696 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



G. F. JONES' APIARY IN NORTH CAROLINA. 

 The hives are set up on high foundations to prevent the toads from eating the bees at night. 



a room, the great difficulty is that the heat rises 

 to the top of the room, perhaps also melting the 

 combs in the upper tier of supers, while those 

 next to the floor are quite cool — too much so to 

 extract — and there is no way of heating them ex- 

 cept to raise them to the top of the room. It is 

 evident that Mr. Coveyou has solved the problem 

 of heating the honey without heating a room, and 

 without piling the supers over after they are once 

 in place. 



T» he ennthuirJ. 



BEE-KEEPING IN NORTH CAROLINA 



Why Bees Rob During a Honey-Flow. 



BY G. F. JONES. 



We had a hne honey-flow here last season. 

 Our principal flow is sourwood, uhich gives a 

 very fine-flavored honey, water-white. The flow 

 lasted 27 days. We have two robbing seasons — 

 one in the early spring and one in the fall. On 

 the 23d of September last we had a fine honey- 

 flow, but my bees were robbing the worst I had 

 ever seen them. I should like some of your ex- 

 perienced bee-men to tell me why the bees 

 rob during a [fine flow. Our fall flow is from 

 the frostweed, which is the last to bloom here. 



I am sending you a view of the home of my 

 bees. I have 16 colonies, which gave me an av- 

 erage of 70 lbs. One of mv colonies gave me 

 140 lbs., which I sold at 17 cts., or $23.80, from 

 one queen. I have my hives on foundations 8 in. 

 high, and just the width of the hive, and sloping, 

 as you will see in the picture. I arrange them 

 this way so the toads and frogs, which are very 

 numerous here, can't pick up my bees at night. 

 I notice them trying to catch the bees at^night; 



but when they make a dive they turn a' somer- 

 sault every time. 



I have been keeping bees for three years. I 

 started with one colony, and have built up to 16. 

 I have had several reverses and many gloomy 

 days with my bees, but I just consult my old 

 standby, Gleaning^', and it always pulls me 

 through. 



El kin, N. C, Oct. 9. 



[You say you were having a "fine honey- 

 flow." We can hardly believe this was possible. 

 It would be our opinion that there was some 

 honey coming in, but not enough to keep all the 

 bees busy. Sometimes during a light honey- 

 flow some colonies will be busy while others will 

 be robbing; but during a honey-flow, if at all 

 strong, all bees will be engaged in gathering 

 honev. — Ed.] 



MICE IN CHAFF CUSHIONS. 



Colonies Prepared by Placing Large Box- 

 es over Paper-wrapped Hiv« s. 



BY SARAH B. LEEDS. 



These pictures are of bees kept by two young- 

 women in Pennsylvania. In order to shelter the 

 colonies for the winter, last year we put a super 

 on each hive with a bag of chaff inside, then 

 tacked builder's paper around the hive, and over 

 all placed a large packing-box — Fig. 1. 



The bees were in good condition in the spring, 

 but we found the field-mice had made nests for 

 themselves on top of the hives, and had gnawed 

 off a good deal of the paper under the box, as 

 shown in Fig. 2. Several weeks later we looked 

 into the hives to see how the bees were getting 

 along, and found a large nest insidelof one of the 



