I HE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



now granted, by itself would be small iu- 

 duceiuent to a competent person to carry the 

 burden. The stipend thould be increased so 

 that the work might be extended without 

 compelling the operator to carry a gratui- 

 tous load. 



By asking tliis we ask nothing that our vo- 

 cation does not deserve. Apiculture lives 

 not to itself. Its product, constituting one 

 of the most healthful of foods and at the 

 same time so delect ible as to be a luxury, is 

 pure gain, being secured from what would 

 otherwise be waste only, and it may be that 

 this gain is but an incident to its greater 

 bounty in causing plant and tree to yield 

 abundantly their seed after tlieir kind. 



Lapeek, Mich. Jan. 2, 18%. 



Nineteen Years of Successful Bee -Keep- 

 ing.— The Start. 

 NINETEEN years ago, when I was twenty- 

 three years old, I took my first lessons 

 in bee-keeping. I had made a failure of 

 farming, losing what little I possessed. My 

 capital was reduced to a silver twenty-five 

 cent piece— plugged at that. I had a wife 

 and growing family to be fed, clotlied and 

 cared for. 



One sunny day, late in April, I was out in 

 the woods chopping, when, becoming tired, 

 I sat down to rest, and my attention was at- 

 tracted by a loud humming. Upon investi- 

 gation I found it to be bees busily at work 

 upon some low shrubbery bearing red flow- 

 ers, I enjoyed myself sometime in watch- 

 ing the black little fellows flitting from flow- 

 er to flower and then returned to my work, 

 but would occasionally stop and listen to the 

 bees, as one of them flying near my head 

 would remind me of them. All this made 

 such an impression upon my mind that I 

 resolved to became the possessor of some 



A few days after I passed a farm house in 

 front of which were a number of stands of 

 bees. A halt was made and a bargain struck 

 for two " skeps," as the owner called them. 

 I shall never forget the wise counsel and ad- 

 vice given me by the old gentleman. There 

 must be plenty of cross-sticks in the hive to 

 support the combs ; there must be no nails 

 on the inside or the swarms would not stay ; 

 the hives must be painted red as that was the 

 color that the bees had a particular liking 



for ; but, above all things, the hives must be 

 kept elevated about an inch from the bottom 

 board, as this would prevent the moths from 

 destroying the bees. After thanking my 

 good old friend and giving him my note for 

 eleven dollars, due in four months, I started 

 for home with my noisy, little, black 

 friends. More anon. 



Enthusiastic. 



HOW THE APIAKY LOOKED WHEN IT WAS 

 STABTED. 



Cheap, Easy and Quick Method of Re- 

 Queening an Apiary. 



E, F. QUIGLEY. 



T is a waste of time and money to make 

 any special effort to have all colonies pure 

 Italians in apiaries run for honey production, 

 because few bee-keepers are so situated as 

 to get even a small per cent, of their young 

 queens purely mated, for this reason I should 

 use the following plan to Italianize twenty 

 or more colonies. 



Get one or two good tested queens near 

 the close of your main honey flow, start the 

 bees to cell-building, keep them building 

 cells until you get enough to go around and 

 some to spare. I would start some each 

 day; that will give mora tim^ to hunt out 

 old queens. Keep the date each lot will 

 hatch, then three days before the cells will 

 hatch, remove as many old queens as you 

 have good cells. When these cells are ripe, 

 place one between the combs of each colony 

 made queenless three days before, or if you 

 have on sections or an upper story of extract- 

 ing combs, you can put your cells to hatch 

 between the sections or combs of honey 

 away from the brood chamber, and that 

 without even hunting out the queen, and you 

 will have 80 per cent, of the old queens su- 

 perseded. 



Now, if you are away from other bees, and 

 have black drones in your own yard, but 

 wish to mate your queens to Italian drones, 



