366 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



every word, " so that, when you'll be back to the 

 land of Damascus you may apply this most ration- 

 al bee-keeping amongst the ignorant people there." 

 The front view showed the most beautiful, regu- 

 lar, and well-kept apiary 1 ever beheld in all Syria, 

 Palestine, or Egypt. The apiary consisted of 600 

 hives, lying in rows of 100, horizontally above each 

 other. 



About the middle of January the bee-master 

 opens all the hives from the back side, and, with a 

 lighted smoker in hand, throwing gentle puffs of 

 smoke into each hive, listens for the wooing of the 

 queen. He then, if any queen-cells are visible, 

 cuts them off the edges of the comb. He does this 

 in view of the swarms. By this method he seldom 

 has more than one swarm per hive, for he dreads a 

 multiplicity of swarms— a great nuisance to the 

 parent hive, besides being themselves very weak. 

 He says he has only the trouble of swarming them, 

 and finally of finding them destroyed by the wax- 

 moth or hornets. When this business of cutting 

 cells is all done, the hives are again stopped from 

 front and rear. About two months after, he again 

 visits the hives to take the honey, which he expects 

 to find full as long as the clover-fields are in blos- 

 som, and the bees visiting them eagerly. 



In places where cotton grows, two honey-harvests 

 can be had, and he gets an average of 8 lbs. per 

 hive. The clover remains in blossom during four 

 months, or till about the middle of May, at which 

 time the drone massacre begins, as the bees don't 

 like them crawling over the nice honey-combs, soil- 

 ing them. 



He leaves in every hive five combs of brood and 

 honey, so that they have a good start to refill their 

 hives. New swarms are treated the same. He 

 takes off the old hives five combs, with brood and 

 honey, and sets them in the hive. To take the 

 swarm, the combs are fixed in the new hive by 

 means of sticks, 8 inches long, and having a 

 branch in the center, of about an inch in length. 



' I On this branch A B the comb is hung. The in- 

 ! side diameter of the hive being just 8 inches 

 in diameter, this kind of movable system is 

 easily fastened in. 



A MODERN TLOATING APIARY ON THE NILE. 



In years gone by, when he was able to undergo 

 more hardships, as soon as the honey-flow in his 

 place was over he used to take the hives, stopping 

 the entrances, load every sixteen hives on a camel, 

 and take them (by night) to the Nile, someSX hours' 

 walk, where they were put on a boat, and taken up 

 or down the river to a place where plenty of honey- 

 producing flowers were still in bloom. The boat is 

 anchored at Its destination, and marked. As soon 

 as the honey-flow begins it is indicated by the sink- 

 ing of the boat. As soon as the mark has gone one 

 meter below the surface, he knows the hives to be 

 full; and after cutting out the honey he examines 

 the boat anew. If this ingenious balance indicates 

 a continuation, he remains in the place; but if, on 

 the contrary, such a place is looked for as having 

 flowers, or if none are to be found, the product is 

 sold in Cairo on the return trip. 



AN EGYPTIAN BEE SMOKER. 



The smokers are only bovine cakes, made from 

 half a-eating-cattle manure, as all other manure from 

 broad beans and clover is a nuisance to the bees, 

 and communicates a bad smell to the honey. Each 

 smoker is 8 inches long, and is lighted at the top, 

 and is to be kept by blowing continually. I told 



him of the improved Bingham and Clark smokers: 

 but to all my observations he would not listen, he 

 having arrived at a degree of knowledge not to be 

 surpassed by anybody else, and as being the owner 

 of 1100 hives in three apiaries, the most considera- 

 ble of which was the one before which we were joy- 

 fully talking and listening by turns about the 

 blessings of apiculture. It consisted of 600 hives, 

 as above-mentioned. He had 300 or 300 hives in his 

 out-apiaries, and, besides, took charge of all the 

 apiaries in the vicinity, sharing all the income 

 (swarms included) on halves. He told me there is 

 none to equal him in knowledge; and all bee- 

 keepers from far and wide have acknowledged his 

 superiority, the same coming to ask him questions. 

 He went""orrd escribing his ways and manner, and 

 as it wa8_now half-past elev en,_and being Friday, 

 ithe muezzin (the caller for prayersj^reminded 

 them of their duties. Ph. S. Baldensperger. 



g; Jaffa, March 5, 1890. 



Eriend B.,we congratulate you on the 

 happy way in which you have recounted to 

 us your exceedingly interesting account of 

 your visit to one of the bee - keepers of 

 Egypt. I am surprised that you say noth- 

 ing abDut the vindictiveness of the Egyptian 

 bee. Those brought to our country some 

 years ago were so terrible to sting that the 

 whole race was soon stamped out of exist- 

 ence. And so it is indeed true, that there 

 is a man living who has formerly made it 

 his business to run a floating apiary on the 

 Nile. Why, our good friend Perrine should 

 make a visit to Egypt on purpose to learn 

 how, and then come back and revive his 

 steamboat apiary. It seems to me that 

 those camels must have been exceedingly 

 docile to submit to carrying 16 hives of bees. 

 I wonder if they have as much trouble in 

 moving bees with camels as we do with 

 horses and wagons, supposing the bees 

 chance to get out of their hive. And, again, 

 these clay or crockery hives, one would 

 think, would be rather fragile for a camel's 

 back, or for loading on to boats. Never 

 mind, even if our friend would not listen to 

 any thing you had to tell him about Clark 

 and Bingbam smokers. With his 1100 hives, 

 his out-apiaries, his floating bee - palaces, 

 and camels, he certainly is entitled to con- 

 siderable respect. Who knows but that he 

 may visit us some time in the future? What 

 a grand thing it would be to have such a 

 chap to attend a bee-keepers' convention ! 

 The very self-conceit that he has so strong- 

 ly emphasized is one of the results of stay- 

 ing at home. Now, may be this last re- 

 mark strikes a clip at some of you. Well, I 

 do not care very much if it does. Staying 

 at home, when carried to excess, dwarfs and 

 impoverishes both body and mind. 



FEEDING BEES, ETC. 



SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY DOOLITTLE. 



A CORRESPONDENT wishes me to answer, through 

 Gleanings, the following questions: "What is the 

 best method of feeding bees, andzwhen and what 

 shall I feed to stimulate brood-rearing?" I sup- 

 pose that, of course, our correspondent knows that 

 stimulative feeding is for the purpose of arousing 

 the bees to greater activity, and for greater resulst 



