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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



NEEAL COKMESPONDENCE 



SOME REMINISCENCES OF A LIFE AS A BEEKEEPER AND SUPPLY- 

 DEALER 



BY WALTER S. POUDER 



In mj^ boyhood days, while with my 

 paients on a fruit-farra at the edge of 

 Cincinnati, I was much given to nature 

 studies. The honeybee appealed to me as 

 the most fascinating study in all the world, 

 and it became )ny irresistible hobby, much 

 against advice from those who Avere near 

 to me. I secured all the literature avail- 

 able at that time, had valuable instructions 

 from the late Charles F. Muth, kept my 

 little apiary attractive with the lawn-mower 

 and by building rustic chairs under the 

 shade-trees, and then I had but one goal in 

 view — T longed for at least one hundred 

 colonies. I even thought that if I could 

 secure the larger apiary I would be so con- 

 tented that I would never ask for anything 

 further. 



I reached the goal; but while 1 secured 

 much pleasure in reaching it I still found 

 other wishes developing. I now began to 

 wish that 1 could rear queen bees and ad- 

 vertise them in the bee journals. I had 

 secured a crop of honey so large, filling 

 tanks and barrels, that my father liad some 

 fears that the honey-house would yield to 

 the weight. My honey-house was the upper 

 floor of our shop, strongly built ; but I 

 remember his placing braces under the floor. 

 My father found a demand for every pound 

 of honey that I produced ; and as I was 

 determined to say that I was never out of 

 lioney T had occasion to purcliase several 

 barrels of it from New York and from 

 Michigan, honey in those days being ship- 

 ped in barrels and kegs instead of tin cans. 

 This proved profitable, and here is a hint 

 for beekeepers of today. 



My entire apiary was devoted exclusively 

 to producing extracted honey, using two- 

 story Langstroth hives with ten Langstroth 

 frames to each story, and a queen-excluding 

 honey-board. This controlled the swarm- 

 ing problems; for at the beginning of the 

 flow I would place the queen and two or 

 three frames of brood in the lower story, 

 filling the story Avith empty frames, and 

 placing the rest of the brood in the upper 

 story over the excluder. I often found it 

 necessary to build many colonies three 

 stories high. 



It had been one of my pleasures to pro- 

 Ade an ample supply of combs, all built 



from full sheets and mostly wired. At the 

 beginning I had quite a few crooked combs, 

 and a few that had large patches of drone 

 comb. I gradually disposed of them by 

 cutting out drone comb and cutting up some 

 of my best combs with which to patch or 

 replace the drone comb. I also managed to 

 have all of my combs built to the bottom- 

 bars of frames. To accomplish tliis I cut 

 off the lower edge and replaced with a strip 

 of comb to fit, and returned such combs 

 always in the upper storj'. 



I also learned to secure absolutely per- 

 fect combs without wiring. The idea would 

 be quite practical today; but it seems that 

 the time is not ripe for it. I would u.se 

 full sheets of medium-brood foundation, 

 cutting off half an inch from the end of 

 each sheet. The object is, not to allow the 

 sheet to touch the end-bars till it can have 

 lime to hang plumb. These frames are 

 now to be inserted in brood-chambei-s, a 

 few at a time, and always between combs of 

 brood so that an equal force of bees will 

 work on both sides of the frame at the same 

 time. After one season in the brood-cham- 

 ber they can safely be used in upper stories 

 for extracting. 



Mj' experience in producing comb honey 

 was not entirely satisfactory; at least I 

 realized that I could secure more dollars 

 and cents on the plan of extracting. In 

 those days a section about four by five, 

 used without separators, was quite popular, 

 and I am not sure that it was not a mistake 

 to discard it, for the smaller section with 

 separators and small clusters does not bring 

 as good results. We know that anything 

 that divides the cluster is against comb- 

 building. For tliose who ship comb honey, 

 sei)arators seem to be a necessity. 



1 produced one lot of strictly fancy comb 

 honey, but I had my sections, supet's, and 

 separators made to order, using a section 

 open top and bottom, and also open at 

 corners — a sort of compromise between the 

 plain and the standard section, and it could 

 be used with or without separators. This 

 was back in the '80's, and the sections were 

 illustrated and described in Gleanings. 

 The article brought me so many inquiries 

 that T began to think I had the world by 

 the tail; but my hold soon relaxed, for I 



