IDE"VOTEI5 E3CCL"CrSI"VEIL."Z' TO BEES .AJSTJD HOnSTE^ST 

 Vol. III. 



APRIL, 1, 1875. 



No. IV. 



ho^v i obtained »5(it l.bs., froiti 

 44 col,onie:s. 



B\ r. W. Ml-FATUIDGE. 



I 



LanfTstroth hive double story, lower story 18x14)^ 

 ~!J anil 10 inches hicrh. upper story 18x16 inches 

 uml 10 inches hiffh. with 10 frames in each. Ten frames 

 in upjicr story jrives us the comb after the knife has 

 been used on it just the right thickness for brood 

 comb, and every time we extract we put all combs 

 with brood in them into the lower story. 



Last spring May 1st, we had 8(i colonies out of 122 

 last fall. These were generally in a weak condition, 

 60 we took 70 of the best and made the4t that gave the 

 above result. About the 12th of May we moved them 

 about 17 miles (on a spring wagon made for the pur- 

 pose that will carry 28 hives at once, it is two stories 

 high), to a large poplar grove {Liriodendron Talipi- 

 fera) where they gathered 5308 lbs. of honey which we 

 took with extractor. About June 20th we moved H'i of 

 the 44 colonies about 39 miles to a Linden grove [Tilia 

 Americana) where they gathered 32,")9 lbs. taken out 

 with the extractor. Queen's wings all clipped, Adair 

 to contrary. Hurrah for clipped Queens! 



The 16 weak colonies left at home we made into .51 

 nuclei and about the 7th of August we brought the 44 

 colonies home and built up the .'il nuclei into strong 

 colonies and fed to the whole number 1408 lbs. of A 

 (;oflfee sugar made into syrup. One pound of water to 

 two ])ounds of sugar boiled a few minutes so as to 

 melt all the crystals of the sugar. We wintered last 

 winter in a second story 10x19 feet insi(le, double walls 

 one foot filled with sawdust. We took all the combs 

 from eight strong colonies the last of August and fed 

 them a |)art of the above sugar syrup; we weighed the 

 syrup fed to one of eight. 94,^' lbs. They built ten 

 combs 16,''8x9J^ inches in the clear. We then took out 

 of the ten combs with extractor AA}i lbs. leaving SOJsi 

 lbs. of syrup used in building ten combs which cost in 

 sugar about §4.00. We extracted the honey from the 

 44 colonies four times during the time they were away, 

 twice at Po)ilar grove and twice at Linden grove. 



Here is a description of our bee house and bee yard. 

 The house is 37xl() inside, 8 foot high, double walls 1 

 foot filled with sawdust. Well ventilated and perfect- 

 ly dai k, cemented floor. The air starts from the center 

 of garret then passes over the ceiling each way until it 

 comes to the walls, thence down between the outer and 

 inner walls until it enters the room near the bottom. 

 The south passage comes down between the out- 

 er and inner doors and comes into the room at the 

 bottom. The air goes out of the room through a trap 

 i''>'>r in the ceiling, and can be controlled both inside 

 :iii 1 out at pleasure. 



There is a railway laid in the house lengthwise and 

 .lu'ither comes into the house from the bee yard at 

 riirht angles with the one In the house and one foot 

 \>elow it. We have eight cars 14 feet 4^' inches long 

 ami wide enough for tlie hives to stan<l back to back 

 across them and hold 20 hives each. Tlie lower sto- 

 ries of the hives are a little over one inch ai>art, hives 

 raised about one inch from the bottom of car and the 

 back end about I'A inches higher than front. The 

 bottom and side spaces are jiacked with buckwheat 

 chafl" to preserve as even a temiierature as possible 

 when the cars are run out into the yard permanentlj- 

 In the spring. 



The second story just fills the spaces left between 

 the lower stories so that the covers of the hives come 

 dose together, and the tip of the laves just brings the 

 ends of covers together so that putting a board 12 

 -inches wide along the joint makes it all right to stand 

 out in the weather. We have a car on the track that 

 nins from the yard into the house with a track on tlic 

 top of it, correspondini:' with the one in the house so 



that we can run a car with bees, on to this car and 

 then run it out into the yard. We have oj)i)ositc sM*' 

 tracks at right angles with it and can run tiic car with 

 the bees onToffon to the side track and so on till the 

 eight are all out. We can run them all out in about 2<< 

 minutes and when necessary run them back again.* 

 We have had them out twice this winter. 



We will have another car to run on same track with 

 a stone trough 3x5 feet about IM inches deep with 

 small pebbles on the bottom and a water vessel ar- 

 rangeil so that water will stanil just the right height 

 In the trough so that a bee can stand on a uebble an<l 

 sip without getting its feet wet, and a good chance to 

 start on the wing. 



The bee yard is leveled and graveled about 40x75 

 feet and is south of bee house. The bees will stand 

 on the cars until about the 10th of May, when they 

 will be moved to the honev location. 



P. W. McFatkiugk & SON, Carthage, Ind. 



It will be seen from the above that this great 

 result was attained by taking 70 oftIi€ best and 

 uniting so as to give 44 strong colonies. This 

 was done about May 1st. We are not told 

 what was done with the 26 Queens, but pre- 

 sume they were destroyed. 



Now in place of rearing new Queens a month 

 or a little more later, would it not have been 

 policy to have kept them in some way ? Per- 

 haps our friend did so, or may be those 26 were 

 all poor or too nearly black. It has always 

 seemed to us a great loss, to kill a good Queen, 

 at or near swarming time. In regard to feed- 

 ing sugar to get combs, we have here another 

 direct experiment to show that combs can be 

 secured by feeding, at an expense for the sugar 

 of not over 40c. eacli per comb. Those who are 

 anxious to build up an Apiary rapidly, can 

 certainly make it pay to feed, while the bees 

 are gathering nothing. The plan of locating 

 the hives permanently on cars, is ingenious, 

 and may be quite practicably substituted for 

 securing the same results we were aiming at 

 in Problems, 17 and 27 ; for instance, our own 

 Apiary of 66 colonies could all be located on 

 three cars, and with proper facilities could 

 easily be run out to their respective summer 

 localities in less than 10 minutes, or so quick- 

 ly that not a bee would have time to get out of 

 its hive and get lost. Such machinery with a 

 wintering house of capacitj' for three cars 

 would however, be rather expensive, as in fact 

 are all of the three plans alluded to, and we 

 fear that for many years to come, the great 



UXSOLVED PROBLEM IN BEE CULTURE wiU be, 



how best to give our bees all the advantages of 

 both out and in-door wintering and at the 

 same time avoid either lugging the hives about, 

 or investing in expensive and complicated ma- 

 (•hinery. Is it quite impossible that we may 

 all eventually come around to thinking that 

 we should on an average encounter the least 

 number of evils, by undertaking to winter only 

 /y/;// sinoiff colonies, and these on their summer 



