He persisted in insisting. Finallj^ I yield- 

 ed. In the evening I took my big bee-ledg- 

 er from its little pigeonhole, and using a 

 magician's wand, most solemnly put down 

 on the credit side of it : 



To 20 lbs. honey at 15 ets., $3.00. 

 Thus had I a clear profit of $3.00 from 

 my first year of beekeeping. 



And now, my fellow-novice, I will have 

 the temerity to attach to the above a small 

 appendix. 



Never fool with bees when j^ou don't 

 know any thing about them. 



Never fool with bees when you know 

 just a little about them. 



Never, never fool with bees when you ■ 

 don't knoAV whether you know any thing 

 about them. 



But when you knoAV that you know, and 

 you don't give a snap if everybody knows 

 that you know you know, then — 

 Don't fool with bees, hut keep bees. 

 [As an afterthought to the above rather 

 melancholy experience, we may say that 

 most beginners (perhaps by luck) succeed 

 in getting honey the first year without hav- 

 ing all the troubles known in beedom as 

 our correspondent seems to have had. If 

 this were not true, we are afraid there 

 would be very few beekeepers. But there 

 are eases, like the experience cited above, 

 when the advice received only seems to lead 

 to more trouble and when every move seems 

 to be just the wrong one. Our correspondent 

 is surely correct in his observation that it 

 would have been better if he could have 

 secured his information from reliable text- 

 books, of which there are now many, in- 

 stead of trusting well-meaning, but poorly 

 informed neighbors. 



For the benefit of other beginners who 

 may not be able to discover just what was 

 wrong in the above management we will 

 say that merely destroying queen-cells will 

 not always prevent a swarm. And if a 

 swarm does issue, it is accompanied by the 

 old queen, the colony on the old stand being 

 left with queen-cells, one of which contains 

 the young queen destined to be the future 

 mother of the colony. Destroying all queen- 

 cells again rendered the colony hopelessly 

 queenless, and in time laying workers de- 

 veloped. The plan for getting rid of them, 

 wliile commonly practiced, is not very re- 

 liable. 



The diseased combs need not have been 

 buried. They could have been melted up, 

 and most of the wax, at least, saved, so that 

 a little more might be added to the profits, 

 which, had it not been for the kindness of 

 the one beekeeper, would have been nothing 

 at all.— Ed.] 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 

 A BEGINNER'S EXPERIENCE 



BY B. KEEP 



Continued from page 12 



All bottom-boards have the Gary feeder. 

 I vei-y soon discarded the flat Excelsior cov- 

 ers, and rei^laced them with double pitched 

 covers having an air-space, and covered 

 with asphalt roofing felt (the same as that 

 used to wi-ap the hiv,e body) ; no paint- 

 ing; no leaking; no warping; and all made 

 of cheap % or i/2-inch lumber. 



I must admit that no small part of my 

 enjoyment in beekeeping is derived from 

 the mechanical features of it — the nailing 

 and i^ainting, fixing up supers, and all the 

 little tilings in anticipation of the next sea- 

 son. Another most enjoyable incident has 

 been the remodeling of an unused cliicken- 

 house, wherebj' I have a dry cozy little 

 honey-house where surplus fixings are stor- 

 ed, and where the extracting was done this 

 fall. There is a chimney with a fireplace 

 or stove, and during warm weather there is 

 running water from a pipe intended orig- 

 inally for hosing the garden. The shanty,, 

 as we call it, is 8 x 12, and has an asphalt 

 felt roof and concrete floor. The tar paper 

 from the old roof was laid down on an inch 

 of sand, and the concrete on top of that, so 

 the place is positively dry. Thei'e was no 

 frost on the windows all last winter. This 

 season I found one colony queenless in 

 April. One colony swarmed late in August,, 

 and five days later an after-swarm was put 

 back. The prime swarm was reunited be- 

 fore cold weather, so that my number re- 

 mains at ten, wliich I consider all that the 

 locality and my time will warrant. One 

 colony was found by the inspector in May 

 to have American foul brood. It was treat- 

 ed by the McEvoy plan, and at the close of 

 the season I took about 30 lbs. of extracted, 

 which was not so bad after all. One colony 

 I used for experimenting, but it gave about 

 25 lbs.; so that, practically, only seven of 

 the ten can be credited with the 450 lbs. 

 extracted, and 65 salable sections which I 

 harv^ested. Owing to bad weather when fall 

 flowers were blooming all colonies were 

 very light in winter stores. One or two 

 had practically nothing, so 120 lbs. of gran- 

 ulated sugar have been fed, and I am wait- 

 ing anxiously the coming of another season, 

 when I may tiy my hand at queen-rearing 

 in a small way. 

 Hoboken, N. J. 



