1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



607 



ago, by financial reverses I became indebt- 

 ed $25,000; and as misfortunes never come 

 singly, my health also failed until I thought 

 I could not follov^r my professional pursuits 

 longer. With a view^ of regaining my 

 health and paying these debts I re-embark- 

 ed in the bee business, in which I had had 

 enough previous experience to be certain of 

 good results. So in 1884 I began by the 

 purchase of all the bees I could get, paj'ing 

 therefor from $1 to $10 per colony. By in- 

 crease and other purchases, by 1890 I had 

 500 colonies, and 2000 in 1895, keeping on 

 until 1898, when the colonies numbered 

 about 3000, nearly the number I now have. 

 By 1892 I had every dollar of my indebted- 

 ness paid out of the profits from my bee in- 

 dustry, and since that time I have invested 

 the profits of this branch in farms, averag- 

 ing in price from $5000 to $12,000, as the 

 profits for each year. Last j'ear I purchas- 

 ed $40,000 worth of land, and $15,000 of 

 this amount came from the sale of honey 

 and bees. All the land I purchased prior 

 to 1898 has more than doubled in value, 

 while that bought since has advanced fully 

 30 per cent, and has paid in -rent, since I 

 owned it, fully 8 per cent. I now own 20,000 

 acres of fine farm and fruit lands, which, 

 at a fair valuation, is worth $60 per acre, 

 besides large tracts of wild lands in Dakota, 

 Texas, and Kansas, and considerable city 

 property. None of it is for sale, as most of 

 it pays a fair interest on a much larger 

 price. Now it may be seen why I am in 

 the bee business. I have regained my 

 health, and will continue handling bees 

 right along. 



But, to return to the real subject. The 

 first eleven years I used small hives of va- 

 rious patterns; but for six years I have 

 used nothing smaller than a ten - frame 

 plain hive. For surplus I use one hive 

 above another with empty combs, for ex- 

 tracted honey. For chunk honey I use the 

 thin brood foundations wired. I use no 

 honey-board, queen-excluders, nor separa- 

 tors, but. allow the queen to breed wher- 

 ever she desires, and in that way get fully 

 four times as many bees as you get in the 

 eight-frame hive where a queen-excluder is 

 used. Bees, even in an eight-frame hive, 

 generally use the two outside frames on 

 each side of the hive for honey and pollen, 

 and this leaves but four frames for brood- 

 rearing. This, I claim, will not produce 

 one-sixth as many bees as the colony should 

 contain. I went through a colony having 

 on six ten-frame hives last summer, and it 

 had brood in 32 frames. That hive produc- 

 ed over 500 lbs. of surplus, while the same 

 colony in an eight-frame, with a queen-ex- 

 cluder used, would not have produced to ex- 

 ceed 100 lbs. of surplus. A queen-excluder 

 will exclude the queen, and will also to 

 some extent bar or greatly hinder a well- 

 filled bee. By using drawn combs we have 

 very little use for separators. I don't use 

 them; and when I occasionally run out of 

 drawn combs I resort to foundation; with 

 drawn combs bees will make about twice 



as much honey as with foundation. I was 

 induced to use large hives by some circum- 

 stances which I will relate. 



I helped a man cut two bee-trees seven 

 years ago, where the bees had been occu- 

 pying the trees for four years. He was cer- 

 tain when they went into the trees, for both 

 stood in his yard. Both had the space in 

 the trees full of honey, giving us 517 and 73 

 lbs. respectively; and the same j'ear I had 

 a man (who was managing an out-apiary 

 for me while running a store) put up 50 

 boxes in trees to catch absconding swarms. 

 Among them he put up several sugar-bar- 

 rels, some cracker-boxes, and some nail- 

 kegs. We noticed that the barrels and 

 large boxes were first occupied. One colo- 

 ny in a barrel we left on the ground in the 

 woods until the close of the season, and it 

 gave us 300 lbs. of fine honey. Eight years 

 ago I had 56 swarms come out in one day; 

 and although I had four assistants helping 

 hive them, seven or eight swarms clustered 

 together and resisted all efforts to separate 

 them, so I had two ten-frame hives and two 

 supers made, and placed them one above 

 the other, leaving the two openings. Now, 

 this colony finished up 365 sections of hon- 

 ey after filling the two hives, while none of 

 the other colonies hived that day gave a sin- 

 gle pound of surplus. If I put half a dozen 

 hives on a colony I leave an opening for 

 each hive so that the bees will usually 

 work from each hive, and I sel'i'om have a 

 swarm from colonies thus treated. With 

 those I want to swarm I use the common su- 

 per on with sections for surplus honey. I 

 had a colony last summer that had five 

 twelve - frame hives on full of honey. It 

 commenced to swarm, and I immediately 

 set two of them ofl^ and put on another hive 

 with empty combs, also taking out a few^ 

 frames of honey from one of the hives. I 

 had set off and put in frames of foundation, 

 and they immediately quit coming out, and 

 those that were out came back and went to 

 work as though nothing had happened. 

 For section honey I use the wide frame hold- 

 ing eight frames. In a heavy flow a ten or 

 twelve frame hive will be filled in a re- 

 markably short time; and then if another 

 is not added they will swarm, no diff^erence 

 how many hives of honey they have on. In 

 a heavy flow I have known them to bring in 

 20 to 30 pounds in a single day, while those 

 in an eight-frame hive were bringing in 7 

 to 10 lbs. per daj'. I have eight-frame hives 

 continually in my apiary for experimental 

 purposes to show the great difference to 

 other bee-keepers. 



I had two last year, one with a queen-ex- 

 cluder and the other without in the same 

 yard. Where others made 400 lbs., this 

 one with an excluder gave me 60 lbs. of 

 chunk honey; and the one without, produc- 

 ed 110 lbs. I had another that did not give 

 a single pound of surplus, although they 

 had a fine queen; but the_v were weak in 

 the spring, and had very poor combs in the 

 brood-nest, which I did not discover until 

 the heavy flow was over. 



