American ^cc Jonrnal| 



with the screens on the fronts. An 

 alley was left lengthwise of the cars to 

 make spraying easy. 



The bees were loaded in but one end 

 of each car, and the other end was 

 loaded solid with supplies and braced 

 in by 2x4's. No supplies were put on 

 top of the bees, as we wanted every- 

 thing free for spraying. A fine spray 

 pump and a barrel of water kept every- 

 thing cool when there was any need 

 of a cooling off. 



First, strips an inch thick and 4 to 6 

 inches wide were put on the bottom of 

 the car, and tacked down so they would 

 not slide around and get out from un- 

 der the hives; then one tier of hives 

 (about 60) was put in which reached to 

 the doors. Each hive was blocked in 

 separately by nailing the blocks at the 

 corners of the bottoms into the strips 

 the bottoms rest on. The entrances 

 were facing each other so that the 

 spraying could be easily done. When 

 the first tier was in place 0-inch boards 

 were put on top of the first tier of 

 hives, and another tier of hives was put 

 in the same as the first. We put in 4 

 tiers and a part of 5 tiers high. 



There is one point that should be 

 emphasized, and that is, have the hive 

 bodies, bottoms and covers nailed to- 



Crating Hives and Supers for S 



nii'i'iNG. 



gether with a strip of lath at each cor- 

 ner, and then when blocking in, block 

 each hive independently to the strips 

 on which it rests, having these inch 

 thick and 5 or 6 inch wide strips fast- 

 ened so they will not move from side 

 to side or end to end. Do not do any 

 bracing against the hive-body, but let 

 the bracing done by the blocks be 

 against the bottom - board. If you 

 should block in the bottom-board tight 

 to the strips and then brace against 

 the hive-body, you would very soon 

 have the hive knocked off its bottom- 

 board. 



When the tiers are all in, then 2x4's 

 should be run from the top to the bot- 

 tom of the car, butting against the ends 

 of the bottom-boards and the board 

 strips that the different tiers rest upon. 



The hives at each side of the alley 

 must also be braced in so that they will 

 not work over and fall into the alley 

 space. It would surprise you, if you 

 have never moved bees in a car, to see 

 how hard they bump you at times. 

 They broke two 2x4's for us at one 

 time. 



Use lots of nails, and do not g-uess 

 that everything is strongly enough 

 braced ; it is better to know that every- 

 thing is solid. 



Bee-Keeping 



In Dixie^ 



Conducted by J. J. Wilder. Cordele, Ga. 



Southern Bee-Keeping vs. Northern 



It is a very common thing for one 

 who has always lived in one section of 

 the country to fail to comprehend the 

 difference between circumstances there 

 and those of other sections, especially 

 where the climatic conditions vary 

 greatly, and that is as true with bee- 

 keepers as with any other class ; hence, 

 we see bee-keepers of the North failing 

 to understand the conditions for suc- 

 cessful bee-keeping in the South, and 

 vice versa; and it is naturally very diffi- 

 cult to explain the conditions of widely 

 different sections so that people whose 

 experiences have always been in one, 

 or in a few similar localities, can un- 

 derstand perfectly. This is unavoid- 

 able; for the mind must use its past 

 experiences as a stand-point from 

 which to project the imagination, and 

 a light by which to understand everv 

 new thing that is presented to it. I 

 have been considerable of an illustra- 

 tion of this principle myself, and my 

 experience may possibly benefit some 

 others, if I can give it aright. 



I lived in the North, mostly in Iowa, 

 where the wintering problem was, and 

 still is, one of the most difficult that a 

 bee-keeper has to contend with. In 

 my locality (Washington Co.) there 

 was practically every season some sur- 

 plus honey to be obtained if one had 

 the bees in storing condition when the 

 honey-flow came, and if weather condi- 

 tions were always favorable it would be 

 a very fine locality for honey, for when 

 all things " hit right," we had a very 

 rapid honey-flow for (i weeks, from 

 white clover and basswood, and a fairly 

 good flow for about 4 weeks from 

 heartsease. When running for ex- 

 tracted honey, as I did mostly, there 

 was no excessive swarming, and when 

 comb honey was produced the honey 

 was quickly made and easily preserved 

 from insect pests, and all surplus combs 

 kept through the winter were free from 

 wax-worms if kept where the moth 

 could not reach them; but the expense 

 and trouble of caring for the bees 

 through the long, cold winter, and the 

 difficulty of having them ready to 

 gather the nectar when it came, is a 

 great drawback which is liable to make 

 the bee-keeper think that all he needs 

 is warm weather and flowers. 



In 1888, I first came to this State, 

 locating at Dalton, in the northwestern 

 part, having found it, as I thought, an 

 ideal honey locality, as there was a 

 great variety of honey-plants, which, if 

 they had yielded well, would have given 

 an almost uninterrupted flow the entire 

 season, I had read from some writer 

 from Atlanta, that it did not pay to 

 keep bees in North Georgia, but I just 

 laughed, for I thought I knew better; 

 but after trying it for 5 years, and never 

 getting a crop of honey to come up to 

 my poorest yields in Iowa, I began to 

 think differently. I lost a good many 



of my bees from slow starvation — they 

 would gradually dwindle away while 

 there were plenty of flowers and plenty 

 of rain, and it required lots of feeding 

 to keep up my apiary at all. I then 

 moved to this place, after I had looked 

 over this and some other localities, and 

 talked with a good many bee-keepers, 

 besides examining the bees, for I knew 

 that they, at least, would tell me the 

 truth when rightly interrogated. 



Everything seemed favorable for 

 great success, but when I came to try 

 it, I found things were not altogether 

 what they had seemed, for while some 

 colonies did store as much as 100 

 pounds of section honey in a season, it 

 was much more exceptional than I ex- 

 pected, for the bees were very prone to 

 swarm, even when run for extracted 

 honey, and there were few colonies 

 that did not waste a large part of the 

 honey season in excessive swarming. 

 I saw that locality had much to do with 

 that, for I had exactly the same strain 

 of bees that I had in the North, and 

 had bred them from the non-swarming 

 ones until I thought I had almost es- 

 tablished a non-swarming strain; but 

 when I brought them here, such swarm- 

 ing, I think, few Northern bee-keepers 

 ever saw ! I sometimes had a dozen or 

 more swarms in the air at once, and 

 for several days in succession, some 

 seasons, and what was worse, the bees 

 would often not stay hived on comb 

 foundation, full frames of comb, or 

 with brood, and after-swarms could not 

 be prevented with any certainty; but 

 while such things are the case in one 

 apiary, anotheronly a few miles distant 

 may have no such trouble, and the same 

 apiary does not do that way every sea- 

 son, but only when there is a great 

 abundance of thin nectar, as I notice 

 the nectar here is generally thinner 

 and requires longer time to ripen, so 

 that bees require more ventilation than 

 I thought necessary ; but we are get- 

 ting wiser all the time, and when a 

 strain of bees is used that are good at 

 ripening our thin nectar, they are not 

 so prone to swarm excessively, and the 

 bee-keeper can therefore manage more 

 of them, as here the wintering problem 

 is only a question of sufficient stores 

 in a " respectable " colony of bees. 



It pays to requeen here oftener than 

 in the North, for I have never known a 

 queen to live longer than 4 years, and 

 she is often missing after the second 

 year. As the season is so long here, 

 and the time for building up for the 

 first flow of nectar also long, it is easy 

 to have the bees in good condition, but 

 the queens need to be looked after, and 

 the hives repaired, for they rot here 

 much sooner than in the North; and 

 all combs must be kept where the bees 

 can take care of them, for wax-worms 

 will destroy them even in the winter 

 time. 



Here the season's work with bee- 

 keepers, as with farmers, commences 



