472 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



warning to go slow in this direction. It might 

 be a great misfortune to bee-l<eepers at large to 

 have an inferior race of bees scattered broad- 

 cast over the country, especially if they were 

 put into the hands of those who know nothing 

 of better races, or who would become disgusted 

 with the unsuccessful experiment of improve- 

 ment, and make no effort to repair its evil ef- 

 fects. In selecting that which all recognize as 

 good, there is but little opportunity to go astray. 

 To replace or cross the bees in question with 

 Italians could hardly fail to improve them, and 

 the advantages would be great as compared 

 with the cost. J. A. Green. 



Ottawa, 111. 



— American Bee Jfmrnal. 



THE LANGDON NON-SWARMER. 



QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 



There are a few questions about my non- 

 swarmer which I have been requested to answer 

 through Gleanings. One is in regard to there 

 being a loss of unsealed brood in the closed liive 

 when the field force is all turned into the other 

 hive. As my experiments have been made in 

 my house apiary I can not prove that there will 

 not be, except by what I am able to judge by 

 comparison. 



I was surprised at the large number of bees 

 that remained in the closed hive, even to the 

 end of the week; and to the best of my judg- 

 ment there will be no loss unless it is where the 

 nights are cooler than we have here at that 

 time of the year. 



But for argument's sake, let it be admitted 

 that there is a loss of unsealed brood. Is it a 

 damage? I say no, decidedly not; for why 

 would it be any worse than caging or removing 

 the queen for two weeks during the fore part of 

 the honey season, as scores of our best apiarists 

 do? They claim it to be an advantage, and 

 prove it, too, by their honey crops, as I did be- 

 fore bringing the non-swarmer to perfection. 

 The bees that hatch from eggs laid at that time 

 do not become field bees until basswood is over, 

 so the object in view is to get the swarm into the 

 best possible condition for the opening of the 

 season, and make the most of the force then 

 flying and about to hatch— the condition of the 

 brood during the next month being a secondary 

 consideration so far as dollars and cents and the 

 welfare of the colony are concerned. There is 

 no danger of suffocation, as the exit-hole in the 

 end of the hiv(f maybe made as large as 1^ 

 inches if thought best. 



As for queens being killed, I did not meet 

 with the loss of more than is often the case at 

 other times from unknown causes. One writer 

 said in Gleanings, some time ago, that the 

 best and quickest way to introduce a queen 

 was to take her on a comb of bees and brood 

 from her own hive, and put the whole into the 

 center of the brood -nest of the unqueened hive 

 at the time the other queen was taken away, 

 and the behavior of the bees run in by the non- 

 swarmer seems to be the same as though they 

 were at home. 



The non-swarmer can be used on the Heddon 

 hive, or any other closed-end frame or portico 

 hive, by tacking on a small rim the width of 

 the hive-front to the rear face of the non- 

 swarmer, so as to set it off from the hive a bee- 

 space. In this way no exit-hole is needed in 

 the hive-end. 



The ages of the queens must be kept track 

 of, and the old ones replaced before they begin 

 to fail from ol^ age, as it is self-evident that 

 the bees can not attend to it when tlie non- 

 swarmer is in place. This will give the ad- 



vantage to the man who attends to his bees; 

 for one who does not, can not use the non- 

 swarmer. H. P. Langdon. 

 East Constable, N. Y., June 2. 



DESCRIPTION OF MRS. JENNIE ATCHLEY'S 

 APIARY. 



A GLIMPSE OF THAT AND OF SOME FRIENDS 

 IN TEXAS. 



This apiary is situated just inside of the cor- 

 porate limits of the city of Greenville, just 

 about one mile north of the court-house. It is 

 in a natural grove of post-oaks and elms, and 

 has a gradual incline to the south. It contains 

 about 400 full colonies of bees, all in 8 and 10 

 frame iSimplicity hives, except a few hives in 

 front of the people, which are the crosswise 

 Simplicity, bought of a neighbor. The larger 

 part of the apiary is cut off from view by the 

 crowd of people, and extends some distance in 

 the rear, and. in fact, now almost covers a ten- 

 acre grove. The scattering hives in front are 

 our cell- building hives, while just about thirty 

 yards north is our residence, with our tine 

 breeders in the front yard, consisting of 30 hives 

 not shown in the photo. 



That end of the apiary where you see the 

 ladder, and the man holding the swarming- 

 basket, is where we keep our select tested 

 queens; and the day before the photo was 

 taken, a swarm of bees was taken down from 

 the elm-tree where the ladder stands. At the 

 other end of the apiary, away back in the dis- 

 tance, is where we keep our nuclei and small 

 hives, with queens ready to go at a moment's 

 notice; and when I get time I will tell you in 

 Gleanings how I keep and preserve queens 

 ready for immediate orders. Under the tall 

 twin post-oaks near the center is a large work- 

 bench where we do all kinds of wood work, 

 nailing hiVes, painting, preparing nucleus hives 

 for shipment, etc. 



The lady standing at the foot of the tree 

 where the ladder is, is Mrs. Ellen Atchley, of 

 Arlington, Tex. She has her little girl-baby in 

 her arms. The boy up in the tree is Walter 

 Puthuff, one of the helpers in the yard. The 

 first person to the left of the tree is Charley 

 Atchley, 14 years old, and he is the one who 

 works at that bench, and makes all the nucleus 

 hives and shipping-boxes. The next person I 

 will call your attention to is master Napoleon 

 N. Atchley. nine years old, who, with one of A. 

 I. Root's Daisy wheelbarrows (by the way, the 

 handiest tool in the apiary), does nearly all the 

 freighting, as he calls it, in this large apiary. 

 It would surprise you to tell you that this little 

 boy can carry 300 lbs. on his wheelbarrow. You 

 may catch a glimpse of him sitting on a bee- 

 hive, with his feet crossed. Next we will skip 

 three persons, and my husband stands just 

 behind the lady sitting down with her baby in 

 front of her. He is in bad health, and can not 

 do hard work, but helps to keep up the corres- 

 pondence, and helps about the house. The 

 next one to him, and standing between the two 

 hives with " Bee-hive " written on them, is 

 Willie Atchley, who does all the cell -grafting, 

 and raises nearly all the queens in the yards, 

 and is said to be the best-posted boy of his age 

 (16) on bee culture in the South, and the best 

 queen-raiser in the world, of his age. He has 

 been raised in the queen -yards, and never has 

 had the chance to attend school ten days in his 

 life, but is scholar enough to attend to most 

 kinds of business nevertheless. 



Next we will skip up to the twin trees, and 

 there, just to the left, stands your humble ser- 



