1902 



(CLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



381 



The only remed_y is to extract often from 

 the brood-chamber, which bee-inen general- 



THE POLKA. STEP. 



ly do here, and from both blacks and Ital- 

 ians. 



From my limited observation I think close 

 attention is not given to thorough re-queen- 

 ing; and I am sure that a less number of 

 colonies could be managed with more profit 

 than so many. 



In the managing of a large number of 

 apiaries the question of help plays an im- 

 portant part. I don't believe the native 

 Cuban, on the average, is so efficient as the 

 average American. But as they can be 

 hired for about $15 per month they will prob- 

 ably be preferred to the higher-priced bee- 

 men from the States. But very few of these 

 Cubans can read or write. Three-fourths 

 of the people of Cuba are illiterate. To al- 

 low you to judge of the illiteracj^ of the ru- 

 ral population, I would say that I received 

 my mail for a few weeks at a town of some 

 1500 population. When I would call for 

 m^' mail the postmaster would take down a 

 common cigar-box and pick out my letters 

 and papers. All the mail for said town 

 was in that box! 



While there are a great many bright 

 young Cubans, the rule is the other way. 

 It will be hard to make me believe that the3' 

 can so intelligently manage an apiary as a 

 bright young man from the States, with up- 



to-date information, and all the time ab- 

 sorbing more from our abundant litera- 

 ture. 



All the same, if they come to Cuba they 

 must come in competition with the cheap 

 labor. 



BEES AND PEACHES. 



Mrs. Axtell tells us some of their Experience Last 

 Season. 



BY MRS. L. C. AXTELL. 



Mr. Root: — Our bees have done us no 

 good for several years, and do not promise 

 to be worth caring for for the coming year, 

 as the white clover was so dried out, and 

 all other honey-bearing plants last year; 

 and it is dry this winter and spring, and 

 bees injure peaches so badly I would about 

 as soon they would die out. I observed 

 very carefully last fall the peach-orchard, 

 and decided that, although the bees did not 

 make the first incisions, they soon followed 

 and ate up the peach, which, if they had 

 left alone, would have been marketable in 

 our home market. The first puncturing 

 came from birds — sometimes only a bite or 

 two in the finest peaches, and then they 

 would go to another peach and take a bite, 

 and so on until they had bitten a dozen or 

 more on a tree; and if those peaches could 

 have been picked right away, this would 

 not hurt their sale very much in our home 

 market; but if left a few hours the bees 

 sucked out great holes in them, so they 

 would not sell. The peach juice is also bad 

 for bees. I suppose the birds picked into 

 the ripe peaches because green ones could 

 not be so easily punctured. We could see 

 the birds pick them. 



Roseville, 111., Apr. 7. 



[Mrs. A., I thank you for this testimony, 

 and I think it is correct. Bees are certain- 

 ly in one sense a nuisance many times to 

 the peach-grower. But where peaches are 

 to be shipped away, in modern peach- 

 growing, the pickers are on hand and gath- 

 er these peaches you mention before they 

 get so soft that the birds are inclined to 

 puncture them. Of course, the birds, un- 

 less frightened away, will get their work 

 in to some extent; but these peaches can, 

 with proper care, be utilized for the home 

 markets, or by canning or drying. I watch- 

 ed this whole thing pretty well last season 

 in the great peach-orchards in Northern 

 Michigan. Friend Hilbert does quite a can- 

 ning business in connection with shipping 

 peaches. The peaches are canned in half- 

 gallon jars, and put up by the hundreds if 

 not by the thousands, and they have no 

 trouble in selling all they can put up, in 

 Traverse City. I believe the jars are some- 

 times returned; but, even if they are not, 

 good jars are as good as cash. Mrs. Root 

 dried a few of those overripe peaches. For 

 my part, I like the dried peaches best. 



