THE BEE-REEPERS' REVIEW, 



321 



sion that in my apiary a colony storing 

 honey would swarm if boosted much with 

 sealed brood that I let tlie idea drop without 

 spending any effort on it. I am a little fas- 

 cinated with the idea that, in localities 

 where bees swarm but little, great yields 

 might be secured by giving sealed brood and 

 young bees, in addition to what the mother 

 queen furnishes : but in such a locality there 

 would be no surplus swarms, over and above 

 what the yard has use for. So this particu- 

 lar invention would be a ship launched in 

 Dry Creek. 



"Dec. 20th. Packed four colonies of bees 

 while the thermometer stood at about 'M° . 

 Bees that flew around mostly fell ou ttie snow 

 and perished , but very few did so except from 

 the last colony." 



I was surprised and pleased to see how 

 nicely I could get along under the circum- 

 stances. Have often done the like since. 

 Yet we have respectable testimony that very 

 slight disturbance of a quiet colony in 

 winter, if repeated often results in serious 

 damage to the colony, and sometimes in the 

 ruin of it. If repeated disturbance ruins, 

 will not one disturbance injure ? Perhaps 

 it does ; but I take the chances. Moreover 

 I have a way of figuring clear of the injury 

 in this style : Disturb a colony just enough 

 that part of the bees crawl out of the cluster, 

 while the most of them remain, and those 

 that crawl out may scatter around on the 

 cold combs, become chilled there, and there 

 remain until they are dead. This evidently 

 injures the colony just to the amount of the 

 number of bees needlessly killed. But give 

 the colony a little more disturbance and the 

 bees will all stir around, warm up the prem- 

 ises, and eventually form the cluster again 

 without chilling any. I do not think that 

 one stirring up of this kind in a winter is a 

 material injury. Perhaps I'm wrong — but 

 so long as we wish to skin eels we like to 

 presume that it don't hurt ' em very much. 



" Dec. 22nd. Made the first Gallup chaff divis- 

 ion-board — one aide of •'« inch wood, two strips 

 of the same for tops and bottoms, and the rest 

 muslin." 



These division-boards, or dummies, I have 

 yet. They neither break, rot, wear out, run 

 away nor get stolen. Every time I use one 

 of them I feel a sort of twinge of indescrib- 

 able feeling — of " rheumatism of mind," to 

 the effect that they are a nuisance. Serve 

 their purpose tolerably well, to be sure, but 

 a trifle more trouble and expense would have 

 supplied the apiary with thoroughly satis- 

 factory ones, not to be repented of. Things 



which we are to use but once, or which we 

 use but seldom may well be extemporized 

 in an off-hand way ; but as to articles of con- 

 tinual use, let us have the best — that is, the 

 best that reasonable pains and expense will 

 procure. The reporter that buys cheap pen- 

 cils, and the bee-keeper that buys a cheap 

 uncapping-knife, are not admirable but 

 reprehensible persons. Here is a point in 

 which all men, bee-keepers as well as others, 

 are interested. It will not do to go alw&ys by 

 the motto, " The best is the cheapest." It 

 would take a fortune to settle the bills. 

 There must be some willingness to take a 

 cheaper article, else the askers of extortion- 

 ate prices would have everything in their 

 own way. On the other hand the universal 

 habit of always taking the cheapest thing 

 that looks as though it might answer would 

 destroy quality, prevent progress, and 

 starve out good work and good workers. 

 The best we can do is to strike a golden 

 mean — insist on the very best in a few things 

 that are most vital to us, and insist on a 

 reasonable cheapness in a lot of other things 

 which are important but not superlatively 

 so. And as to articles which we make for 

 ourselves very nearly the same principle ap- 

 ply. 



' Dec. 24th. Tried putting two stands, 4-1 and 

 4-7 on dry sawdust for winter without any bot- 

 tom board." 



Here I was after two important things, 

 drainage of internal slops (which will not 

 run out in winter by reason of snow and ice 

 around the edges) and the moderate but 

 valuable warmth of mother earth, upon 

 whose bosom we rest. The experiment suc- 

 ceeded very well ; but as moles and burrow- 

 ing mice are very liable to root into any 

 snug retreat left open to them, either on or 

 under the earth, the success had to be credit- 

 ed to a lucky accident. How to secure these 

 advantages safely is a problem which I have 

 not yet worked out satisfactorily. When we 

 make a bank of sawdust and settle the bot- 

 tom board of the hive into it firmly it seems 

 as though winter's cold would not come in 

 from that direction much, but it will. Mice 

 and shrinkage and wind will speedily open 

 much of the territory under your board, and 

 earth warmth is too feeble to avail much 

 across an open space through which the 

 winter air is circulating. A well bedded 

 piece of sawed stone, and the hive set di- 

 rectly on it without any other bottom, would 

 communicate what heat the earth had to 

 give ; but slops would not soak down and 



