1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



815 



lighted the fatal match that was to destroy his 

 little innocents with livid flames, and a smoke 

 that strikes them dead with its intolerable 

 stench, without much concern and uneasiness. 

 Besides, we are not to imagine that the bounti- 

 ful Creator, who has indeed given us all things 

 richly to enjoy, has likewise given us such an 

 absolute right of life and death over all of his 

 creatures that we may kill them wantonly at 

 and for our pleasure. I know no right we have 

 over the life of the meanest insect or vilest 

 worm that creeps upon the earth, unless the 

 killing of it be in some way or other useful and 

 beneficial to us. We may take away the lives 

 of our cattle in order to support our own ; but 

 It would be a criminal piece of cruelty as well as 

 folly to butcher an innocent sheep merely for 

 its fleece, which we might take again and again 

 without hurting it. . . . Avarice often 

 mistakes its own interes'. It can never be 

 made to understand that strange proverb, 'the 

 half is more than the whole.' It is more to our 

 advantage to spare the lives of our bees, and be 

 content with a part of their stores, than to kill 

 and take possession." 



The above was written at a time when the 

 death-penalty in England hung over a person 

 for stealing a shilling. Few things are funnier 

 than for a press-gang to steal a man for the 

 navy and then hang his '• widow " for petit lar- 

 ceny. This government can be justly criticised 

 " along this line " too. 



Mr. White disapproves entirely of the old 

 straw hives, and uses a box '.!%■ in. deep, long, 

 and broad. That would be about equal to a 

 peck and a half. Each hive has a long narrow 

 slit near the top, so that, when two hives are 

 placed together, the bees can go from one to 

 the other as they need room. If they do not 

 need extra room, a board is shoved between the 

 hives. Considerable glass is used, so that the 

 hive has nearly all the advantages of an observ- 

 atory hive. But Mr. White did not care so 

 much to see the bees at work as he did to know 

 when the moths were beginning their ravages. 

 He speaks of these latter as more to be feared 

 than all other enemies combined. 



Our author is rather severe toward the old 

 writers who have suggested that the crop of 

 honey is limited only by the number of bees to 

 gather it. He says that, in his own town, a 

 large one, only sevi-n colonies were kept in his 

 hives and two in other kinds — nine in all. He 

 says: 



" I have often thought it very surprising that 

 neither the authors who treat of bees nor the 

 keepers of them ever imagine that any place 

 can be overstocked, or that any one's bees fare 

 either better or worse for the larger or smaller 

 stock that is kept in his neighborhood. They 

 think, it seems, that every flower they see is a 

 never-failing cruse of honey. Let me here ac- 

 knowledge the bounty of our Creator, and with 

 due thankfulness and admiration confess, that, 

 in some sense, it is so; for when a bee, with its 

 little lambent trunk, has cleared a flower of all 

 its present store, another comes, 'tis likely, in 

 less than a minute, and iind? soinething ; for the 

 delicious juice is continually sweating through 

 the pores of the plant. But it is certain, for all 

 this, that, the more of these guests visit a flow- 

 er, the worse must each of them fare. They 

 will have the less to carry home, or, which is all 

 one, they must go further and spend more of 

 their precious time before they can make up 

 their burden." 



The perusal of this little book has pleased me 

 very much, and I am glad to be able to put 

 some of Mr. White's favorite ideas before a 

 larger audience than he did; for just so far he 

 lives again through us. vV. P. Root. 



Medina, Oct. 31. 



CALIFORNIA. 



an eastern bee-keepers experience in 

 transferring; reversing combs; section- 

 al brood-frames; moving bees. 



After using the Langstroth, Quinby, Gallup, 

 American, and Heddon frames for several years 

 in the East, in starting an apiary in this State 

 it was concluded to begin at the lowest notch 

 and adopt altogether another form. Bees, as 

 procured, therefore, had to be transferred from 

 the old into new frames and hives, in conse- 

 quence of which it was just as well and cheaper 

 to purchase colonies in nail-kegs and soap-boxes 

 as in the best of hives. 



If the subject to be first dealt with is a box, 

 it is the best plan to drum upon it, and, with 

 smoke, drive as many of the bees as possible 

 from the combs into a convenient box from 

 which they may be easily shaken down before 

 the new hive when wanted. If it is a movable- 

 comb hive, the queen should be found and 

 caged, and the cage laid among the bees; then 

 i-emove two or three combs containing brood, 

 and transfer, and hang in the new hive which 

 is to take the place of the old one on the old 

 stand, and then the remainder of the combs are 

 taken out and the bees brushed down before, 

 and allowed to run in the new entrance, accom- 

 panied by the queen. 



It has become little short of a habit, in cut- 

 ting the combs loose from the old frames or box, 

 to take them into a warm room to avoid crack- 

 ing the combs, and lay a heated knife down 

 flat, so as to make a square cut through the top 

 of the comb close to the wood to which it was 

 attached. Then the new brood-frames are pre- 

 pared with bottom-bars a full inch (or the 

 same width of the other parts of the frame) in 

 width, so when the frame is set up on the bot- 

 tom-bar, and the wide, squarely cut honey 

 edge of a comb is placed on it, the frame and 

 comb will usually stand alone while the twine 

 is being tied around them. Thus the comb is 

 inverted as to its former position, and it is con- 

 trived to have all or nearly of the combs crowd 

 upward against the top-bars; and as this empty 

 edge is clean and workable it is very quickly 

 attached to them; when, otherwise, if the hon- 

 ey or brood edge were above, the honey and 

 brood would need to be cleared away, and some 

 comb removed before a firm attachment could 

 be made, in which case the upper edge of honey 

 will lean heavily out against the strings; or, if 

 the honey edge is narrow, its weight will cause 

 the thin comb below to bow outward and finally 

 break, allowing the honey to fall down. At 

 the same time, the bees assist to make the bad 

 matter worse by cutting the wax out where it 

 strikes the strings, in some cases cutting the 

 combs entirely through. 



In using narrow bottom-bars a difficulty is, 

 to make the edges of narrow combs stay on 

 them; and as the bottom slides off on one side 

 on to the bottom of the hive, the upper edge 

 leans outward against the strings on the other, 

 and leaves a wide space from the top of the 

 comb to the top- bar of the frame, when the 

 comb will have ample time to settle, bend, or 

 be gnawed into crookedness before new comb 

 can be built to form the attachment to the top- 

 bar. 



It is probable that these difficulties are what 

 cause the use of sticks instead of strings, or the 

 adoption of the Heddon driving method and 

 melting up all the combs and giving sheets of 

 foundation. Strings are easier to get and use, 

 and the bees can usually remove them from the 

 frames. 



As the combs rest closely against the top- 

 bars, it requires only two or three hours before 



