GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Fig. 4. — Panes of glass used as super-covers or honey-boards. 



Mr. Hill " flags his (|ueeiis," as his hives. 

 are so' close together in the I'ows. Dilt'erent- 

 colored rags are tacked on the fronts of the 

 hives; and red, green, black, etc., spots are 

 painted upon others. A few of the hives 

 have the entire front ]iain1ed a different 

 color. 



Mr. Hill operates his apiary for comb 

 honey in 4 x 5 j^lain sections, and he secures 

 a beautiful product. He uses shallow ex- 

 tracting-supers early in the season, taking 

 them off and placing them below the brood- 

 chamber when the comb-houey supers are 

 put on. These exfracting-supei's are left 

 below until fall, when they are removed 

 and put away till spring. They are then 

 put on top full of honey for the bees to use 

 in breeding up. Mr. Hill told me that he 

 sold $1800 worth of honey this year from 

 his apiary. He operates only his home 

 apiary, having no outyards. 



Several months ago I told about the 

 beautiful Canon City fruit disfnct — its syl- 

 ■\an country homes, pretty country lanes, 

 and delightful climate. Now I Avanf to tell 

 you of one of our beekeepers there. 



Mr. Babberger is an artist photogTapher, 

 a fruit-culturist, gardener, and beekeeper. 

 He is a shrub and flower lover, and his lit- 

 tle Dutch garden beside his house reminds 

 me of my friend and neighbor Karl Dehn, 

 whose particular passion is dahlias. (I 

 wish you might hear Mr. Dehn pronounce 

 " dahlias " and hear him talk flowers.) Mr. 

 Dehn learned his flower gardening in Ber- 

 lin ; and whether Mr. Babberger gardened 



in Berlin 1 do not know; hut his little gar- 

 den and apiary are worthy of liis father- 

 land. 



Mr. Babberger considers his work in the 

 studio far too confining and also too mer- 

 cenary. People want only cheap pictures, 

 and he does not make that kind. His pic- 

 tures are worth his price; and when we 

 had our beekeepers meet Dr. Phillips in his 

 studio, Mr. Babberger had his honey piled 

 in the recei^tion room, and he was charging 

 a price commensurate with what he consid- 

 ered it worth. He was asking $3.50 a case 

 for his comb honey, and was getting it. 

 Some others were selling for $2.50 and 

 $2.75; but Mr. Babberger would not sell 

 for such a i)riee. 



Probably scores of fruit-growers — neigh- 

 bors of Mr. Babberger — have stopped when 

 driving past his apiary to admire the wliite 

 rows of hives between the apple trees, one 

 of which is shown in Fig. 3. 



Mr. Babberger harvested 2300 sections of 

 honey from 25 new swarms, and has always 

 counted on ten dollars' worth of honey 

 from each hive. The spraying for the leaf- 

 roller destroyed a good many of his colo- 

 nies last spring, so that his cro}) Avas very 

 small. 



If we could have lialf a dozen beekeep- 

 ers in each county like Mr. Babberger they 

 would have a wonderful influence in rais- 

 ing the standards of bee culture. Mr. Bab- 

 berger uses the Danzenbaker hive and 4x5 

 sections. One of his special hobbies is the 

 use of panes of glass for honey-boards. 



