GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Oct. 



can well imagine, whenever, by chance, they are 

 called upon to open hives containing- Gallup, Adair, 

 American, Quinby, or other frames." Now, don't 

 you know that a good deal of that kind of "notions" 

 is altogether owing to hahit? Had those "young bee- 

 keepers" been used to handling the more nearly 

 square frames, and then for the first time set to 

 opening L. hives, their disgust would have been just 

 as profound when handling those long, shallow, 

 unhandy things, as it is now with other sizes than 

 the L. I have had the care and use of hundreds of 

 hives of all sizes of frames, except the Quinby, 

 and, with all my work with the L. frame, were I to 

 hire out to a bee-keeper, I would willingly work for 

 less wages, if he used a nearly square frame in place 

 of the L. I began with a frame 15x18 inches, then 

 changed to one 12x15 (15 deep). For the latter 

 frame, I made an extractor to fit. Afterwards, I 

 changed again (after a visit to Adam Grimm), and 

 discarded the tight top bar. Not wishing to throw 

 away my extractor, I made a new frame to 

 fit my extractor, but to go down endwise, which 

 gave me a frame almost the size of the Adair, I2J£ 

 deep by UY 2 long. My hives are all to fit that sized 

 frame, and will continue to be. As I run bees on 

 shares for others, I have two other sizes, one the 

 same proportion as my own, a little smaller, and the 

 L. I am going to transfer the L. combs into my 

 own, and then there will be some cheap L. hives for 

 sale. I have never given my own stocks any better 

 care than those I have on shares, and I have never 

 yet been beaten on the average of comb or extract- 

 ed honey taken from them. It may be owing to the 

 strain of bees I have; lam inclined to think it is 

 somewhat, for I have always endeavored to keep my 

 strain up by now queens from the best breeders, 

 and those got from J. Oatman & Co., Dundee, 111., 

 dollar queens, too, have pleased me the best of all. 

 It is not the size of frame that is going to get the 

 most honey, but the nearly square frame is much 

 the easiest to handle and safest to extract from. 

 Will M. Kellogg. 

 Oquawka, 111., Sept. 18, 1880. 



A VISIT TO JAMES A. SIMPSON'S 

 APIARY. 



M FEW weeks ago, I found it convenient to stop 

 Jiy\ over night at friend Simpson's, 4 miles west of 

 Alexis, 111. It rained the next day, so that 

 we were weather-bonnd till after dinner; and such 

 a bee talk as we had! It was after 2 a.m., before we 

 went to sleep, and then our talk ended in a kind of 

 "bees-z-z-z." Friend S. is a genius, and an inventive 

 one too. I wish you could see the "fixins" he has 

 for helping along his bee-business. He is adopting 

 a new style of hive of his own invention; I suppose 

 he intends to run opposition to the chaff hive. The 

 walls of the hive are composed of pressed straw, 

 about 2 inches thick (for which he has constructed a 

 machine to do the pressing), held in place by upright 

 wires tied crosswise by short wires, and he has a 

 most ingenious machine for cutting and shaping 

 these cross wires all at one operation, which does it 

 faster than you can say "scat" when the cat is at 

 the cream. After he has the walls of his hive built, 

 with wooden top and bottom, and corner posts pro- 

 jecting a little beyond the straw, he puts a thin coat 

 on the inside, and about a half inch coat on the out- 

 side, of plaster of Paris, making the wall even with 

 the wood work. This makes a porous, warm hive, 

 and also one that won't blow away very easily. He 



uses an ordinary cap, filled with straw or chaff in 

 winter. 



But one article more than all the rest is worth 

 mentioning; i. e., his wax extractor. Novice, you 

 ought to send and get one. I believe if you would 

 make and try one, you would drop all others from 

 your list as useless. Imagine an over-shot water 

 wheel, the sides of the wheel of tin, and also the 

 "dashes" inside, set angling to the axis of the wheel; 

 the "dashes" are about 2',2 inches wide; the outer 

 rim of the wheel is covered with fine wire cloth, 

 with a part of it hinged for a door. This wheel is 

 enclosed in a tight box of wood (he would use tin, if 

 making another), and steam is applied through a 

 pipe, from a boiler on the stove. The comb to be 

 made into wax is placed in the wheel, and the door 

 fastened, the box cover put on, steam applied, and 

 the wheel slowly turned by a crank. The wax falls 

 on the dashes, and is chopped up fine; the steam 

 melts it, and away it goes out of a pipe at one cor- 

 ner of the box. I am going to have one of them 

 just as soon as I can, made after Mr. S.'s improve- 

 ments, for it is the best wax extractor I have ever 

 seen. 



It would be too much to tell of all his useful arti- 

 cles, among which are an uncapping table, a fruit 

 "smasher," etc.; and his excellent plum trees, a 

 new variety, which Mr. S. has spent years and much 

 money and care upon, to get them to grow from 

 grafts from a tree brought from the East, where it 

 was a chance seedling. The "little Turk" (curculio) 

 does not hurt them, and they bear such large, de- 

 licious, yellow plums, as makes my mouth water to 

 think of. Will M. Kellogg. 



Oquawka, 111., Sept. 20, 1880. 



BEE HUNTING. 



FEW days since, I was called off on business 

 $\\ about 7 miles, and, on my return home, I had 

 to pass through 2 miles of timber land. I 

 thought I would look for a bee tree. I soon saw 

 some bees watering at a pond, and, after a few min- 

 utes' search, found their home in an oak. Next day 

 they were nicely transferred to a Simplicity hive. 

 Three days later they left their nice hive on the 

 prairie, and started back to their leafy, forest home, 

 Smiles away; but, by the free use of dirt, chips, 

 brush, and sticks, I brought them down and put 

 them back with an additional frame of hatching 

 brood. They had three frames of brood, and two of 

 honey, when they came out. I suppose they did not 

 like the prairie country, and that was what made 

 them act thus. B. F. Carroll. 



Dresden, Texas, Aug. 17, 1880. 



July 20th, Mr. Call and I took some queens to a 

 couple of neighbors, some two miles out from our 

 village. Mr. Wilcoxen got two, and as his were the 

 last, we took a "bee line" from his place for home. 

 We had gone but a short distance, through a woods 

 pasture, when we noticed some bees taking water. 

 We watched them a little while but did not find their 

 home. Next day I went back and found them with 

 but little trouble. Yesterday, Aug. 30th, I went 

 over to help cut the tree, and get the bees. Mr. 

 Wilcoxen claimed the honey as the tree was on his 

 premises. The swarm was an early one of this sea- 

 son. The hollow in the tree was 8 inches in the 

 largest place, and was filled for over 7 feet. We 

 took two large buckets full of sealed honey, mostly 

 basswood. I got brood combs enough to fill 5 L. 

 frames. Two of the combs in the tree were 5 feet in 

 length. I brought the bees home to-day. As the 

 swarm was so very large, I weighed it, and found I 

 had eleven and one-half lbs. of bees. How is that for 

 "big"? S. A. Shuck. 



Bryant, Fulton Co., 111., Aug. 31, 1880. 



