1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



943 



subject, as it may lead some one into trouble. All 

 of the older readers of Gleanings will doubtless 

 remember the experiment which I tried, of keep- 

 ing my bee-cellar at about that temperature one 

 winter by the use of an oil-stove, and how all of the 

 bees left their hives during February and March, 

 in many instances, thus causing me the loss of 

 nearly all of them; while both before and since I 

 have been very successful in wintering bees in this 

 same cellar when the temperature ranged from 42 

 to 45, as it always does when no artificial heat is ap- 

 plied. During the months of November and De- 

 cember, bees are comparatively inactive in this lo- 

 cality, no matter what the temperature may be; 

 but as spring draws on apace, the bees seem to re- 

 alize it, so that a temperature at which they were 

 quiet in December will not be endured by them 

 later on. For this reason I have frequently seen 



a still, cloudy day, and the bees I thought 

 at the time would probably fly as soon as 

 the temperature got at the right point. At 

 •50 none were seen outside*, at 52 and 53, 

 only a few ; while at 55 there was a pretty 

 general buzzing all over the apiary. 



A TEXAS APIARY. 



A VIEW OF CALDWELL'S HOME YAH I). 



fRIEND ROOT:— By way of an explanation of 

 the engraving, I will say that this is my home 

 apiary, and it consists of 200 colonies of Ital- 

 ian bees. Part of the hives are out off from 

 view by the building, which is the extracting- 

 room. The boy with the wheelbarrow is bringing 

 empty combs to be put on one of the 35 hives on the 



A GLIMPSE OF A TEXAS BEE-YARD. 



bees bringing pollen at 42 during the month of 

 April, and general work being done later on, with 

 the mercury at from 48 to 50. G. M. Doolittle. 

 Borodino, N. Y., Nov. 16, 1889. 



Well, old friend, you ought to have a med- 

 al for that idea of putting a carpet on the 

 wheelbarrow and tacking it so it can not 

 slip. When reading it I felt ashamed to 

 think that I had never before thought of 

 any thing so simple. I agree with you, that 

 two tiers of half-depth frames seem to offer 

 many advantages for winter. When it 

 comes to rearing brood in the spring, how- 

 ever, it seems as if those spaces with a stick 

 above and below were not quite the thing 

 when you want to push brood-rearing. You 

 may be right about the temperature bses 

 fly. My statement was based on an experi- 

 ment made, I think, in the spring. It was 



left side. These arc run for extracted honey. The 

 hives on the right are fitted out with T supers, and 

 are run for 1-lb. sections. T have a good home 

 market for all the honey I can produce. 



The honey-flow has been poor this season. We 

 get our best honey from white brush, a plant which 

 is valued only for honey. The honey much re- 

 sembles that from sweet clover. I have several out- 

 apiaries, and can say that I have had but one total 

 failure in the past seven years that I have devoted 

 almost entirely to bee-keeping. J. P. Caldwell. 



San Marcos, Tex., Oct. 10, 1889. 



Friend C, we are very much obliged in- 

 deed for the beautiful glimpse you give us 

 of your home in the South. The little curly- 

 headed girl a little in the background, be- 

 tween the two lawn hives, especially draws 

 us to the picture. The stout boy with a 



