1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



599 



own resources. The result was, a One strong 

 swarm in mid-summer, yielding a good amount 

 of surplus honey. Easy enough keeping bees, 

 is it not? Now as to the price obtainable for 

 honey: 



Strange as it may be, our woods and hills are 

 simply swarming with bees, and yet honey 

 brings fancy prices. I have now six colonies in 

 full working order, and every section obtained 

 I have sold for from two shillings to two shil- 

 lings and s.ix pence. Now, what do you Amer- 

 icans ihink of that — 60 cnnts for a section of 

 honey weighing from 12 to 14 oz.? I fancy I 

 hear i^ome bee-farmer in Ohio or California 

 smacking his lips at such a price for comb 

 honey. Now, I can tell you one better than 

 that — true, mind you — (we spin no yarns in this 

 country, except the jingo newspapers). I took 

 out a dozen brood-frames, on the outside edge 

 of my hives, as my bees were rather too well 

 supplied in the brood-nest, considering the mild 

 winter; then I had 8 frames of honey which I 

 had placed on a hive in a super box, making 20 

 L. frames of solid honey. These I extracted 

 with a Novice extractor, poured all into 1-lb. 

 jars, and sold each jar for from 2 shillings 6 

 pence to 3 shillings each; that is 60 to 72 cts. 

 per lb. for extracted honey. Good, hey ? 



Now let me say right here, it will do no good 

 for any of your p,3ople taking the notion to send 

 a few tons of honey to this country and spoiling 

 my market — no good whatever. We have 

 any amount of imported honey here — glucose, 

 rather, or, at least, the public believe it to be 

 glucose, or some imitation of honey. In fact, 

 we have a patriotic public (a well-known fact), 

 who believe in the purity of local production 

 only. 



I intend building a bee-house soon, and hope 

 to be able to bring the price of honey down 

 here by next year, by means of a plentiful sup- 

 ply of good local honey. The demand is so 

 keen at present at above prices that I am al- 

 most tempted to take more honey out of the 

 brood nest; but better judgment has prevailed. 



Should you wish to know more of our bee 

 world, races of bees, sources of honey, mode of 

 working, etc., I should be pleased to supple- 

 ment this letter by a later one on the same 

 subject. 



Your home and health articles in Gleanings 

 are most interesting as well as useful and in- 

 structive. Keep them going. 



Pretoria, South African Republic, June 12. 



THE HIVE QUESTION. 



NOT LARGE OR SMALI. HIVES, BUT MEDIUM. 

 By John O. Corcij. 



Mr. Root;— Apparently all the changes have 

 been rung on this Question that are possible; 

 but somehow I have a desire to have my say as 



well as the rest of the bee-keepers scattered 

 widely over the North American continent. 

 With me ray personal experience has been 

 varied, extending over 3,5 years, and with a 

 great variety of form and size of hives. In 1859 

 my first colony of bees was in a movable- 

 comb hive 12x12x12 inside measure, containing 

 8 frames. I. got a copy of Langstroth's book, 

 first edition; at the same time I got my first 

 colony of bees, and, after reading that book, I 

 decided to change my hive and frame to con- 

 form to Mr. Langstroth's ideas, as he was the 

 first author I had read on bee-keeping, who 

 had had any practical experience with the 

 handling of bees in movable-comb hives up to 

 that date. I never owned more than one hive 

 of the American pattern, and I used that one 

 until I was fully satisfied. 



I continued using the ten-frame L. hive until 

 1875, when Mr. R. Wilkin, a well-known bee- 

 keeper, came to Ventura Co. from Ohio, bring- 

 ing with him a plain style of hive holding 8 

 frames, L. size, also something like 100 eight- 

 frame portico hives, made after the L. pattern, 

 leaving off the cap, and using a plain super. 

 These latter hives were bought of Adam 

 Grimm, of Jefferson, Wis.; and as Mr. G. at 

 that time was one of the foremost bee-keepers 

 of the Northwest I decided to make my next lot 

 of hives eight-frame, and did so; but after 

 using them two or three years I found out my 

 mistake. I had 200 of these eight-frame hives; 

 but bees being in demand I soon sold all my 

 eight frame hives stocked with bees to parties 

 coming into the county and commencing in 

 the business. 



In 1878, being in need of more hives, I con- 

 ferred with R. Touchton, who was with me 

 that year. He had watched with some interest 

 the working of the two styles of hives, and we 

 agreed that the eight-frame hive was too small; 

 and as the hive 14 inches wide holding the 10 

 frames had generally but 9 combs that were 

 perfect, almost every hive contained, at least 

 one imperfect comb; hence we decided to make 

 the hive 133^ wide, and use 9 frames in the base 

 and S in the super, which we did; and that 

 being a good year, we gave the new hive a 

 thorough test, and decided in its favor. Only 

 one change has ever been made in all these 

 years, and that was made the next year — alter- 

 ing the entrance to full width of the hive, and 

 regulating the size of the same with movable 

 blocks. I called the new hive the '"Ventura 

 Standard." I never made any hives for sale, 

 and never expect to; an 1 this sketch is written 

 only to tell the struggling bee-keeper how we 

 arrive at conclusions. I have bought bees in 

 hives of almost every size and shape, and made 

 piles of kindling-wood of them after transfer- 

 ring them into our plain, simple, and conven- 

 ient hive; but so far I never sold a colony of 

 bees to any one, to my knowledge, who trans- 



