590 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1. 



fellow-bachelor, but were disappointed. The 

 half-tone will show the style of bachelor we 

 found; and here allow me to introduce to the 

 Gleanings audience Mr. E. H. Schaeffle (Shef- 

 le) and his wife and baby May. Clarence in 

 front, Ernest and Marian in the rear, and Nellie 

 at the right. Mr. S. and family live within the 

 city limits. His lot of a few acres is bounded 

 upon all sides by streets. The cozy house, 

 honey-house, and the apiary, are embowered in 

 a luxuriant growth of fruit-trees, vines, etc. 

 In this well-utilized space there are 135 colonies 

 of bees; and, though near a much-traveled 

 highway on either side, they do not seem to 

 molest travelers to a vexatious degree. 



Mr. S. uses the Gallup frame, and produces 

 comb honey, using a section which holds 1% 

 lbs. of comb honey, or thereabouts, which he 

 sells for 25 cts. each. The honey is all sold in 

 the home market, which includes several min- 



to each side of a comb for rapid uncapping. 

 Mr. S. had a very good idea, however, along 

 with his uncapping, and not confined to the 

 bread knife. He uses hot water, as many 

 others do, into which to dip his knife. The 

 water is used in a two-gallon stone crock. If 

 the water is put in boiling hot the crock will 

 hold the heat for a long time. Select a crock 

 upon the edges of which there is no enamel. If 

 there is, file it ofiF. Now, when the knife is 

 removed from the crock, draw it across the 

 edge of the crock as you would across a whet- 

 stone, and the edge of the knife is kept as keen 

 as a razor, which is no small item in uncapping. 

 The honey flora in this vicinity consists of 

 fruits, manzanita, buckeye, coffee-berry, a 

 sprinkling of sage, and the blue tarweed. Tar- 

 weed is held in contempt by bee-keepers gener- 

 ally in other portions of the State, for it yields 

 a dark honey with a bad flavor, and thus in- 



MR. SCHAP^FFLpyS AriAltV, FKUIT AND BEKKY OKCHAKI). 



ing towns outside of Murphy. The extractor 

 is used sparingly; and upon my first glimpse of 

 him, on the 7th of November, he was extract- 

 ing honey; and, although the honey he was 

 extracting was from combs he was transferring, 

 a portion of it was new honey; for at that late 

 date the bees were busily at work storing 

 honey. 



A VALUABLE KINK IN KEEPING UNCAPPING- 

 KNIVES SHARP. 



Mr. S. preferred a common bread-knife to 

 uncap with, and practiced the economical cut. 

 With the broad point of his bread-knife he 

 would take off a capping about as large as a 

 silver dollar, and then wipe his knife; then 

 another dollar size is slashed off, and another 

 wipe. It will be seen that his preference for 

 the bread-knife over the Bingham is from the 

 limited amount of extracting done. If Mr. S. 

 had several hundred combs to extract per day 

 I have no doubt he would be obliged to adopt 

 a trowel-knife, and work the up-and-down cut 



jures by admixture not a little of the better 

 grades of honey. But the blue tarweed of 

 Calaveras Co. gives a fine white honey, with a 

 flavor that would please the most fastidious 

 taste; but for all that it has a fault here— it 

 soon granulates in the comb after removal from 

 the hive. Mr. Schaeffle had any quantity of as 

 white comb honey as will be found anywhere; 

 but it was solid, and practically unsalable in 

 that shape; and in this case, unless the honey 

 can be sold immediately, it should be extracted. 

 Robbing is a severe affliction here. Mr. S. 

 said that, when robbing commences at one end 

 of a row of hives, unless he was there to pre- 

 vent it they would follow up and clean out 

 every colony in the row. Eternal vigilance is 

 a necessary qualification of the bee-keeper. 

 Sometimes he could prevent robbing by going 

 along and " tickling," as he termed it. the bees 

 at the entrance of each hive with an asparagus- 

 bush. This sort o' stirred them up and put 

 them on the defensive. His best remedy, how- 



