GLEANINGS m BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



ing very long. But. do you thinlc T would 

 give a good rnecliiuiic sucli :i luimmer to put 

 up Inves with? By no means. In putting 

 up hives he uses a hammer almost constant- 

 ly; and if I could find a hammer icortJi live 

 dollars, 1 would give it to him without hesi- 

 tation ; for if it weie worth only a cent a day 

 to him more llian a cheap hammer, it would 

 soon pay for itself. For this same reason a 

 good mechanic ought to have at least three 

 hammers, and three good ones. Now, when I 

 say I would give a hammer worth live dol- 

 lars if I could find it, 1 do not mean that I 

 would buy one that is silver-plated, or has 

 inlaid Avork in tlie handle, and things of 

 that sort; neither would I give him a ham- 

 mer that had a great amount of unimportant 

 work put on it. One of our large railroad 

 companies paid :;?G0.00 (I think it was), for a 

 dozen hammers to be used by some of their 

 expensive men. These hammers were all 

 Avorked out by hand, and wei^e very hand- 

 somely made. ' I do not believe it will pay 

 many bee-keepers to use tools or appliances 

 made in this way. When he gets to l)e so 

 well off in raising honey and l)ees that he 

 has some money he really does not know 

 what to do with "(I wonder"^ if there are any 

 such here to-day, friends), it maybe just the 

 thing for him to do, to buy a six-dollar ham- 

 mer to make hives with, because, you know, 

 " the best is always the cheapest. "' • 



Suppose somebody of limited means wants 

 to try bee-keeping. What kind of a colony 

 of bees should he buy? Without knowing 

 any thing about the general habits of the 

 man or woman, I would say, let them get 

 the cheapest colony of bees" that c(mld be 

 found in the neighborhood, thus saving ex- 

 pensive transportation charges, and also 

 making their purchases of friends and neigh- 

 bors. Then I would advise getting an Ital- 

 ian queen ; but as I have said before, if one 

 is new at the business, and. m;iy be, likely 

 to make blunders at first, I would tell him 

 to get an untested queen. After he intro- 

 duces her all right, and gets her to laying, if 

 she does not turn out well in every way, let 

 him try a higher-priced one next time, work- 

 ing progressively ; and my experience con- 

 vinces me that the best way in the world to 

 get any thing of this kind is to get it pro- 

 yressively. Learn to do well, not undertake 

 to come up to the highest standard all of 

 a sudden. There is far more enjoyment in 

 making a little more improvement every 

 day, than in stepping into great things, even 

 if it could be done. The same with liives. I 

 would first get a cheap hive— say a Simplic- 

 ity. When winter comes, get a hive suitable 

 for winter, even if it does cost a little more ; 

 but save your old Simplicity for your in- 

 crease when spring comes again. 



If you are going to make hives, start out 

 with few tools, and purchase judiciously 

 each new season, as you find you leally need 

 to. Do not get any thing to be put away on 

 the shelves until you may need it. Purchase 

 what you need, and no more, until you have 

 pretty surely demonstrated it would be pru- 

 dence to purchase larger lots for the sake of 

 getting better prices. If you have woiked 

 with comb foundation enough to know tliat 

 you want to use it largely, you can, from 



past experience, usually figure out how 

 many colonies you will need to have, to 

 think of buying a foundation-machine. 



There is another point to be considered 

 right here. Sometimes cheap tools and 

 cheap machinery make us so much bother 

 and worry that they spoil all the pleasure of 

 trying to* keep bees; whereas a high-priced 

 tool or a high-])riced machine would go right 

 along, without any iiitch or accident, in 

 such a way that the work would l)e only pas- 

 time or '• fun," as the buys say. ^Vhere 

 one's time is valuable, or wheie he already 

 has many cares and responsibilities, nice 

 tools or nice machinery all in perfect work- 

 ing order is by all means the most satisfac- 

 tory, and, l'l)elieve. the most profitable. 

 This latter point comes in more with tools 

 or machinery that is necessarily somewhat 

 complicated' We had some experience in 

 this line in making and sending out rubber 

 plates for making foundation. While «-e 

 made the machines work nicely here in the 

 factory, and while a few of our customers 

 were pleased with them, the majority found 

 there were so many conditions to l)e observ- 

 ed, and the whole arrangement was so un- 

 certain in its results, that I have always re- 

 gretted that I advised any thing of the sort. 

 The same remarks will a]>ply with force to 

 home-made honey-extractors. We have for 

 years sold the inside work, so that the 

 friends who wanted to economize could save 

 something by attaching it to an ordinary 

 tin can or barrel ; but as a rule, I believe 

 they found it more vexation of spirit, and 

 perhaps more expense in the end, than to 

 have purchased an extractor all ready for 

 use. AVhere one has a great many bees, and 

 a good market for extiacted honey, perhaps 

 friend Stanley's automatic extractor will be 

 found to be cheaper than any other. 



In regard to bee-feeders, my experience 

 has been in favor of something very plain 

 and simple. One of our bee-fiiends once 

 made a remark in jest in one of the journals, 

 that every bee-feeder and bee-hive, accord- 

 ing to his notion, ought to have '•cog- 

 wheels," slides, and levers, somewhere 

 about them. ]Now, '• cog - wheels "' work 

 very nicely in a warm room on a winter's 

 day ; but when you get out in the apiary, 

 among the bees, about harvest time, when 

 evei'y thing is crowding, the said coy-tcheeh 

 seen") to be somehow o"ut of place. 'Let us 

 have our implements plain, simple, and sub-' 

 stantial ; let us pay enough for them to 

 have every thing exactly as it should be — 

 hives and" fjames interchangeable — every 

 thing so it will woik easily and surely; no 

 sticking nor jamming nor pounding to get 

 things in i>lace. 



In regard to utensils for honey, I believe 

 the demand seems to be in favor of cheap- 

 ness—tin pails tliat are to be given away, as 

 well as crates to hold our comb hoiu\v. Sell 

 the honey for so much, paekage and all. But 

 even though we give them away, let us have 

 them well enough made to be sure there will 

 be no leaking nor daubing. 



In regard to Isoney-knives, I would advise, 

 as I advised the boy with his first pocket- 

 knife. If you have few bees, and don't ex- 

 pect to go into the business largely, you can 



