124 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 



COMMON SENSE APIARY. 



SHADE FOR HIVES. 



f NOTICE that in iilmost every No. of Gleanings \ 

 some mention is made of the necessity of shad- : 

 _ ing bees. I believe all agree that some shade is ; 

 absolutely necessary. The shade of large trees is i 

 positively detrimental, as experience has taught 

 me. To cover with loose boards is expensive and 

 troublesome, and the shade inadequate. I settled 

 the difficulty, as some others of your readers can, \ 

 who do not own the premises which they occupy. 

 For them, as for me heretofore, the propriety of 

 setting out grapevines and trees for shade might be 

 questioned, in view of the natural uncertainty of 

 their tenures. I prepared stakes 5 ft. in length, 

 which were firmly driven into the ground, 2 feet 

 apart, on the south side of each hive. To these 

 stakes, pieces of lath were nailed, one at the top 

 and two below, at equal distances apart. In front 

 of these, were planted either lima beans or toma- 

 toes, and sometimes corn. As they grew up, the 

 young plants were firmly twined around and be- 

 tween the lath, and being planted early in the sea- 

 son, afforded an excellent shade. The land was 

 thus utilized, and a splendid crop of vegetables 

 gathered therefrom. The cultivating was clone ear- 

 ly in the morning or at dusk, without the least trou- 

 ble or annoyance from the bees. The lath will cut 

 to best advantage (being f ft. long), if your stakes 

 are set at a distance of 2 ft. apart. 



For 3 years I have followed the practice of thus 

 shading my hives, with satisfactory and profitable 

 results. 



feeders. 



Without aiming to boast, I feel like affirming that 

 I have perfected the feeder of all bee feeders. As 

 described in Oct. No. of Gleanings, it consisted of 

 a frame to suit the hive, made of ordinary lath. To 

 each side of this was firmly and tightly nailed a 

 sheet of tin reaching to within an inch or so of the 

 top bar. Into this, the feed is poured, and from it, 

 while hanging as an ordinary frame in the hive, the 

 bees take the food. Of course, a "float" of cork or 

 wood, about the size of the feeder bottom, must be 

 made to fioat within upon the liquid sweet, and de- 

 scending with it (as the bees sip the same), to pre- 

 vent the little chaps from drowning. 



About a year ago, I fed many gallons of syrup and 

 honey with feeders made after the above descrip- 

 tion. As improved, it has a sheet of tin tacked to 

 the under side of the top bar, and extending nearly 

 to the bottom, through the center of the body of 

 "feed." Floats half the width of those mentioned 

 above should be used. Thus made the bees do not 

 attach bits of comb to the top bar, as they some- 

 times do when the dividing tin is absent. Such 

 feeders are extremely convenient to handle, occu- 

 pying but little more space than an ordinai-y frame, 

 are readily filled, can be made cheaply, and are ca- 

 pable of holding nearly 1 gal., of which advantages, 

 the latter is sometimes no small item. 



AIDS FOB TRANSFERRING. 



With quite an experience in transferring bees, it 

 may interest your readers to know what I consider 

 the Si ne qua mm in expediting that little operation. 

 I refer to small sticks split from straight grained 

 board, and y 2 inch taller than my frame. These 

 should be previously prepared with very small 

 wires wound around each end, and cut off 2 inches 

 from the same. 



Place from one to three of these sticks under the 

 frame, lay on the comb, and place a plain stick or 

 sticks opposite the wired ones. One motion of the 

 hand, and they are fastened at top, and again, at 

 the bottom. My apiary will number about 100 hives 

 with which to commence next season's operations. 

 W. G. Phelps, D. D. S. 



Galena, Md., March 5, 1879. 



Your idea of using these garden plants for 

 shading the hives is excellent, if the owner 

 will only keep them in neat trim, hut there 

 is where the trouble comes ; so few of you 

 will take the care and pains to keep every- 

 thing absolutely neat and tidy, both inside 

 and outside of the hives, at all times. 



One of the objections I was going to raise 

 to your feeder was that the bees would build 

 a comb in it, but your tin partition fixes this 



very well. Now your floats, when they get 

 to the bottom, will often stick, and when 

 you fill up you will drown your bees. You 

 are obliged to open the hive to use or fill the 

 feeder, which seems to me quite objectiona- 

 ble when we have a large number of hives. 

 Suppose you make the feeder in the front 

 end board of the hive, then it would always 

 be in place. Your transferring sticks are a 

 very old device, but for all that, they are 

 many times quite convenient. 



FKIENB WIEKIN AND HIS VISIT TO 

 THE OLD WOULD. 



MID-OCEAN, EN ROUTE FROM EUROPE TO CALIFOR- 

 NIA, FEB. 12, 1879. 



M FTER a two days' storm, which tore away our 

 JMh sails and made many of our fellows feel that 

 «=*j they surely would never see Yankee Land, we 

 now enjoy a delightful calm, and have just passed 

 two steamers laden with goods and passengers from 

 our country, on their way to Europe. I conclude 

 that being at sea without a storm, like being in the 

 army without a battle, i.s rather monotonous. 



Having spent most of the two last months of 1878 

 in meandering from southern California to New 

 York, calling at the Capital to shake hands with our 

 President by way of encouragement (queens seem 

 to enjoy a touch of recognition by their subjects), 

 and look into Congress and the Treasury to see that 

 all went on well there, I concluded that we have a 

 great and interesting country to manage. 



I then set sail for Europe, to see if we could do 

 anything to help the sale of our great stores of hon- 

 ey. Arriving there, I was surprised to find such 

 vast amounts of varied American products in these 

 countries. Such a center of trade is London that it 

 seems as if all countries, when over stocked, send 

 their surplus to her; so much so that many things 

 are purchased cheaper there than where they are 

 produced. California oranges sell there for half the 

 price charged in California, and bread made from 

 California wheat sells for a penny a loaf less in Lou- 

 don than at home. 



I now return home with feelings of humble grati- 

 tude for the many hearty expressions of kindly feel- 

 ing and high estimation for America, everywhere 

 met with in Great Britain. Their leaders proclaim 

 that to America they must look for their own pros- 

 perity, and the great honor everywhere bestowed 

 on General Grant is because he has been President 

 of the United States. 



While in England, I called on a number of bee 

 men, including the editor of the British Bee Journal 

 and Marriott who keeps bees in the Crystal Palace. 

 They entertained me kindly, and showed me some- 

 what into the English style of bee-keeping. They 

 seem to us rather to be experimenting and seeking 

 pleasure, than getting their living from their bees. 

 When honey comes abundantly, the small fixtures 

 are mostly iaid aside. England can never become a 

 great honey producing country. Straw hives are 

 still sold in the Crystal Palace. 



But I think you will open your eyes in wonder, 

 when you read, in the copy of the London Times 

 which I mailed you from Liverpool, the article on 

 "Honey and Bee-Keeping in America." One feels 

 as Gravenhorst of Germany did, when writing me a 

 few years since in reference to Hosmer's notorious 

 proposal, to take 10,000 lbs. of honey from 10 hives 

 in one season. He exclaimed, "How is it in Ameri- 

 ca? does it rain down honey? If Hosmer do all he 

 say, then I sell all I got and come to America." If 

 it were not in the London Times, and quoted from it- 

 all over England, I could hardly have believed that 

 we apiarian students and readers of bee journals 

 could yet be so ignorant of the extent of the bee 

 business in our own country, and the modes of con- 

 ducting it. 



Just think of the vast numbers of bee-keepers in 

 America with their thousands of hives of bees 

 farmed out on shares, one of them selling his one 

 season's crop of honey for double the amount of the 

 President's salary ! Even business men in the cities 

 forced by the great, tempting profits of it, to invest 

 in it! Thurber & Co., for instance, having 12,000 

 hives ! I would have been surprised to have learned 

 that they had 50 hives. 



I think, too, it will ruffle your plumes a little to 



