[192] 



On Bee keeping in Philadelphia. By James 

 Mease, M. D. 



Head December 2lst, 1824. 



Bee hives have been kept for years by some of our 

 citizens, but IVom the very extraordinary success, which 

 until the present year, has attended the experiment of one 

 of tliem, in the very heart of Philadelphia, I have been 

 induced to obtain the following account of it. 



In the spring of the year 1821 , he purchased one swarm, 

 contained in two or three boxes, made upon the plan of 

 the Rev. Mr. Christ of Krohnberg, in Germany, and 

 having placed them in a small garden attached to his house 

 in Fifth above High street, he was pleased to find that they 

 went to work with great industry, and furnished him 

 abundance of very fine honey. In the present year they 

 had increased to seven stacks, each stack being composed 

 of six or seven boxes, each of the dimensions 14 by 5 

 inches. One box weighed 54| lbs. the empty box 

 weighed about 4 lbs. One stack of seven hives was a full 

 load for one man. In August last, he was much mor- 

 tified to find that the destructive miller moth had com- 

 pletely taken possession of three stacks, and filled the 

 boxes with their webs, and glutinous matter, to the utter 

 discomfiture of the bees, which had abandoned the hives 

 to their inveterate enemies. Despairing of being able to 

 prevent their future depredations, he sold all his boxes. 

 He easily kept the bees from swarming, late in the season, 

 by placing an empty box under the lowest in the stack, 

 when he found upon inspection that it was about half full 

 of comb. He has a few fiou ers in his garden, and some 

 grape vines, but the bees must have procured the mate- 

 rials for their honey, from a distance, or by visits to the 

 numerous gardens in and about the city. 



