284 



GLEANINGS IN BEE «ULTURE 



San Joaquiu Valley building at the Panama-Califoinia exposition, San Oie^^o. 



Elsewhere on the exposition grounds there vices and jjaraphernalia for conducting the 

 is an exhibit of all kinds of equipment for business on a paying- scale, 

 the bee-culturist, including the latest de- San Diego, Cal. 



THE OLD FOU 



THE BEE HOME 



BY J. E. JOHNSON 



Since the writer of this article had a little 

 success in beekeeping, his neighbors have 

 become interested ; and now within five miles 

 of the original yard that started the fever 

 there are as many as one thousand colonies. 

 These friendly would-be beekeepers often 

 drop in and talk shop. They are very much 

 interested in fixtures. They talk hives and 

 frames and smokers and supply-dealers, but 

 there is not much disposition to talk bees. 

 These good friends have been reminded time 

 and again that success is not tied up in the 

 subject of fixtures, great as is the impor- 

 tance of having- fixtures right and standard. 



Recently a new man in the bee business 

 spent a whole week going over his yard ex- 

 amining his colonies and feeding nearly 

 every one. He realizes now that this work 

 should have been done last fall; but the 

 bees had to be fed or would die, and so he 

 kept on feeding with tlie temperature down 

 to and below freezing. 



How few beekeepers stop to think that 

 all the bees are now old, and living in their 

 declining years! Last October they were 

 strong and young, able to do a woman's 

 work, but now they are getting old and 



feeble. Many of them have gray hairs, some 

 are crippled up with the rheumatism, and 

 hardly able to get about. But the family 

 must be cared for. Water must be brouglu, 

 and the home must be kept warm. And all 

 this work must be done by these old people 

 in the bee home. There is no young person 

 about to hustle around early and do the 

 roughest work. 



With this idea in mind, how important it 

 is to treat these old people in a way to 

 make it as easy as possible on them! For 

 the next few weeks they face the liardest 

 battle of life. If they can hold together 

 until the warm days come, then soon they 

 will have help, but all the work must now 

 fall upon their old shoulders. 



If this idea could be well di'illed into the 

 young beekeeper's head he would not feed 

 too much raw syrup to the old bees and 

 make them work it over, and store it again 

 in their combs. He would not require them 

 to carry water half a mile. He would not 

 ask them to stay in a hive where the roof 

 was leaky, and air currents constantly cool- 

 ing off the home. 



Mt. Airy, N. C. 



