 

 methods which are followed by other 

 bee-men, which is that my bees are al- 

 ways loaded on the wagons at midday 

 and the trip is made during the after- 

 noon and evening. The bees endure 

 •he confinement better, and begin to 

 work in better disposition the ne.\t morn- 

 ing. I have hauled 48 colonies 35 miles 

 between 12 o'clock noon, and 12 o'clock 

 midnight, with one horse, and the horse 

 did not sweat, although it was a very 

 hot day in July. And most of the hives 

 were double stories and full of honey. 

 It requires an expert knowledge of the 

 roads and horsemanship to do such 

 things. For 4 to 6 weeks before mov- 

 ing the bees I began to fit the horses 

 for it, by better and heavier feed and 

 exercise at heavy work. I prefer to use 

 2 wagons, each drawn by one horse, 

 rather than 2 horses on one wagon. 



Well, what I am trying to get around 

 to say is that one time I loaded up 2 

 wagons with bees and drove them up 

 in front of the house, in the street, and 

 hitched while I ate dinner, expecting to 

 engage a young man a short distance 

 up the road to drive one of the loads. 

 My wife had been in bed for a week or 

 more, but when she saw the loads of 

 bees through the window she began to 

 make up her mind to go along and drive, 

 as she had often done before. The in- 

 terests along the road, the camping out, 

 and the cares which came swiftly into 

 mind, entirely dispersed her disease. She 

 took all of the honey out of the 200 or 

 more colonies, amounting to 10 or 15 

 tons, and managed the hiving of hun- 

 dreds of swarms, and when the harvest 

 was over she was strong and hearty, and 

 weighed 16 pounds more than at the 

 start. 



She always chose the removal of the 

 honey from the hives as her part, even 

 if there was hired help. We often hired 

 women to do the housework, and men 

 to uncap combs and turn the extractor, 

 but never to remove honey from the 

 hives or manage swarms. That part re- 

 quires skill and judgment, which is not 

 so easily picked up. We could better 

 afford to have inexperienced help waste 

 honey, or abuse the machines, than to 

 misuse the bees in removing the combs 



from the hives. I believe the nature of 

 the bees is varied very much by the way 

 they are handled. 



C. W. Dayton. 

 Los Angeles Co., Cal., Oct. i. 



Heartiest thanks to you, Mr. Dayton, 

 for your interesting letter. No doubt 

 many of the bee-keeping sisters are do- 

 ing e^ccellent work in a quiet way, keep- 

 ing in the background, just as the good 

 sister you mentioned seems to have done. 

 But she has "made good," nevertheless, 

 as you say the best queens you ever re- 

 ceived came from her. Tally one for 

 tlie sisters. 



Your wife's exxperience ought to 

 prove an incentive to more women to 

 go into bee-keeping. You say, "she al- 

 ways chose the removal of the honey 

 from the hives as her part of the work, 

 and that part requires skill and judg- 

 ment which is not so easily picked up." 

 Let me "add that aside from that, it is 

 the most delightful part of all bee-keep- 

 ing, at least to me. One is kept alert 

 and expectant all the time, and it surely 

 is as good as the best tonic, to take off 

 super after super of snowy- white sec- 

 tions. 



A Sister's Interesting Experience with 

 Bees. 



Although my brother had a nice 

 apiary which he had outfitted with his 

 own hands, and at one time had 2 out- 

 lying yards connected with the parent 

 plant at Clovernook, making in all over 

 300 colonies of bees, I never took much 

 interest in the little creatures until my 



Miss K. E. Wheeler. 



brother inoved into Canada and left 

 the bees here in our cellar to winter, 

 having sold them the previous fall to a 

 party just "over the border." 



In the spring when the bees began 

 buzzing in the cellar and crawling out 

 from every crack and cranny into the 

 shnshine, as the owner failed to appear 

 and there seemed no one else to do it, 

 I "braced up," hired a man, and we got 

 the hives out on to the stands in the 

 bee-yard. I remember we took out 50- 



odd hives and that when "spring dwind- 

 ling" was over, 36 live colonies existed. 



Well, I had a wild time of it that 

 first summer. My zeal far outran my 

 knowledge and discretion. I hired a lit- 

 tle boy to wield the smoker, and to- 

 gether we worked in season and out of 

 season over them until we stirred up 

 that yard so that the bees fairly drove 

 us out of it, and they would chase us 

 up to the house and lie in wait around 

 the door to set their stings into the 

 first unveiled nose that showed itself. 

 Their vindictiveness and perseverance is 

 a thing to be remembered. Night after 

 night I rested my swollen arms and 

 hands on the cool sheets after retiring, 

 and gazed upon them pityingly both for 

 myself and the poor little things that 

 paid so sad a penalty for my misman- 

 agement. But, somehow, I never 

 thought of giving up the fight, for I 

 became greatly interested in the work, 

 and so struggled along until fall, when 

 I made a bargain to buy back the en- 

 tire outfit. And to make this part of 

 my story short, did so in about 3 years 

 from the honey receipts of the apiary. 



My brother had caught the bee- fever 

 when some 20 years of age, and out- 

 fitted first for comb honey. He had a 

 year or so of very discouraging and 

 sticky experience with the railroads, 

 losing very heavily in damaged combs, 

 so as we are far from wholesale mar- 

 kets — he changed from small to large 

 hives, and arranged his apiary for ex- 

 tracted honey. His first hives were 2 

 feet long by 15 inches wide and high, 

 and with supers the same dimensions. 

 He found these hives heavy and awk- 

 ward to handle, and the crops of honey 

 failed to justify his expectations, so he 

 changed again and made the hive which 

 we now use. It is the same width and 

 height as the old one, only it ds but 

 18 inches long. It contains 10 frames 

 and combs, the former being a little 

 over 13 by 14 inches in size. We get 

 from a full comb about 12 pounds of 

 honey. 



The honey-house' shown in the little 

 picture my brother built. It is a pretty 

 little affair, nestling down on the bank 

 near the river, and the yard is leveled 

 over and kept nice with the lawn-mow- 

 er. At the time the picture was taken 

 I had 80 colopies. "Faithful Pete," my 

 man, has the barrow, and my brother- 

 in-law, who used to run the extractor 

 for me, is in the doorway. 



Our house consists of 2 rooms, 17 feet 

 by 17 feet and 7 feet high, a loft and 

 "lean-to." In the first room is our small 

 arch or stove, where the water is heat- 

 ed, wax extracted, etc. On the left of 

 the doorway as you enter is the big 

 honey-extractor, with 4 baskets and re- 

 versible crank. Just beyond, at the side, 

 a little oil-stove alight, which keeps the 

 knives and water hot for uncapping 

 work. Across the back end of this room 

 on either side of the doorway into the 

 inner room are substantial working 

 benches, with fixtures on the walls above 

 for tools, etc. There are 3 windows 

 in this room, 2 at the side and one near 

 the front door over the extractor. The 

 inner room is for honey-storage. Shelves 

 for honey vessels and along the right 

 side on a substantial bench, are 3 fine 

 tin vats, each of 500 pounds capacity, 

 and 2 smaller vats for use in short or 



