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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



August. 



OUR PRIMARY DEPARTMENT, 



Or First Principles in Bee-Keeping-. 



[Designed especially for the veriest novices, and 

 those \vhi> know nothing of bees whatever. Conduct- 

 ed by a fellow Novice of several years experience 

 replete with blunders, as well as with occasional 

 successes.] 



"t XT* HAT kind of a colony of bees to pur- 

 jj chase ? We would advise that you take 

 whatever comes handiest, if there are only lots 

 of bees in the hive. You will have to transfer 

 it any way, and so it will not make any great 

 difference what contains them. Bees in a box 

 hive are valued at from 2 [ . 2 to $10.00 according 

 to season, locality ami strength of colony. If 

 yon could beg, boiTOW or steal a few empty 

 combs, the simplest way in the world would 

 be to buy a natural swarm, if one could be ob- 

 tained within a day or two after having come 

 out. Of course the word "steal" is not really 

 intended, for we expect all bee-keepers if they 

 wish really to enjoy their possessions to render 

 a full fair equivalent for every thing, that they 

 may feel 'tis all honestly earned by the sweat 

 of their brow. 



Whatever the hive may be, locate it on the 

 north side of the trellis as described last month, 

 make it level unless 'tis intended to slant a lit- 

 tle from the entrance to shed rain, and have 

 the entrance on the east side. Bank it around 

 with saw-dust far enough so that you can go 

 down on your knees safely at any side of it. 

 It's good for one to go down on their knees 

 sometimes, and if you would be an Apiarist the 

 sooner you bow as a submissive pupil to kind 

 old dame nature, the better. 



Now we are not going to trouble ourselves 

 to tell you which are the workers, and which 

 are the drones etc., for 'tis your business to 

 learn that yourself. The colony is to be trans- 

 ferred into a Standard hive bye and bye, but 

 before you undertake such an operation you 

 are to get thorougldy acquainted with your lit- 

 tle friends. You should be so familiar with 

 them in fact that you can lie down in front of 

 the entrance and examine the movements of 

 their antennae with a magnifier as they greet 

 new' coiners who return with a load of pollen 

 or honey. You should also be able to distin- 

 guish at a glance a bee filled with honey from 

 one that is not, that you may be able to detect 

 robbing at its commencement. Nothing but 

 close careful observation will enable you to do 

 this. They will very soon get so accustomed 

 to your presence that they will not be disturb- 

 ed at all, and will alight on your face when 

 heavily laden as confidingly as if it were their 

 own threshold. You should be able to distin- 

 guish at once by their hum or note whether 

 they are in a quarrelsome mood or only busy 

 in the faithful discharge of their duties. We 

 remember well our troubles during our first 

 season with bees ; they had been robbing some, 

 and in the afternoon we found a quantity of 

 bees hovering about the entrance, crowding in 

 and out, and making a sad hubbub, as we 

 thought; we so closed the entrance, ami then 

 felt sure 'twas robbing for they piled over it 

 and made frantic efforts to get in. Soon anoth- 

 er colony was "attacked" and we closed them 

 up and, oh dear, such a worry as we had. As 

 they didn't go home at dusk we let them in 



aid it finally dawned on our understanding 

 that 'twas only the young bees at play, as they 

 almost always do from 12 till 3 or 4 o'clock P. 

 M. We had not then learned the peculiar "rob- 

 bing note" nor did we know that swarming 

 was always indicated by a sound that a bee 

 never emits at any other occurrence in life, and 

 worst of all we could not distinguish a loaded 

 bee from one that was not. If you learn all 

 these things before transferring 'twill be all 

 the better. A folding, or camp chair as they 

 are sometimes calied is very convenient and 

 then 'tis pleasant to take a book or paper 

 and sit by your hive and grape vine. The 

 hum of their industry, to us, is the finest ac- 

 companiment for enjoyable reading. 



Now both this hive, and the vine are expect- 

 ed to increase and multiply in time, and this 

 vine is to have its one shoot tied to the central 

 wire D, as fast as it grows, pinching off all 

 side shoots after they have made one leaf. 

 When it gets to the top of the trellis, pinch 

 it off also, and it will soon throw out side 

 shoots. Pinch all on' again except one on each 

 side near the bottom bar B. Train these by 

 tying, strait out horizontally until they reach 

 the posts, then train them up the posts and 

 pinch them off like the middle one. Now get 

 two more shoots to train up the wires C, and 

 E, and we are done. The future treatment ot 

 the vines consists only in cutting the upright 

 shoots all back to the horizontal arms tied to 

 the lower bar B, every winter, and training 

 two new shoots up each wire and post every 

 summer, and pinching them off whenever they 

 get to the top. 



Next month we'll tell how to "swarm grape 

 vines" artificially as well as more about the 

 bees. 



m i > i^- — 



A SCENE IN THE APIAKT. 



pHIME, July 10th, about dusk. Blue Eyes 



slL in charge of Mrs. N. is perched up on one 

 side of the extractor bench with one fat arm ' 

 stretched over to the crank, and while she is 

 enjoying herself hugely in making it spin, Mrs. 

 N. is telling Novice that she will take one of 

 the best $10.00 extractors and must hit re it im- 

 mediately as she wishes it to keep the baby qui- 

 et. Novice however is dolefully contemplating 

 his ankles just now, and seems evidently troub- 

 led about some matter more weighty than the 

 simple fact that they are only "useful" and not 

 "ornamental." The real trouble is this : the 

 hives have just been discovered to be a little 

 too full for the best economy, and P. G. in her 

 ambition to have as many hives as possible 

 emptied before dark, persuaded him he could 

 do "just one more." This last one had made 

 such progress in gathering honey, and the 

 Queen had filled such nice combs with brood 

 (they had been unable to repel robbers a very 

 few weeks ago) that he took so much time to 

 contemplate the snowy wreathed combs, con- 

 taining the bass wood honey — he called it "dew 

 of heaven" a few days before when an attempt 

 was made to take out some before it was suffic- 

 iently ripened, but P. G. suggested that our 

 honey customers might have a decided prefer- 

 ence for reed 7ioney, after they had paid their 

 money, in place of the aforesaid "dew" and so 

 extracting was adjourned until the evening in 



