8 



GXEANIXGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



J AX. 



to tiucl his golden game bantams. Well, they 

 had wandered away, and we could not find 

 tliem; l)ut lierlie found a fresh-laid egg. a 

 diminutive h"n"s-egg. of a faint orange tint, 

 clean and spotless, and beautiful in ])ro])or- 

 tion. I wanted the egg to sliow to ll\d)er, 

 more than I dared to tell ; and tlie sight of 

 that egg gave me another thrill of pleasure, 

 and ever since that day I have felt an un- 

 accoiuitable love f(n- poultry. I went and 

 got my old poultry book, " Aii Egg Farm,"' 

 and somehow every page seemed to give me 

 a new thrill of deliglit. bringing back my 

 bovhood days, and making me feel glad that 

 I liad now a very pretty lot of young pidlets 

 that might be laying if they only had better 

 (piarters. "Well.' I " am feeling unusually 

 liappy this l)right wintry morning; and one 

 thing that I feel happy'about is, tiiat it is a 

 beautiful sunshiny day ; and after I get the 

 printers supplied with copy, and my morn- 

 ing mail read. J am going to scrape ac- 

 quaintance with our poor biddies, and see if 

 I can not lix a place for them to lay. Iluber 

 and I will manage it, you know, and then he 

 and I will gather the' eggs, and won't we 

 liave funV If they were not so far away, we 

 would just carry a steam-pipe from the en- 

 gine down there to warm l\\^ their (piarters 

 and cook their grain. bo;l potatoes, etc. 

 Now, I have told you all al)Out tiie .Michigan 

 State Conveutiou. except the bee ])art of it. 

 and this article ]vd% got to lie so long tliat I 

 think I will tell tliat n.-\t time. Eest some- 

 body should complain tliat I have talked so 

 much about this visit, we have pat in lour 

 extra pag;es, as you will notice. 1 usu:dly 

 get talkative in the month of February, and 

 iind myself obliged to put in a leaf or two ; 

 but the spell seems to start earlier this 

 winter. 1 do not know where we shall be by 

 February, if I do not wind up; so. good-by 

 until next time. 



Oh yes ! Before I close this paper I must 

 lell you one other little circumstance. Aft- 

 er I started home from Lansing, tlie bee- 

 keei)ers who happened to ba on my train of 

 course knew me ; and after we had gone a 

 few miles a man of about my age came and 

 introduced himself, and pretty soon asked 

 me to come over to the other end of the car, 

 where his wife was. I pretty soon discover- 

 ed that, if I did not know them, they knew 

 all ai)ont nt". Tliey were Mr. and Mrs. O. .1. 

 Bedell, of Kawkawlin, ]\Iich. They have 

 taken (iLio.v.vixiis almost since its com- 

 JUiMicement. and I soon realized thev were 

 not sorry either, by the kind compliments 

 tliey paid it. Tliey have succeedeil with 

 their bees, and their success has been most- 

 ly due to (Ji.KA.\iN(;-^. Now, I do not wish 

 to have you think that tliey follow all my di- 

 rections because they said that. They do 

 not use tlu' Sinijilii-ity hives nor frames", but 

 a franiH that friend 1>. contrived, after a no- 

 tion of his own. The way he makes his 

 houey-boxes is so uu-jpie tlia't 1 tliiiik 1 sliall 

 have to tell you all al)out it. II(! goes out 

 into tlie woods and hunts uji a nice straigiit- 

 grained pine-tree, just to suit liiiu. This is 

 cut. and made into plank. Tlie plank is tlien 

 cut olf into bolts iust as long as his sections 

 up and down. Then these bolts are sliced 

 n p with a circular saw so as to have pieces 



I about i inch thick, 4i inches long (that is, 

 for Simplicity sections), and Hi inches wide. 

 You see, it is a strip of board, as it were, 

 with the grain running crosswise ; and not 

 only must the (jrain run crosswise, but it 

 must be straight across, so you could take a 

 knife and split up this board into strips, and 

 have the strips split right square across, 

 eveiy time. These pieces are for a series of 

 section boxes, something on the plan of the 

 '• Farmer"' honey-box, only it does not have 

 s:iw-cuts where the box has to be split. The 

 top and bottom bars of the sections are, if I 

 remember correctly, pieces sawed from i-inch 

 lumber, and thick enough to hold a nail. 

 "With some wire nails the thin boards are 

 nailed into the end of the top and bottom 

 bars, and these top^and bottom bars are, 

 from center to center, the width you wish to 

 have your sections ; that is, if you Avant 2- 

 ' inch sections, you iiail them 2 inches apart 

 from center to center; for H-inch sections, 

 U inches from center to center. Four of 

 these long series of section boxes cover the 

 top of the hive, and wlien they are filled they 

 are carried to the grocery in that shape, and 

 the grocer with his penknife splits off one 

 section, or two together, or three, as the cus- 

 tomer may wish. The wood being nice and 

 straight-grained, as 1 have explained, they 

 usually split pretty easily and true. Of 

 course, no separators are used. 



I can not remember Ikav many bees friend 

 15. keeps; but he took a little book out of his 

 ]>ocket, and showed me how mucli money 40 

 acres of wheat had brought him this season. 

 I think it was somewhere about sijOO. Right 

 j below he had added up his honey, and the 

 ' honey had brought more money than the 40 

 acres of wheat. •• Yes, Mr. lioot.'" said he, 

 " my h<mey crop has for a good many years 

 brought me more money than all the "rest of 

 my farm together."" 



During the talk his wife shyly ventured 

 the remark, that she had often" heard her 

 husband say he would give more to see me. 

 i and have a good talk with me, than with any 

 ': other man in the world. .Vnd there I had 

 I been sitting all by myself in that car. and, 1 

 fear, holding niyselt aloof from the rest of 

 the world, from a sort of foolish bashfulness, 

 and. in fact, making myself so hard to get 

 ; aciiuaiuted witii that this good friend had to 

 , take some little pains before I ccndd get it 

 ' into my head that it was in my power to 

 make them very hapjty by being sociable and 

 friendly, just as I am here at home. There 

 are s«nen juvenile Bedells in tliat .Michigan 

 home, and very likely they. too. lia\e learn- 

 ed to love (ii.'KAMN(i-. iMrs. B. made the 

 remark, just before they had to leave the 

 train, that slie turned to tlie Home Papers 

 ; the lirst of any thing in the joiu'iial. Said J. 

 (luickly, '• With your family of seven chil- 

 dren you are botli united to some of our va- 

 rious churches, are you notV" But they 

 were obliged to admit'tliat they were not. I 

 can not rv'inember wiiat friend B. said here, 

 ' but it was something to the elTect tliat he 

 believed in Ciiristianity and in the Savior, as 

 I had i)resented it through the Home Fa- 

 , pers. Is it really true, that such sacred re- 

 ! sponsibilities are resting on my poor self— 

 ! that through me otiiers are catching glimpses 



