1132 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15 



FIG. 1. — A FAIR SAMPLE OF HOW CAUCASIANS BUILT BRACE-COMBS BETWEEN THE TOP-BARS DURING 



A GOOD HONEY-FLOW. 



spondent, Mr. Tait, is sure of making something 

 every year. 



He is one of the bee-keepers we feel like com- 

 mending, because he sells his honey and his veg- 

 etables direct to the consumer, thus relieving the 

 congestion at our great market centers. — Ed.] 



A HONEYSUCKLE ARBOR 

 SHADE. 



FOR 



BY L. C. EBRITO. 



I am sending you a picture of a model Texas 

 apiary. Some bee-men in the North object to a 

 dense shade; but I think it is all right in the South. 

 My bee-arbor is 8X88 ft., and is covered with 

 honeysuckle. At the iront end the rafters are 

 hipped, and extend about 12 ft. high. On these 

 I have four monthly running roses, two of them 

 being Marshal Neils. The peach-tree hides that 

 part of the arbor to some extent. 



There is plenty of room under my arbor for 72 

 colonies, but I have only 57. The little house 

 at the extreme right is my shop. It is connected 

 with the arbor with frame work covered with 

 vines, so I have shade going to and from my bees. 

 My hives face the north and south. 



I never used full sheets of foundation until this 

 summer. I made a tool for imbedding the wire, 



which I think does the work well. I took a 

 large crooked sewing-awl, and with a very fine 

 three-cornered file I cut a groove from near the 

 point back, some ys of an inch. I draw the awl 

 along with the wire in the groove, making, in my 

 judgment, a good job of imbedding. 



Mesquite, Tex. 



[It is the almost universal custom for the bee- 

 keepers of Arizona to arrange their hives in two 

 parallel rows on 2 by 4's with an east-and-west 

 shed over them as shown here. As Mr. Ebrito 

 says, it is almost a necessity to use some sort of 

 shade in a hot climate, and something of this kind 

 is ideal. By having a shed of rank-growing vines 

 as here shown, running east and west, the sun can 

 not get to the hives as the day advances. It can 

 strike them only in front. The further south the 

 apiary, the more nearly the sun will be overhead, 

 and the less it will strike the hive-fronts. In the 

 morning it will strike the east end of the shed, 

 and in the evening the west end. But at neither 

 time of the day is the heat intense. 



In Arizona, where the bee-keepers have a shed 

 on this principle, it is of simpler design, with a 

 sort of dry brush, grass, or weeds, piled on top 

 and held there by wires drawn over the whole. 



There will be nothing to prevent one in the 

 North Central States from adopting a similar 

 shed. By this arrangement one can have an api- 

 ary that will enable him to work with comfort 



