598 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



the others. They were inclosed also by a high 

 fence — all iron — with murderous spikes all 

 along the top of it. 



"Spirit," I cried, "why all these measures 

 for defense? Has the world become so wicked 

 in the 30th century that you have to inclose 

 these bees within an iron wall ? " 



" Honey is very sweet, both to the big and 

 the little boy. The bees can neither fly nor 

 sting, and the boys can carry off the boxes un- 

 der their arms, and hardly be noticed." 



" How does all this transformation affect the, 

 honey crop? What is your average product 

 from a single hive, of comb honey?" 



" In a first-rate year we can sometimes get 20 

 quarter-pound sections; but it must be a real 

 good year." 



"Have sections become so small as that? 

 Why, that's only five pounds of honey. I have 

 produced from a single colony more than 300 

 pounds." 



" It is not five pounds, for the J^^-pound section 

 holds only about three ounces «f honey. But 

 there is a great difference in circumstances 

 between your days and now. Then, bees flew 

 at least 60 miles an hour; now^ they have to 

 crawl to the flowers. Then, the queen had the 

 great incentive of leading out a, swarm; it was 

 her picnic, her gala day, her triumph in mother- 

 hood, and she did her level best to bring it 

 about. She often laid 3000 eggs a day; but now 

 25 eggs per day is the most that any apiarist 

 has reported for many hundreds of years." 



"Then as they don't swarm you increase by 

 dividing." 



" Yes; by feeding the whole summer you can 

 obtain one comb from each hive per month, for 

 the queen seems to know just how many bees 

 she wants for that hive, and she will provide 

 no more ; so increase costs a large outlay of 

 money." 



"Spirit, tell me this: Why did they wish for 

 bees without wings?" 



"They didn't wish it. It was an unforeseen 

 result of breeding off the queens' wings. Like 

 produces like; and a queen without wings could 

 not produce bees with wings." 



" But, spirit," I cried, as a new thought struck 

 me, "can't you tell them how to breed back 

 again to the bees we had in 1896?" 



" No, it is not for me to interfere. Men were 

 not satisfied with the bees as the great Creator 

 had given them to us— the only creature in all 

 his wide creation that literally worked itself to 

 death. Oh, no! the bee as it was wouldn't do. 

 They must go to work to improve (?) it— not 

 only by curtailing its beautiful proportions, but 

 by destroying its natural instincts also." 



" Spirit, phantom of the past and the present, 

 teach me — " 



But he was gone, and I was still looking at 

 the red coals running into fantastic shapes as 

 they broke and fell apart. 



BEE-KEEPING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



HOW EXTRACTED AND COMB HONEY SELL FOR 



60 CTS. PER pound; the wonders of 



THIS LAND AS A BEE -COUNTRY. 



By Francois J. Haarhoff. 



I have been an interested reader of Glean- 

 ings for some time now; and being a young 

 but enthusiastic bee-keeper I thought it might 

 be interesting to your American readers to hear 

 a little about bee-keeping in this famous land 

 of gold (and land of grabbing, raiding million- 

 aires a la Rhodes). 



Little is known or practiced in this country, 

 of modern bee-keeping. Every careful house- 

 holder, or farmer, has his one, two, or three 

 bee- hives, but nearly always box hives. Little 

 is known of the movable- frame hive. In the 

 Cape Colony one or two bee-keepers have begun 

 a small bee-farm on modern principles; and 

 even nere lately we have progressed sufficiently 

 to have a few progressive bee-keepers having 

 from one to half a dozen movable-frame hives. 

 Our surveyor-general, Mr. Von Weilhjh, at one 

 time had as many as forty hives in a bee-house; 

 but having lately broken up his farm, this apiary 

 has been spread far and wide, and now no 

 larger apiary exists in this country (to my 

 knowledge) than that of Dr. Stroud, of Pretoria, 

 who owns some twenty or thirty hives. 



Why such a state? Not because it does not 

 pay, I can assure you; but because of there 

 being so many other occupations that pay as 

 well, partly, and partly because so little is 

 known of modern bee-keeping in this country. 

 But Ihe example of the few is doing good work 

 among our farmers, who are ever willing to 

 learn any new and progressive mode of farm- 

 ing; and your make of hives and foundation is 

 being sold by the leading firm in town, to a 

 great extent. 



To show how well bee-keeping pays, I must 

 tell you first of our honey-season. Peach-blos- 

 som, which is very profuse, and productive of 

 honey, begins toward the end of August; and 

 from that time our honey season continues, off 

 and on, more or less plentifully, seasons of 

 severe drouth excepted, until the beginning or 

 middle of May; succeeded by two or three 

 months of mild sunny winter, during which the 

 bees work and continue brood-rearing unceas- 

 ingly— sufficiently so to keep them strong and 

 healthy, and well supplied with food, until 

 winter is ended. 



To show you how mild our winter is, two 

 winters ago I caught and hived a small swarm 

 (about a quart) in June, our mid-winter month, 

 and with a little feeding I started them to rear- 

 ing brood, after which they were left to their 



