(t NOVICE'S" GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUR8. 



83 



had commenced working that day. The 

 owner of the farm Btated that the bees 

 had worked very briskly on the eider. Five 

 of the stocks were not opened on Satur- 

 day — remained shut in by a wire screen 

 put before the portico 8x12 wide until 

 Monday night. I was terror-struck to see 

 from a pint to a quart of dead bees in three 

 of those hives. Several bees were exam- 

 ined and found to contain a large drop of 

 some kind of liquid not in their honey 

 bag, but in their extremities. This make's 

 me think that cider is very injurious. Per- 

 haps those bees would not have died if they 

 could have discharged their feces. Two 

 years ago the bees of my home apiary had 

 been weakened so much by working on 

 eider, that they came very 'weak through 

 the winter, and amounted to nothing at 

 all the next summer. A. (■. 



Many thanks, Mr. Grim. "We value the 

 above report as it gives an idea of the 

 profits of beekeeping as it really is, gener- 

 ally the country over, and presents no ex- 

 aggerated inducements to beginners, that 

 will be sure to lead them to disappoint- 

 ments. In regard to the cidermills, P. (I. 

 has insisted all along this fall that the 

 number of dead and dying bees in front 

 of our hives surely indicated something 

 wrong. Novice suggested that it was on- 

 ly old bees whose span of life was "spun' 7 

 out, but after sweeping the ground clean, 

 in a very short time it was again 

 strewn with their distended bodies, 

 and many of our stocks are so sadly de- 

 populated that if they all winter safely 

 twill be a wonder indeed. Since the dry 

 sugar experiments, matters have much 

 improved with the exception of the time 

 when many bees were lost in-working on 

 the dampened sugar. 



HOW NOVICE FED OUR BEES, 



J "jlj OUR barrels of sugar were purchas- 

 .. -i] ed about Oct. 1st, at an expense of 

 Hie per pound. We could have had it 

 for even 11, two months earlier, but we 

 make it a practice as a general rule to buy 

 as low as we can when an article is need- 

 ed without attempting to speculate on the 

 probable rise or fall of any staple com- 

 modity. 



As Novice expressed a very sanguine 

 belief that he could finish the whole 

 feeding in three days if furnished with 

 plenty of "tea kettles," the whole mat- 

 ter was turned over to him alone, and he 

 commenced operations at :» o'clock, Oct. 

 8th, the day being. very line though cool 

 towards evening. 



A large pine box lined with mtc, of ca- 

 pacity equal to four barrels, was the only 

 material used, not found in every house- 

 hold, and this had been originally made 

 for another purpose, but has been used 

 in our apiary to keep empty combs in, etc. 

 The barrels of sugar were in the bee 

 house where they had been rolled from 

 the car. Well, at 3 o'clock as we said be- 

 fore, this zinc lined box was placed in 



front of the bee house at about six feet 

 from the door, the light ladder used to' 

 gain access to the loft, was placed so a.-f 

 to form an incline from the threshhold c»T 

 the door to the edge of the box oveV 

 which it projected beyond the other eda« 

 of the box. 



It is clear that with this arrangement 

 but little strength and very little time w«s 

 required in rolling a barrel up so that it 

 rested directly over the b:>x, removing 

 the head and dropping the whole contents 

 without waste into the box. The next 

 operation was to pour the content- of a 

 large washboiler of boiling water on said 

 sugar, and as the quantity seemed insuf- 

 ficient the contents of the teakettle found 

 on the stove were used also. The a-bsenee 

 of said utensil, when preparations were 

 being made for the evening meal, Novice 

 failed to consider at all, and in fact had 

 he done so it would probably have troubled 

 him but little, for when heis at work at a 

 project for shortening labor he seldom 

 considers its bearing on other people or 

 things, at the time. 



When he judged that the boiling water 

 for a barrel of sugar was sufficient, rapid 

 dissolution was the next desirable point 

 and a hoe was hastily divested of the great- 

 er part of the accumulation on its blade, 

 when Mrs. N. ventured to remonstrate, on 

 the ground that the garden hoe was hard 

 ly a tidy implement for such a purpose : 

 he replied that she did him injustice for 

 'twas not the garden hoe, but the one 

 used in the stables.. (Novice here insists 

 that with the aid of said teakettle of 

 boiling water the hoe was made perfectly 

 clean.) 



Perhaps fifteen minutes wa* occupied 

 in acquiring the art of using the hoe to 

 the best advantage, which consists in 

 making a channel in the sugar and then 

 forcing the hot water along this with con- 

 siderable force by keeping the hoe con- 

 stantly submerged, and directing the cur- 

 rent toward the sugar until it all disap- 

 pears. 



After supper, the undissolved sugar had 

 settled to the bottom and the syrup above 

 remained clear and about the desired 

 consistency. A shelf was suspended in 

 the box on which to place the feeders, and 

 the syrup was dipped up with a coffee-pot 

 and poured into them ; wbenfull the feed 

 er was inverted on the shelf to see that 

 none ran out, and then carried in this 

 position to a hive that had been previous- 

 ly uncovered. Uefore returning, the next 

 hive was uncovered and so on; by thus 

 saying steps, tweilty hires were each sup 

 plied with the contents of one of the tea 

 kettle feeders, before 6 o'clock; and in 

 short a whole barrel of sugar was made 

 into syrup and fed to twenty hives in less 

 than three hours, lu proof that syrup can 

 be made in this way without the addition of 

 other ingredients to prevent crystaliza- 

 tion, we may state that at this date, Oct 

 17th, the syrup is, the greater part- of it, 

 nicely capped over, brood li to be leen in 

 all stages and a healthier state of affairs 



