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Or how to Realize the Most Money with the Smallest Expenditure of Capita] 

 and Labor in the Care of Bees, Rationally Considered. 



rUULISIIED MONTHLY 



Vol. I. 



MEDINA, O., NOV 1, 1873. 



No. 11, 



STARTING AX Al'IAKY. 



No, 11. 



^XAvf^' nave J us t returned from a visit to 

 J J] a friend who wished us tc put his 

 bees in winter trim ; ami to illustrate how 

 little care is really necessary for moder- 

 ate success we will mention that we sold 

 him two colonies of Italians in Lang- 

 stroth hives about April 1st, 1872. At 

 the same time he purchased a third in a 

 hive labelled "Pror. Flanders" and some- 

 thing else, we can t remember what, but 

 l he frames were triangular. We located 

 them at the time as we thought most fa- 

 vorably, and saw them no more until 

 sometime in June, when we occupied 

 about an hour in swarming the three arti- 

 ficially. We did this with two of them, by 

 simply giving a new hive placed on a new 

 stand, two frames of brood and the ad- 

 hering bees, with perhaps live empty 

 combs from the upper story i the two hives 

 we sold had a full set of combs above as 

 well as below) ; the Flanders hive we 

 swarmed by shaking about half the bees 

 only in a new hive, and giving them, as 

 with the others, two combs of brood and 

 tive empty combs from the Langstroth 

 hives. 



All three made good strong colonies, 

 and in October (same year) we prepared 

 the six for winter, and took out over 10(1 

 lbs. of comb honey in frames, alter giving 

 an ample supply for winter. As no bee 

 cholera has ever been known in that lo- 

 cality, we were not surprised to learn that 

 all of the six wintered finely* They 

 Rtood out doors on the summit of a hill, 

 within half a mile of Lake Erie, and the 

 wind was often such that the covers of 

 the hives required to be fastened on : yet 

 they had no covering except the cloth 

 quilt we used, the}" of course being confined 

 to the lowerstory. They did well, because 

 their food, although natural stores, proved 

 to be wholesome. 



This season our friend, finding artificial 

 swarming so simple, decided to do it him- 

 self, and would doubtless have done it all 

 right, had not the six "simplicity'' hives 



we sent, got delayed somehow, so that 

 four swarms came out and at least itch 

 went off. However, he made swarms 

 from four of them, and three of these we' 

 have just examined and found in nice" 

 condition, but the fourth contained no 

 queen, and only a handful of bees, and s'$ 

 the greater part of these were drone,-, we 1 

 presume they failed in rearing a queen 

 and the drones came here from other col- 

 onics. With these few Italians, however,' 

 we found the combs clean and no 

 trace of the moth miller. We saved ou1 

 some com!) honey after giving the nine 

 colonies an ample supply, and learned 

 they had extracted about 200 pounds, 

 which bad been sold for 25c, making an' 

 income of $50 besides, the value of the 

 three new colonies, which were fine Ital- 

 ians: all the result of our friend's own 

 management, entirely. 



_ We were amused to find that, our 

 friend had used the bottom board* to the 

 simplicity hives tqyside down. Xo harm 

 had resulted, except that a few pieces of 

 comb were built below the bottom bars. 



Now we have an idea that this would he 

 most an excellent arrangement for win- 

 tering, for all dead bees would fall into 

 this space and be easily thrown out in 

 the spring, and we should also be relieved 

 of the necessity of having our shelves 

 more than a foot wide in the bee brOd&A 

 i see page 2ti, April No..) which Weu-Uj 

 give us more room and greater ease i» 

 handling the hives. 



As the bottom boards are usually more 

 or less soiled, and the covers ar« not 

 needed indoors, we can simply put Qian. 

 under the hives instead, so that our bot- 

 tom board can remain on the >-uftHV,«r 

 stand all winter, and will be ready when 

 we set them out in the spring, door vf*'p 

 and all. In this ease it would probably 

 be well to paint the upper side of tUi 

 bottom board as well as cover, but we re- 

 ally don't know from experience whether 

 the painting of the bottom board would 

 assist or retard the efforts of the bees Ml 

 tidy housekeeping. We have always 

 found them quite read} to appreciate all 

 efforts al tidiness, Mich as sweeping tlip 

 dead bees away from the front of their 



