848 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



Among the things in the shop thai interested 

 me pai'ticvilarly were the clamps, or lioney- 

 crates, for holding sections. There were also 

 samples of the original thumb-screws tliat had 

 been used for clamping up the sections some 

 ten 01' t\^■elve years ago. It se(>med that Mr. 

 Crane wanted some sort of arrangement to 

 clamp up his sections: and I believe he sug- 

 gested something in the nature of a screw. 

 Mr. Planum, his appliance-niakei' and bee- 

 keeping fi'ieiid. soldered a l»rass thumb-plate 

 to a common sci'ew, and tiiese they both used. 

 But they, subsequently, used wooden screws, 

 the same that Mr. Heddon has since adopted. 

 But Mr. Crane has discarded them for a wedge. 

 He thought it was more convenient, and did 

 away with the unpleasant projections in the 

 form of thumb-screws outside of the case. 



HIVES WITH THE ENTRAXCE THKOUGH THE 

 BOTTOM. 



Among other things that interested me great- 

 ly was an old bottom-board. It had a square 

 hole in the center, and an alighting-board un- 

 der it. The bees, to enter the hive, pass under 

 the bottom -board up through the aforesaid hole 

 into the hive. INIr. Crane believed he was orig- 

 inal in the use of such a bottom-entrance hive, 

 he having devised this a great many years ago. 

 There; were many nice things about it; but, 

 taking it all in all. he had discaixled it for the 

 ordinary entrance in front of the hive. 



Perhaps I might remark, in passing, that Mr. 

 Elwood, Mr. Manum. and Mr. Hetherington, 

 use bottom entrances — that is. the b(>es i)ass di- 

 rectly under the hives. Mr. Ehvood. when the 

 bees are to be moved, closes the hole with a 

 slide and the bees are shut in. For outdoor 

 hives that are to be left on their summer stands 



crane's honey, ready for-jiakket. 



in doiible-walled hives, this sort of entrance is 

 certainly a nice thing. It is quite impossible 

 for the snow to bank up in any way so as to 

 close it. For a single-walled cellar hive, the 

 bees have only to Ix' carried into the cellar, the 

 slide withdrawn, and the bees have ample bot- 

 tom ventilation. If I am correct, this is th(; 

 way that Ehvood. Hethei'ington. and L. C. 

 Root give bottom ventilation in their ci'llars. 



Anothei- thing that inteicsted me particular- 

 ly was Mr. Crane"s method of ])acking honey 

 for market. He had a few thousand pounds 

 already prepared for market. I photographed 

 a pile of it standing in the barn, which T here- 

 with present to you. 



He puts all his honey in cartons, also neatly 

 lettered. A certain number of cartons filled 

 with honey just fill a case. They are not glass- 

 ed, but the sides are left open, and the cartons 

 are ample jjrotection for the honey. The cases 

 are made of beautiful wliite poplar, and are 

 lettered by stencil in black and red, with a 

 handsome monogram, and an old - fashion(»d 

 straw bee-hive tastily arranged in the lettering. 

 It is all carefully graded, and named according 

 to the grade. The ])ile I photograidied above 

 was about the handsomest lot of honey for 

 market I ever saw. I am soi'ry the print 

 doesn't give it more justice. While I was ad- 

 miring his honey, a little girl came out to the 

 barn to see her papa. He seemed to be very 

 proud of her, and well he might. When this 

 little one came into his family he named her 

 Theodora, fi'om two Greek words, meaning 

 ■' gift of God." I thought, " How nice it would 

 be to have h(>r sitting by two or three of those 

 pretty ci'ates of honey, out in the bright sun- 

 light!" We arranged some crates, and by this 

 time the boy came out. We stationed the two 

 by the side of the cases, and with the Kodak I 

 took two or tliree shots; bitt as it was near the 

 end of the Jilm it was not a good picture or else 

 I should have been glad to introduce all our 

 readers to little Theodora and her brother 

 Philip, the latter named after Mr. Elwood. 



We now went into the house, and I met Mrs. 

 Crane. Into the parlor we repaired, and Mr. 

 Crane said he would like to show me something 

 he was interested in. He produced a box con- 

 taining a large collection of stereoscopic slides, 

 illustrating difVerent phases of the temjjerance 

 question, showing the effectof taxation, license, 

 and prohibition. During his spare winter 

 months he devotes his time to the cause of tem- 

 perance, and leetui'ing on the subject. Perhaps 

 some of our readers may know of him thi'ough 

 the columns of other papers. 



After dinner. Mr. Crane kindly offered to 

 take me across the country to Mi'. Manum's, 

 who lives eight or nine miles away. We as- 

 cended some pretty big hills, and had some fine 

 views of the surrounding country, and the 

 fact seemed to impress me more than ever that 

 a good bee-forage is generally found in moun- 

 tainous or hilly countries. After a very pleas- 

 ant drive and "visit we reined up before Mr. 

 Manum's house. You know the rest as given 

 by Mr. Manuin, recently. He was in his bee- 

 shop, and, of course, the first thing I did was to 

 get inside of it and look at all the fixings. 

 "What is this? and what is that for? Oh! 

 this is what you described in Gleanings. Ah! 

 I see," and so on. 



manum's bee-candy, etc. 



Mr. Manum has ali-eady told you that ray 

 stay was short, and so, of course, I put in the 

 time about as fast as I could, asking questions 

 after the manner of the alcove. Thei-e was his 

 swarming-arrangement that he had descriljed 

 in Gleanings. He has a little frame for hatch- 

 ing queen-cells, the same as was described and 

 ilhistrated on page 639 last year. He showed 

 me a pan of his bee-candy. Why, U wonld 

 Tieep four years, and still be soft, and good food 

 for bees. I may remark in passing, that we are 

 now experimenting with it. with the view of 

 adopting it next year for mailing queens in the 

 Benton cage. Tlie trouble with the (iood candy 

 is. it is apt to get liard when it goes into a cold 

 climate. We have had some lately that became 

 as hard asabi'ick, and the bees actually starved 

 to death, as was shown by inspection of the 

 cages returned. Mr. Manum adds a very small 

 quantity of glycerbic to the sugar and honey to 

 prevent this. To save you the trouble of refer- 

 ring to liack numbers, I will give the formula: 



