DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO BEES -A.3STID HONEY 



Vol. II. 



AUGUST 1, 1874. 



No. VIII 



HOW TO CONDUCT A1V APIARY. 



No. 8. 



/pJjOULD we know just what the yield of 



€ 



4^' honey would be during this month, with 

 each of our readers, we might advise much 

 more to the point, but whatever the circum- 

 stances may be, please do not let your Apiary 

 run down, and get grown up wih weeds. We 

 have had much to say on this matter 'tis true, 

 but it seems so natural to find every thing al- 

 lowed to run down after the honey yield has 

 ceased, that we fear very much more will need 

 be said before Apiaries are kept like a "tidj' 

 workshop" especially in the fall of the year. 



There are very many points still so unset- 

 tled, that we cannot as yet decide on what is 

 best; they are now under the consideration of 

 our best thinkers and "doers" too for that 

 matter. For instance : How large had we 

 best make our hives ? We certainly are not 

 prepared to decide at present. A visit to some 

 very successful neighboring Apiarians gives 

 no positive grounds for a decision on the sub- 

 ject. Two of their owners, are quite confident 

 that a quart of Italian bees will gather about 

 the same quantity of honey whether they are a 

 nucleus by themselves, or whether they form 

 a part of a two story hive, or whether they 

 belong to a four foot New Idea hive; and in 

 the former case the Apiarist can secure nearly 

 as much of an income from them, from the sale 

 of Queens, as from the honey they gather. 



Our friend Dean, of River Styx, as we have 

 before mentioned has before this season only 

 used a single story hive, containing when full, 

 12 Gallup frames. He always uses a division 

 board, and moves it up so as to have the bees 

 fill their space at all times, in fact quite a 

 swarm issued while we were there, and we 

 were informed they came all from a one comb 

 nucleus. This seemed incredible, but after he 

 h i 1 taken away their Queen to induce them to 

 go back, we looked inside and found the whole 

 space on both sides of the comb, full of bees. 

 No wonder he is successful, these bees rilled 

 their one comb with honey as soon as the full 

 stocks rilled their twelve combs, and soon 

 through his 40 or 50 colonies. The certainty 

 and ease with which he built up colonies and 

 raised Queens, made his bees build all worker 

 comb of beautiful evenness and regularity, etc. 

 etc., was enough to make any one think the 

 pursuit the most fascinating in the world. 

 Although he has three of the four foot hives 

 under way, he did not seem disposed to agree 

 on their universal adoption, and he could not 

 think of abandoning his division boards any 



sooner than abandoning hives, to use his own 

 expression. Mr. Blakeslee uses the Langstroth 

 hive and he thinks his bees that are rearing 

 Queens, give him nearly if not quite as much 

 honey as if they were in a large hive. Our 

 own bees are at present in single story Sim- 

 plicity L. frame hives, and the lightness and 

 ease with which we handle them (when there 

 is no upper story on) tempts us very much to 

 be satisfied with our Langstroth frames, and 

 never to think of any other. As we had inten- 

 ded to increase without any thought of surplus 

 this season, we have been very agreeably sur- 

 prised to rind that a one story hive crammed 

 full of been will give a very large amount of 

 honey, if it be extracted promptly when the 

 hive is full. It is true that our Standard hive 

 can be allowed to go 8 days, when our Sim- 

 plicities would need emptying in 4, but the 

 latter only take about half the time and the L. 

 frames standing square before you in their 

 shallow hives, are much the easiest to manipu- 

 late. Please remember that we are only con- 

 sidering both sides of the matter without ma- 

 king a positive decision either way, but we 

 would advise those who like ourselves have a 

 thousand or two of nice L. combs, to be in no 

 haste about transferring them into something 

 else. When bee-keepers decide whether they 

 wish a hive to contain 10, 20, 30 or 40 combs, 

 we can tell better what shape we wish our 

 combs to have. Again: What about winter- 

 ing? We really cannot gather that the very 

 long hives have practically shown themselves 

 much, if any superior to the ten frame hives, 

 when the latter contained plenty of bees ; the 

 former having dwindled down in some locali- 

 ties, just about the same as the others. 



Now it will be very well to begin this month, 

 to consider the matter of wintering, and those 

 who decide on wintering on natural stores 

 should cease using the extractor in time to al- 

 low them to rill up nicely. As no report has 

 ever been given showing that sugar-syrup was 

 inferior to natural stores we shall still advise 

 taking away the good honey and feeding the 

 cheaper food.. We cannot gather that the syr- 

 up stores have any influence either way on the 

 recent troubles in getting them through the 

 months of March and April. 



In regard to cider mills ; as soon as the bees 

 commence visiting them or the groceries, we 

 would advise keeping them elsewhere employ- 

 ed on dry sugar, and our experiments last fail, 

 though made late, and not conclusive, seem to 

 indicate that the remedy may be effectual. We 

 would keep them away from the cider mills on 

 account of the great number that are there 



