982 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



A NEBRASKAN'S HONEY-HOUSE 



BY LOUIS MACEY 



When I first began keeping bees I used a 

 spare upstairs room in the house to store 

 the honey and odds of equipment, together 

 with such supplies as would be damaged by 

 the weather. I also used the kitchen as a 

 workshop for putting up sections' and re- 

 pairing hives; and as honey tasted mighty 

 good those days, the " missus " was very 

 indulgent of the " muss ;" but when it came 

 to scraping sections (even with jjlenty of 

 papers sj^read around), that was a different 

 kind of " muss." As I got close to 70 or 

 75 colonies, and the taste of honey grew 

 old, and the stored honey and junk over- 

 flowed into the attic over the shed room and 

 filled it up, I saw I had to have a special 

 building. 



As I had done well with my bees, liked 

 the work, and felt that I was in for keeps, 

 and as I also gained 

 some experience of what 

 a mouse can do in the 

 way of damage, I decid- 

 ed on cement. We made 

 the blocks ourselves, us- 

 ing a fifteen-dollar mail- 

 order - hoMse machine, 

 and a rich mixture of 

 one part cement to 41/2 

 parts of river sand and 

 gravel. 



Let me say there is a 

 big difference in con- 

 crete, and especially in 

 concrete blocks. Turn- 

 ing the mixture over 

 two or three times with 

 a shovel is not mixing 

 as concrete should be 

 mixed. We have found 

 that, by slinging and 

 scattering each shovel- 

 ful we could make the 

 dry mix quite uniform 

 by four times over, no 

 less. 



We made only about 

 100 blocks a day ; but they were all thor- 

 oughly tamped. A fellow came by who 

 boasted that he had made 200 a day, right 

 along, and done his own mixing. We let 

 him show us how quickly he could make 

 one. He certainly did not take one-third 

 the time we did, and the block looked all 

 right; but an hour after he was gone I 

 tried the blocks with my finger. Ours were 

 firm and solid; but in the one lie made I 

 could easily make dents a quarter of an 



inch without causing any bulge around 

 them. It is porous blocks of this kind, 

 barely hanging togetlier, that let so much 

 water through and stay wet so long. It 

 certainly is a mistake to build a permanent 

 structure out of a lean mixture, half mixed 

 and half tamped. It pays to do it right. 



The house Ave put up is 16 x 20 ft., IV^- 

 story. The lower floor is cement, with a 

 very hard saiooth finish, and there is also a 

 cemented jait, 6x6 and 3 feet deep, in one 

 corner, so we can set a can under the 

 extractor. 



There is a deck above this pit, which is 3 

 feet lower than the main upper floor, and 

 serves as a landing for the turn of the 

 stairs. 



We used a tctal of 106 sacks of cement, 

 costing us here $68.90; and the rest of the 



The house cost $121.60, not including our own labor. 



material — lumber, door, windows, shingles, 

 hardware, etc., came to $52.70, or a total of 

 $121.60 for the house as it stands, not in- 

 cluding our labor, of which I kept no ac- 

 count. We did all the work ourselves, 

 mostly at odd times. It is as near dust- 

 proof as we could make it, the plates and 

 end rafters being cemented on, and paper 

 laid under the shingles. 



There is just one thing to be desired : It 

 is hard work lugging the honey up out of 



