502 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



J. A. Green and his Iwo-cylinder Keo carrying a load of forty supers. 



The great saving in the time of travel. 

 The man who has out-apiaries five, ten, or 

 more miles from home must spend many 

 hours on the road. This time, which may 

 be called non-productive labor, may be 

 shortened to approximately one third by 

 the use of an automobile. The time of a man 

 who is caring for a large number of colonies 

 is very valuable during the busy season, 

 and it is just at this season that the most 

 traveling has to be done. At any season it 

 is very wasteful to spend nearly half of your 

 time in getting to and from your work. 



A further great saving of time, labor, and 

 worry is made because of the possibilitv of 

 entering and leaving an apiary safely at any 

 time of day, and of being able to drive up 

 close to the hives to load or unload. It is 

 wasteful of both time and labor to be oblig- 

 ed to stop your wagon some distance away 

 from the bees, and carry all the supplies 

 from there to the hives, and all the honey 

 from the hives to the wagon, even if a wheel- 

 barrow can be used, which is not always 

 the case. Then there is the never-ending 

 worry lest the horses should be stung in 

 spite of all precautions, resulting, perhaps, 

 in an expensive runaway and breakdown, 

 to say nothing of the risk to life and limb. 

 Many a time I have had to wait until dark 

 before I could safely leave an apiary with 

 my load, not getting home until nine or ten 

 o'clock at night, which is neither pleasant 

 nor profitable. A very successful beekeeper 



once said to me, in talking on this point, " I 

 am twenty years older than I was ten years 

 ago." We owe it to ourselves and those de- 

 pendent on us not to waste our energies by 

 unnecessary work and nervous strain. 



I have been using an automobile in out- 

 apiary work for two seasons. My car is a 

 second-hand Reotwo cylinder five-passenger 

 touring car which cost ine in Denver $400 — 

 somewhat less than a third of the price of 

 the car similarly equipped when new. It 

 had seen some hard service; but, being 

 somewhat of a mechanic, I trusted to be able 

 to keep it in running order. This has taken 

 more time than I have liked, though other- 

 wise the results have been fairly satisfactory. 

 There have been occasions, to be sure, when 

 things did not work quite smoothly, and 

 sometimes these seemed to come at the 

 most inopportune times. For instance, one 

 night when I was coming home with a heavy 

 load of honey the chain broke, twisting up 

 the sprocket somewhat. I repaired the 

 chain a couple of times, getting only a little 

 further each time; and when darkness over- 

 took me I had to telephone home for a team 

 to come and haul me in. Next day Dr. 

 Phillips and Wesley Foster were to be in 

 our town, and I had expected to take them 

 for a ride through our valley. I worked on 

 that car until the last possible minute, and 

 then had to give it up and admit that the 

 thing couldn't be made to run reliably un- 

 til a new part had been secured. Then 



