I'niL tsElL-KEKPERS REVlJiJvy, 



HVA 



wlij is uow depeadinif ou the sale of houey 

 almost entirely for present support. His 

 apiary is in a yood location williin the cor- 

 porate limits of the city of Minneapolis. 

 He has a crop of 5,000 pounds of extracted 

 houey. He writes " I am very busy trjiny 

 to sell the honey. I have rented a room on 



avenue and have a man to tend it when 



I am out peddling, but the sales in both 

 ways do not average more than lour dollars a 

 day ; the people have no money as a rule and 

 cannot buy. I could ouly make fair wages 

 if the honey were given me. " Now friends I 

 have been for several years, telling you two 

 things, and I want you when you read this 

 to again read my o^)ening article in the 

 Review for December 1804. The two points 

 to which I wish to call your attention are, 

 first, that bee-keeping nlone is not a safe 

 basis to support a family, and, second, we 

 must turn our attention from the great 

 cities to our rural home markets to find sale 

 for our honey. The gentleman I have quot- 

 ed from is a good salesman and is in a city 

 where twenty-five years ago he could by 

 his present effort have sold one hundred 

 dollars worth a day. My honey crop is not 

 more than one-fourth of a crop, but I easily 

 sold it at fifteen cents a pound to special 

 customers that I have been making for sev- 

 eral years. There are no freight charges to 

 pay out of this, nor commissions to dispute 

 about ; I have all there is in it, and, besides, 

 I have the crop from my half acre and 

 shall not be pinched for food or raiment. 

 The }'^i acre farm was ouly opened up this year 

 and has not yielded nearly so much as I 

 shall expect next season when I hope to 

 have control of more water, but this year I 

 raised Ijo bushels of the nicest potatoes, 

 more fine hubbard squashes than any two 

 families can consume, ?> bushels of nice 

 beans, 1 bushel of peas, 10 bushels of sweet 

 corn, ;5 bushels of tomatoes, 3 dozen water 

 melons, many vegetable oysters, with lima 

 and other beans, peas, sweet corn, lettuce, 

 potatoes and other vegetables for summer 

 use, and I now have the finest strawberry 

 patch you ever saw planted with Bubach, 

 VVarfield, Haverland and Lovett's early, 

 capable of yielding 10 bushels of berries 

 for next year's use. If my friend had 

 the crop from my half acre he could 

 live even if he sold but a small part of his 

 honey. 



FOBESTVILLK, MiNN. 



Nov., 3, 1895. 



Requisities for the Successful, Out - Door 

 Wintering of Bees. 



I-. A. ASPINWALL. 



TJRIEND Hutch - 

 1^ inson — before 

 proceeding with my 

 subject an apology, 

 or some explana- 

 tion should be 

 made as to the delay 

 in furnishing this 

 article — I certainly 

 promised it for 

 August or Septem- 

 ber. It is wholly 

 due to the intense mental strain which I 

 have been subjected to in developing the 

 Potato Digger which has been almost a life 

 work for me. Although the Planter occupi- 

 ed 20 years of my life before success was 

 obtained ; the digger has been the subject of 

 intense study along with other things for a 

 period of o5 years. At times my brain 

 power has com^^i^itely failed ; when all cor- 

 respondence and letter writing were quite 

 out of the question. 



I also take this opportunity to otter my 

 deepest sympathy in your affliction. I refer 

 to the illness of your daughtar, and your 

 attack of rheumatism. It seems at times as 

 though our burdens were almost unbearable, 

 and were it not for our conceptien of the 

 Divine, they would be heavier still. 



Although a degree of success attends the 

 wintering of bees in cellars, and out doors 

 in favored localities, under the supervision 

 of expert bee keepers, still, an all-purpose 

 method by which no skill or care is required 

 at the hands of the apiarist, aside from the 

 preparation necessary at the close of fhe 

 honey season, has not been p'resented to the 

 bee-keepers of oar country. 



In treating this subject it may not be 

 amiss to consider briefly the two methods 

 now in vogue throughout the north, viz., 

 that of cellar wintering, and the out door 

 method. The latest, which is primitive, and 

 with modern hives somewhat unreliable, is 

 less so as we advance to warmer latitudes. 

 There are inherent objections to cellar 

 wintering ; the most serious of which is the 

 long period of confinement. In extremely 

 cold winters this objection is less apparent. 

 When contrasted with colonies wintered in 

 the open air, especially when the opportu- 

 nity for flight occurs two or three times 



