GLEA2JINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



EEKEEPING IN THE SOUTHWEST 



Loeis H. 

 "Spring cleaning time" will soon 

 be here again. It is the time when 

 our apiaries should receive a gen- 

 eral overhauling and cleanuiD. It 

 is just as necessary and essential 

 to have these apiary cleanup days 

 "" as to have them in our homes. 

 And don't forget the boney-house and the 

 workshop. 



" What a difference between the North 

 and the South ! " was an exclamation that 

 slipped from my lips when reading one of 

 the recent numbers of Gleanings. Ice and 

 snow, bees in the cellars or stored away in 

 winter cases of various kinds, many of the 

 apiaries covered with snow several feet deep. 

 How different it was here! Our men have 

 been visiting our yards and preparing the 

 colonies for the opening of spring. They 

 were still taking off supers of fine comb 

 honey. On some of the hives there were as 

 many as four and five of these filled supers 

 of white honey. The weather was fine, and 

 quite warm on sunny days when it did not 

 rain. We had much rainy weather, or the 

 weather might have been still nicer. Once 

 in a while we had cold days, but all in all 

 it was very different from that up north. 



Snow? Yes, we had some snow on the 

 18th of January. Every thing was beauti- 

 fully white early in the morning, as there 

 was about an inch of it. 

 * * * 



ESTABLISHING NEW APIARIES. 



Our men are now busy equalizing the 

 number of colonies in our apiaries by mov- 

 ing away to new locations all colonies in 

 excess of forty. We usually do this every 

 spi-ing. The forty-colony apiaries are in- 

 creased in size before the honey-flow by 

 about ten colonies, and often by about that 

 many more in the fall. Thus the main 

 honey-fiows are taken care of by fifty-colo- 

 ny apiaries, more or less, which we have 

 found to give us better results than larger 

 yards. During the following spring these 

 are cut down again to forty colonies, and 

 the surplus moved away to form as many 

 more forty-colony yards as we have bees 



for them. 



« « » 



VFORKING UP A RETAIL MARKET. 



Ira Davis, of Taylor, Texas, has a unique 

 method of establishing a market for his 

 honej'. He produces chiefly extracted hon- 

 ey, and during the honey season dovotes all 

 his efforts toward producing a large crop. 



8, Texas. 



He utilizes the more or less idle time of the 

 winter months in disposing of this honey. 

 He proceeds to a town or city of fairly 

 large population, to which he has shipped 

 ahead of him a quantity of honey in 60-lb. 

 cans, and starts at once to establish a 

 honey-bottling business to furnish the retail 

 trade with honey in glass. As soon as he 

 has this well started he turns the business 

 over to a responsible person, either by sale 

 or other arrangement, and with the condi- 

 tion that he furnish the honey for this 

 business. Under liis present arrangement 

 and prices tliis is fairly profitable to both 

 jiarties to the agreement. 

 « « * 



CYPRIANS TO PREVENT MEDDLING. 



An enquiry for Cyprian queens has just 

 reached me. They are wanted to stock an out- 

 apiary with the " most vicious bees obtain- 

 able so as to keep meddlers away who have 

 disturbed the. apiary occasionally, and at 

 the same time give bigger honey yields than 

 Italians or blacks." While I have tried 

 almost all the varieties of bees, the Cyprians 

 among them, I am still of the opinion that 

 the three-banded Italian is superior for all- 

 round purposes. And while the Cyprians 

 are more vicious I doubt the advisability of 

 introducing this race into an apiary for the 

 purpose stated. The chances are that the 

 meddling would go on just the same. The 

 Cyprian bees would not give any larger 

 yields, and the disadvantages resulting from 

 the handling of bees of such reputed ill 

 temper would be found exceedingly unpleas- 

 ant. Wiser to prevent the meddling by 



some other means. 



* * « 



THE DENVER CONVENTION AND THE PROGRAM. 



It is too bad that one cannot be at more 

 than one place at a time. I should like to 

 have attended the Denver convention. Well 

 do I remember the last Denver convention 

 I attended a number of years ago, and the 

 enjoyable and profitable time spent at this 

 convention and my thirty days' sojourn 

 througli the gi'eater part of Colorado on a 

 trip of investigation into apicultural con- 

 ditions for the Department of Entomology 

 of the Texas A. and M. College. 



One tiling in connection with the pro- 

 gram of the present convention that has 

 been 'of considerable regret to me was the 

 entire absence of beekeepers from the 

 southern states. One from Cuba was on 

 the program. Does this mean that we are 

 not a part of the National Beekeepers' 



