46 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



nice? Yes, it does pay. Since this man has had 

 chai'ge, we have had almost no accident, at all. Ev- 

 ery dav, his hand touches every part of the machin- 

 ery, and not a bolt or nut comes loose without his 

 knowing- it. No accidents happen, because not a 

 box gets hot, or lacks oil, and no part of the machin- 

 ery is running' where it is doing injury. 



We are now in the new building- -all of us. Visit- 

 ors exclaim, "What a beautiful engine! Bright and 

 new as a silver dollar!" But the engine is not anew 

 one, after all; it is only because it has been cleaned 

 and polished up so nicely. lean take visitors into 

 either the engine or boiler room, at any hour in the 

 day, and it is always a pleasant and tidy place. The 

 floors are clean, the ashes taken up. the tools all 

 neatly hung on the wall, there is no dust, and no lit- 

 ter anywhere. The metal work shines, and the 

 steam and water gauges are as clean an 1 bright as 

 mv lamp was, that night. 



Passing- throug-h into the machine anil blacksmith 

 shop, we find much of the same spirit prevailing-, for 

 1 have desired all the hands to keep their rooms as 

 neat as the eng-ineer does his. The tin shop is just 

 as brig-ht and cheerful looking-; yes, even the wax 

 room has caught the infection, and the floor is clean 

 and tidy. It seems as if my prayers, for months 

 past, are being- answered. 



Credit is due to others besides this one individual, 

 but I have chosen him for an example of what ener- 

 gy and faithfulness may do in any community, even 

 where there are a dozen application-; I'm- every va- 

 cancy. If you have not a situation and are not 

 sought for, it is because you are not faithful in the 

 wav I have pointed out. 



The moral of all this is, not that you shall come to 

 me for employment, for applicants from my own 

 town meet me at every turn, and they have the ti'-st 

 claim on me; but you should wake up to see that 

 there is work to do at home, for every one of you; 

 rouse up, and Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do 

 it with thy might. The very same spirit T have 

 shown you will pav in an apiary, and will pay im- 

 mensely, too, I tell you. 



With all the rest, be a Christian; not a hypocrite, 

 but what you know a Christian should be. If I were 

 to make you a visit this morning-, you would all, es- 

 pecially the intidels and skeptics, tell me the differ- 

 ence between a Christian and a hypocrite. You 

 know enough; stop discussion and act. If all is 

 clean and in order up stairs, get a piece of sandstone 

 and go down cellar. Blessed are the pure in heart 



(away down out of the sight of men), for they 



shall see God. And you will have plenty to 



do and good wages, yea, heaped up, pressed down, 

 and running- over. 



CHAFF TENEMENT HIVES. 



|f%UR friend, N. A. Prudden, of Ann Ar- 

 WM bor, Mich., sends drawings of his tene- 

 ^^ ment hive, and also tells how he pre- 

 pares them for winter. He nses the Gallup 

 frame in the lower story, and the L. frame 

 above, as shown in the cut below. 



PRUDDEN'S TENEMENT CHAFF IIIVE. 



The hive is simply one of our old "Long 



Idea" hives, divided into 4 apartments. The 

 divisions may be simply division boards. 

 For winter, contract each of the 4 to the 

 smallest number of frames the bees can clus- 

 ter on and have sufficient stores, move them 

 up close together, put on the chaff cushions 

 above, and we are all right. In the spring, 

 give them room as needed, and when the 

 lower story is full, put on the boxes above, 

 as shown in the cut. 



On many accounts, this is a splendid ar- 

 rangement ; for, by lifting about 3 of these 

 upper frames, we can easily get at the lower 

 ones, at any time. We could not put frames 

 from the upper story below, it is true, but as 

 the upper stories are just now used very 

 much for comb honey only, there would be 

 little necessity for putting the upper frames 

 below, unless we preferred to use side stor- 

 ing boxes. This can easily be managed by 

 using, instead of the Gallup frame, a frame 

 I have before spoken of, and one that I would 

 prefer above all other small frames, for queen 

 rearing, wintering, building up nuclei, etc. 

 I allude to a frame made to hang crosswise 

 in the L. hive. It is just like the L., but is 

 only f as long, and holds 6, lib. sections, in- 

 stead of 8. This fixes the whole tiling, and 

 I would hand over the $ - io.00 I offered about 

 a year ago, were it not for just one very 

 little point ; that is, we should have two 

 sizes of frames in our apiary. In fact, we 

 shall have 2 sizes of frames in the same hive. 

 These little frames are so very nice for many 

 purposes, shipping nuclei especially, also for 

 wintering weak colonies, that I do not know 

 but I may, in time, overcome my scruples, 

 and use them with the regular L. frames. 

 For rearing queens and building up nuclei, 

 I should prefer them, but for strong colonies, 

 I would very much prefer the old L. frame. 

 Do not go into them strong, but try a hive 

 or two, if you have plenty of time and money 

 to throw away, by changing back after a 

 while, if you should not like them. 



OUR OWN APIARY. 



After we stopped selling queens and uniting, we 

 had 163 colonies. Not all full colonies, however, for 

 many of them were on only 4 frames. At this date, 

 Jan. 11, 2 have been found dead; both were on only 

 4 frames. One was in a chaff hive, but there were 

 too few bees to stand 18° below zero. Had they been 

 better packed with cushions, crowded on to only :{ 

 frames, and the entrance contracted, they would 

 perhaps have stood it. The other was in an old style 

 L. hive but the cushion over them was too small to 

 fit snugly. Either would have done very well in 

 such a winter as the last, but for such long spells, 

 with a zero temperature, we must have good colo- 

 nies to be perfectly safe. We have now had nearly 

 a month of this severe, but beautiful, winter weath- 

 er. 



In justice to our friend, Tremoutani, I should 

 state that he has-filled all our orders, in a most sat- 

 isfactory manner, and we have found him. in every 

 respect, a most thorough gentleman. It is true, 

 some of our spring orders were considerably de- 

 layed, but who among queen breeders has not had 

 trouble in getting off spring orders as promptly aa 

 they could wish? There have been some misunder- 

 standings between himself and some of our Ameri- 

 can dealers, and, if I am correct, the loss has all 

 been allowed to fall on him. he having sent queens 

 repeatedly, for which he has never received a cop- 

 per. I can not but think this unkind and ungener- 

 ous, especially, to a foreigner. Shall we not con- 

 sent to lose a little, rather than have our foreign 

 friends conclude we are all a set of "tricky 

 Yankees?" 



