GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Admiring the finished product. 



routine of housework, and to those who are 

 devoting their spare time to the " frivolous 

 work of i^olished idleness " I would recom 

 mend the study of bee life and the practical 

 side of ajjiculture. 



Personally I find nothing so I'estful as an 

 occasional run out into the beeyard — the 

 coziest, most alluring spot on our place, 

 there to spend an hour with my pets. In- 

 variably I return to my work indoors rest- 

 ed, and with renewed interest and energy, 

 my heart singing the glad refrain : 



Mine he a cot beside the hill, 



A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear; 



A willowy brook that turns a mill 

 With many a fall shall linger near. 



Franklin, Mass. 



WHEN I BEGAN BEEKEEPING 



BY EUGENE SECOR 



When I married I was anxious to begin 

 home-making in the right way. I had bought 

 a little place in the edge of town (and, by 

 the way, we still occupy it), and began de- 

 veloping it. My father had always kept 

 bees, in box hives of course, back in old 



York State, and I knew a3 much about them 

 rs tlie average farmer of those days. That 

 knowledge was bounded by a few facts 

 pricked and pounded into my head by expe- 

 rience and observation. I knew bees would 

 sling, that they would swarm, and that tliey 

 would sometimes store a littl? surplus honey 

 in a rough box made of inch lumber on top 

 the hive, the access to which was through a 

 couple of auger-holes through the inch 

 board nailed tight to the top of the brood- 

 chamber. 



You may be assured that such practice 

 never secured any white or early honey. ]5y 

 the time buckwheat blossomed, the weather 

 got warm enough and the colony strong 

 enough to build comb in that upper cham- 

 ber. So about all the honey we ever got was 

 buckwlieat. 



That's all ! knew about bees. But when 

 the spirit of adventure seized me, and 1 

 came to Iowa, I was ready for advanced 

 work in the ABC class. 



^Vhile I was growing up, Langstroth and 

 Quinby appeared above the horizon, shed- 

 ding a flood of light on the beekeeping- 

 world. I had never read their books; but 

 an occasional item in the American Agri- 

 culturist and other papers always attracted 

 my attention; and when I bought my first 

 colony I sent for Quinby 's '' Mysteries of 

 Beekeeping Explained," and began study- 

 ing the natural history of the bee. At that 

 time Mr. Quinby illustrated and gave in- 

 structions as to the use of the box hive; but 

 it ha2:)pened that there lived in my neigh- 

 boi'hood a carpenter beekeeper who was 

 making his own hives with the Langstroth 

 idea, but not the Langstroth frame. His 

 hives were about 10 x 14 x 10 deep, as near- 

 ly as I remember, with the frames cross- 

 wise. I got him to make me one, paying 

 him $3.00 for it. It was a dandy. It had 

 a cap of gothie architecture, with ventila- 

 tors in the gables, all painted white, and 

 looked like a bird-house. I gave $10.00 foi- 

 a prime swarm to put into it. The hive 

 being small I had plenty of swarms and 

 quite a good deal of comb honey also, for 

 that period. 



That was before the days of sections, and 

 I used various styles of honey-boxes, the 

 most satisfactoi'v, probably, being a glass 

 box with corner post grooved to hold the 

 glass sides and ends, and held together by 

 nails in each corner through the cover and 

 bottom of thin boards. Bits of comb were 

 used for startei's. 



I soon found that the hive I had started 

 with was too small, and made others larger, 

 but with frames crosswise of the hive, after 

 the pattern of the first one. When sections 

 came into ger.eral use I changed again to the 



