1908 



GI.EANINCiS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1499 



ONE OF THE OUTVAKUb Ul \V. L. COGGSHALL. — PHOTO BY VERNE MORTON, 



eggs laid by inferior queens are often attached to 

 one of the sides of tlie cells rather than to the 

 base, and it is hard to conceive of workers plac- 

 ing the adhesive material on'^the sides, only for a 

 defective queen. — Ed.] 



W. L. COGGSHALL. 



The Man and his Methods of Management; 

 the Most Extensive Bee-keeper, Per- 

 haps, in the United States. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



While in attendance at the Detroit convention 

 I met Mr. W. L. Coggshali, of Groton, N. Y., 

 whom our older readers will remember as being, 

 probably, the most extensive bee-keeper in the 

 United States, or at least that was the title he had 

 earned several years ago. Prior to that time, 

 Capt. J. E. Hetherington, of Cherry Valley, N. 

 Y., held that honor; but during his later years, 

 owing to ill health, his bee-keeping interests di- 

 minished while those of Mr. Coggshali, of the 

 same State, materially increased. At one time 

 the latter owned one or more apiaries in the West, 

 and some eighteen or twenty yards in his own 

 State, and one or two in Cuba. 1 do not know 

 at the present time how extensive his holdings 

 are in bees; but it is my opinion that, during the 

 four bad years that have recently held sway over 

 Cuba, his interests there have materially shrunken. 



HIS MANAGEMENT OF OUTYARDS. 



Our friend W. L. Coggshali, in connection 

 with his brother David, has a larger interest in 

 bees in New York than perhaps any other two 

 men. They believe in the out-apiary plan, keep- 



ing from 50 to 100 colonies at a yard. At each 

 of these places there is a small building with a 

 complete extracting equipment, for the Cogg- 

 shalls run almost exclusively for extracted honey. 

 Bees are wintered mainly in outdoor double-wall- 

 ed hives. Some of the hives are on the tenement 

 plan, and some hold only a single colony. The 

 yards are located as advantageously as possible 

 in the fruit sections, and anywhere from a mile 

 and a half to three miles apart. The most remote 

 yard at the time of my visit several years ago was 

 something like twenty miles from home. Owing 

 to the lay of the land, and the lakes in the vicin- 

 ity, it is not possible to arrange all the apiaries 

 so that they will radiate from a common center 

 like the spokes of a wheel. The apiaries, as I re- 

 member them, were located in a valley between 

 parallel lakes north and south. 



No man is kept at any of the yards to look 

 after swarms; for with Mr. Coggshall's man- 

 agement, providing he is not too much crowded, 

 there will not be many swarms. The yard help- 

 ers all live at the Coggshali residence, which is 

 shown in the small picture herewith. By this it 

 will be seen that Mr. Coggshali is an extensive 

 farmer; and when work is slack in the bee-yard 

 the boys are turned loose on the farm. During 

 the season the men are divided into one or two 

 groups, sometimes going with the horse and wag- 

 on, and sometimes going on bicycles. It often 

 happens that one of the men will take the wagon 

 while the others will take the wheels to the yards. 

 The wheelmen get things well started, so that, 

 by the time the wagon arrives, a good portion of 

 the honey for the day is taken off. After extract- 

 ing one yard the gang will move to another one, 

 sometimes extracting two whole yards in a day, 

 and that, too, with a non-reversible extracting- 

 machine of the Coggshali pattern. 



