1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



621 



SUMMER EVEKGKEEN I'LAM'EJJ ().\ THE SOUTH SIDE OF EACH HIVE FOK SHADE 

 In a few weeks" time this bush, otherwise known as the " burning bush," furnishes good shade. 



SLIDING HIVES INTO A CELLAR. 



A Quick-growing Bush for Shade in an Apiary. 



BY GRACE E. BICKNELL. 



Mr. Geo. Bicknell (my grandfather) start- 

 ed in the bee business sixty-two years ago 

 near ButTalo, X. Y., while not yet sixteen 

 years of age. He and a neighbor boy bought 

 a colony for $3.00 — their entire fortune — 

 and carried it home through the woods, 

 done up in a sheet that was slung across 

 their shoulders. The other boy soon tired 

 of the bees, so grandpa traded him a sheep 

 for his share. He kept these bees one year 

 and then sold them for $25.00, there being 

 five colonies in all by that time. 



His next venture in the business was the 

 following spring when he was fortunate 

 enough to capture a swarm, and from that 

 time on he has never been without bees. 

 He keeps them simply for the pleasure they 

 afford him. He has now forty colonies of 

 Italians, mostly of his own raising. In all 

 the years he has been engaged in the bee 

 business he has never worn a veil nor a pair 

 of gloves. 



I^ast winter the colonies w^ere wintered in 

 a cellar, and only one died out of thirty, 

 while other bee-keepers near by lost a large 

 number. Although 78 years of age, grand- 

 pa manages to get his hives up and down 

 the cellar-steps without assistance. He uses 

 a sled on to w^hich he can easily slide the 

 hive, so that he can pull it to the outside 

 cellar-steps. At this point he sets the sled 

 on a slide made to fit the runners so that it 

 is almost impossible for any hi\ e to tip 



over. In this manner the hives^are gently 

 slid to the cellar floor and then placed w^here 

 they are to stand through the winter. In 



MR. GEO. BItKNELE, oSBORNE, 

 HAS BEEN A BEE-KEEPER 62 



KAN., WHO 

 YEARS. 



