bees throughout the season. 1 will do this 

 through the testimony of another beekeeper 

 whose experience exactly coincides with 

 mine. 



Mr. J. J. Wilder .- — How are your Caucasian bees 

 holding up? Are they still leading the Italians in 

 real business ? Mine have, and in this location of no 

 honey they average me 50 lbs. surplus while my 

 neighbor's eight colonies of Italians stored no sur- 

 plus at all, and, besides, dwindled to only four colo- 

 nies. 



Another beekeeper near by had 108 colonies of 

 Italians, and they decreased to 47, and he had to 

 resort to feeding nearly all summer. It is plain that 

 the Caucasians gathered honey from some source 

 while these two lots of Italians were perishing. 



Then, too, they kept their brood-nest chock full of 

 brood all through the season, and I doubled the 

 number of colonies and got an extra set of combs 

 built in the supers. It would have done you good 

 to see the great stream of bees going and coming 

 from each hive while the honey-flow lasted. 



I imported some queens this season direct from 

 the Caucasus, and the workers are uniform in color, 

 and not a trace of yellow about them, nor are they 

 dark in color, but a dull gray, and are as striped as 

 zebras. They are hustlers too. I am going to make 

 a specialty of Caucasians, for I believe that they are 

 the comiiig race of bees. My friends in the North 

 say that they winter well and do not dwindle in the 

 spring as do the Italians or their crosses; and, be- 

 sides, they are gentler, and will stand more abuse 

 and neglect. I have always found them good, even 

 under the most adverse conditions. 



Chaelbs W. Quinn. 



Houston Heights, Texas, Nov. 11. 



One of the illustrations is a snapshot of 

 our tirst Caucasian yard along with some 

 other races and strains of bees which we 

 had under test side by side. The result of 

 the test Avas that the Caucasians had more 

 to their credit for our purpose. 



The other view shows the corner of the 

 same apiary and three beekeepers who had 

 just finished examining all of the colonies in 

 the yard for the purpose of ascertaining 

 Avhieh strain of bees was giving the best re- 

 sults. The Caucasians scored the highest 

 number of merits. 



The man standing on the right is Mr. 

 English; and the man in the middle is the 

 late Mr. Herlong, both extensive beekeepers 

 of Florida who "also adopted the Caucasian 

 bees and found them superior. The writer 

 is standing at the left. 



Cordele, Ga. 



A MOST HANDY APIARY WAGON 



BY LOUIS SCHOLL 



After having used a handy wagon that is 

 well suited for almost all purposes in an 

 apiary, it is hard to understand how a bee- 

 keeper can really get along with any other 

 kind of wagon with which to do his haul- 

 ing. Planning to haul bees or hives, su- 

 pers, or cans, on a farm wagon or with only 

 a small spring wagon, caused many a hes- 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



itation before the hauling was finally done. 

 With our big handy wagon, all there is to 

 do is to liitch up to it and then load and 

 do the hauling, no matter where and when. 



The group of pictures shows a full plat- 

 form spring wagon with a capacity of from 

 2000 to 3000 pounds at a load. The bed is 

 entirely flat, like that of a large float, 14 

 feet long and 48 inches wide. It is provid- 

 ed with removable stakes which can be put 

 on in a few minutes. The wagon runs so 

 easily that there is hardly any jan-ing of 

 the load, and it is not necessary to do any 

 tying to keep the load from falling off. This 

 makes the wagon especially well adapted 

 for hauling bees, and also for hauling large 

 loads of supers with the foundation already 

 in the frames. The bed is long enough to ac- 

 commodate two rows of ten-frame hives, 

 making 20 in a tier. A double-deck load of 

 forty colonies can be hauled with ease with 

 a team of two animals, and the entire load 

 hauled on a trot on good roads. This en- 

 ables one to make quick moves of an entire 

 apiary in short order and without the usual 

 disagreeable troubles about packing and 

 jogging with unsuited wagons. All that is 

 necessary in the case of moving bees is to 

 set the hives on, placing them back to back, 

 with the entrances out, preferably, so that 

 these can be watched and be easily accessi- 

 ble in case of leaks. It is very easy to un- 

 load from such a wagon also. 



For hauling our bulk comb honey from 

 the yards, this wagon has proven very valu- 

 able. In the pictures the wagon is shown 

 right beside the apiary fence in two places, 

 with the wagon-bed entirely empty in one 

 case and a wagon-cover on another. The 

 supers are loaded right over the fence on to 

 the wagon from the apiary as soon as these 

 are taken off the hives and freed of bees. 

 By loading them three tiers high, 60 supers 

 are loaded on, making a load of about 2400 

 pounds. The whole is covered over with 

 the wagon cover or sheet as soon as the 

 honey is loaded on, and tied at each end as 

 shown in the two lower pictures. In the 

 two upper pictures the unloading is shown 

 right from the wagon into the honey-house. 

 In one the large screen-door is wide open; 

 but in the other only a small opening is left 

 (because of robbers), through which the 

 honey is passed to a man inside. 



In another picture the wagon is shown 

 with the stakes in place for hauling covers 

 and bottoms and other bulky things without 

 having to tie any thing with long ropes. 

 By going from one yard to another, any 

 thing that is needed at any particular one 

 can be taken out as needed, without useless 

 untying of ropes, etc. 



It will be noticed in all the above pictures 



