838 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



morning drive down the bees tolerably clean, make 

 a pile of supers on the ground, a hive-cover or 

 something of the sort under them, and put on top 

 of the pile one of the little tents already described 

 in Gleanings. 



DR. MILLER'S ARRANGEMENT FOR GETTING BEES 

 OUT OF SUPERS. 



Make as many of these piles as the number of 

 your little tents will allow; for the higher the pile, 

 the slower your bees will be in getting out. Go 

 through the apiary and take off all that are ready, 

 and put them in piles under the little tents, and by 

 the time you are ready to go in the afternoon all 

 will be clear. If any supers are taken off so late in 

 the day that there is not time enough for the bees 

 to get out, put them in piles on hives, and take 

 them off the first thing when you go next time. 

 Look out not to start the bees to robbing when put- 

 ting your load on the wagon. If the bottom of 

 your wagon-box is not bee-tight, lay cloths or news- 

 papers on it, so no bee can get up from below, and 

 keep every thing on the wagon covered up all the 

 while with robber-cloths, tarpaulin, buffalo robe, 

 or something of the kind. If, in spite of all your 

 precaution, the bees are pretty thick about the 

 wagon, after the load is on, draw it some distance 

 by hand, hitch on with a jerk, and start. 



Marengo, 111. C. C. Miller. 



No, doctor, you do not lay a bit too much 

 stress on this matter of robbing. It is al- 

 most the only thing I am afraid of when I 

 see new hands start in bee-keeping. Get- 

 ting stung themselves, and learning some 

 bitter lessons from sad experience, is a 

 small matter comparatively, when we think 

 of annoying the whole neighborhood. 

 Again and again have I heard people de- 

 clare they hate bees, and do not want to 

 get within a mile of them, simply because 

 somebody had left some honey around, or 

 had left a hive open. Of course, the great 

 outside world do not stop to reflect that the 

 special annoyance may be only temporary. 

 They take it for granted that'.bees are al- 

 ways vicious, and that their sole delight is 



in inflicting pain on everybody around, 

 without sense or reason.— There, doctor, 

 there is another thing you did not show me 

 when I made my visit. I did not see one of 

 those little bee-tents. 



DOOEYAKDS FOB THE BEES. 



FRIEND boardman gives us some sensible 

 hints in the matter. 



u 



T>, get a shovel and come here, and I'll tell 

 you about a job I've been thinking of 

 I^Y this morning." 



■™™ The creaking of the foot-power grind- 

 stone about a minute later told that Ed 

 had anticipated the nature of the work I had been 

 thinking about, and was sharpening the shovel 

 ready to begin. 



"All ready! Well, now, I have been thinking 

 about making some nice dooryards for the bees, in 

 front of each hive, by removing the turf, or sur- 

 face dirt, a little, just enough to make a smooth 

 hard surface, and get below the grass roots so it 

 will not grow again this season. About two feet 

 square, I think, will be about right. There are a 

 great many bees, in returning from the fields, that 

 fall short in their flight, and drop down in the bee- 

 yard in front of their hives, and sometimes at a con- 

 siderable distance from home, and they depend up- 

 on walking in somewhat as A. I. Root does some- 

 times on his return from a bee-keepers' conven- 

 tion, when he fails to make connection, and gets 

 dropped out five or ten miles from the Home of 

 the Honey-bees. 



"The number that fall short in their homeward 

 flights is much greater during a honey-flow where 

 they come home heavily laden. It is then, too, 

 that their time is most valuable. Of course, the 

 time of an individual bee is very insignificant. It 

 would not balance the scales one way or the other 

 in the weight of a large honey crop, which is, after 

 all, made up entirely of little tiny drops brought 

 in by individual bees. I have often watched them 

 when falling down in this way in the grass, and 

 have seen them struggle and scramble along over 

 the innumerable obstructions in their way. Even 

 though the grass is short and smooth, they spend a 

 great deal of time, and make very slow progress. 

 This kind of work looks like very poor economy for 

 the bee-keeper, and it is." 



Now, Mr. Editor, when you get left a few miles 

 from home, with business pressing, and you are 

 anxious to get home with as little delay as possi- 

 ble, and decide to push on with the power nature 

 has provided you with, does the kind of roads you 

 have before you make any difference with you? I 

 dare say it is the very first thing you think of. 

 "How is the road?" more than probable you in- 

 quire. Now, suppose, instead of a smooth even 

 road, you were dropped in some dismal swamp or 

 jungle or windfall that you had to scramble 

 through the whole distance. You would then be in 

 much the same plight as is the tired bee that falls 

 in the grass. 



"There, now, Ed, that looks about right. I think 

 I shall like that. I have tried almost every plan I 

 could think of to keep the space in front of the 

 hives in shape to accommodate the little fellows. 

 I have not yet been quite satisfied with any of the 

 plans I have tried. I have cut the grass, scalded it 

 with hot water, salted it, have put ashes and vari- 



