516 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 13, 



mills shall turn out cell-walls at least H of an inch deep. 

 This made the whole thickness, including both sides and the 

 base, from K to % inch. We tried some of this wax, and 

 found that the bees accepted it very readily ; but at that time, 

 owing to the large amount of wax wasted, I came to the con- 

 clusion it was a rather expensive way to get comb; but, as I 

 said before, I have confidence to believe that some of our 

 native-born inventors will get up a foundation having very 

 light side-walls H or }4 inch deep, with a base as thin as the 

 natural. When the problem is once solved, we shall be mak- 

 ing one of the greatest steps in advance in the production of 

 comb honey that has ever been made. In the meantime it 

 goes without saying, that Taylor's comb leveler — a device for 

 leveling down partly drawn-out sections — is a big thing, and 

 should be used by every comb-honey producer. 



^ 



Fifteen Years' Experience in Bee-Keeping. 



BY MBS. SALLIE E. SHERMAN. 

 (Continued from page 503.) 

 The winter of 1894-95 being unusually cold, the flowers 

 were later than common in putting out in the spring. (I sup- 

 pose this must have been the cause.) Upon going to the feed 

 stable (I mean where I kept my cow feed), I found what 

 seemed to me to be thousands of bees in my cotton-seed meal 

 barrel, loading up with artificial pollen. This was the first 

 time I ever saw anything like it. It was to me wonderful to 

 see the amount they thus used each day for about 10 days, 

 when natural pollen came on, and they never more visited the 

 cotton-seed meal. During that 10 days, however, I think 

 they averaged fully a gallon each day. I imagine those who 

 are accustomed to use artificial pollen, or a substitute for the 

 real article, would do well to give this cotton-seed meal a 

 trial, and then report results through the Bee Journal. I 

 think its superior for that purpose would be hard to find. 



The best way to put a stop to robbing, that I ever found 

 or practiced, was, after locating the colony that was the chief 

 actor in the scene, just to exchange places with the robbing 

 and robbed colony. 



About the best way that I ever found to determine the 

 colony that was doing the robbing, was to carry the robbed 

 hive into the bee-tent, and let it remain say 15 minutes with 

 the tent all closed, then go on the outside and open one corner 

 so that the bees that had left the robbed hive would then be 

 at liberty to go to their own hive ; just watch a few moments, 

 and you will find (or at least I always did) that most of them 

 came from one colony ; then just exchange places, and the 

 robbing was at an end. 



Once I had quite a troublesome time with bees in my 

 honey-room. It was this way: Being alone and much in need 

 of help, I had made arrangements with a neighbor to let 

 their little boy come over and help me so many hours each 

 day. After he had been here a few days so I had him pretty 

 well drilled as to finding things that I wanted, I being some 

 distance from the house wanted something in the honey-room, 

 so after cautioning him to be sure that he fasten the door 

 well after coming out, I sent him for the desired articles. It 

 so happened that I was away from the house for a full hour. 

 When I came near I heard a terrible furor, or uproar, amongst 

 the bees. I hastened on to find that the small boy had left the 

 honey-room door open, and it looked like a half-dozen swarms 

 Inside having a general jollification. You maybe sure I had a 

 hard time getting those bees out and quieted down. It oc- 

 curred just at a time when there was no honey coming in, 

 which made it so much worse for me. They had gotten a 

 taste and found just where honey abounded, so they seemed 

 determined to have it. They would knot up on the door-knob 

 in great bunches, going in at the key-hole, and also a small 

 space under the door, etc. The truth is, it took two weeks to 



get them to forget that room. The whole apiary seemed to 

 have partaken of the feast and general pandemonium. Well, 

 I just then and there decided that I could dispense with the 

 assistance of the small boy — in a word, get along without bet- 

 ter than with his help ; hence, one reason why so much of my 

 time was spent alone. In bee-keeping, it seems to me, that it 

 is harder to get good help than in any avocation I know of. 



Rocks are very abundant here. I used them to tell me 

 the condition my bees were in, instead of writing it In a book 

 or on a slate, as many do. You see, it was this way : My 

 bees were set in four long rows, so many in a row, facing east, 

 then seven feet and another row facing west, then another 14 

 feet facing east, and the last seven feet, facing west. Through 

 this wide alley, or street, we went to the barn and cow-shed. 

 At any time when I wanted to know whether the bees had 

 enough stores to last them until honey came again, or to see 

 if there were any that needed to be extracted from, I com- 

 menced at one end of the row and tilted the hive forward, 

 which was easily done, for you remember I had them all 

 raised a few inches higher at the back than the front ; thus I 

 could tell what they needed from the weight, yet without any 

 heavy lifting, just tilting forward. We will now start say 

 March first : 



The first hive we come to seems to be rather light; upon 

 this I put one little rock, or pebble, if you prefer calling it 

 thus ; this shows that it needs a frame or two of honey. The 

 next one appears all right; it has plenty, so I will just leave 

 It as it is, which shows that it is all right. Upon tilting the 

 next one, I find it very heavy, so I put two rocks on it, which 

 shows that it has more than is needed. May be the next one 

 I come to is not only light in stores, but I find that the bees 

 appear weak — that is, they are not so plentiful on the alight- 

 ing-board as they shoul-d be, so three rocks are put on top of 

 this one, showing that it must be looked into, for more than 

 likely it is queenless, and must be looked after. Thus I go to 

 every hive in the whole apiary. When I get around, a glance 

 will show the condition of every colony in the yard. 



Then I begin to equalize them. I go to a hive that has 

 two rocks, throw them down, open the hive and take out one, 

 two or three frames of honey, just owing to how much it can 

 spare, then close it without replacing any rocks. This shows 

 that it is all right. I then take this, or these frames, as the 

 case may be, to one of the hives that has one rock upon it, 

 exchange the full frame or frames for empty ones, and leave 

 the rock off, thus showing that it, too, is all right. Of course, 

 the hive with three rocks had to be gone through with, so to 

 speak, to see just what the trouble was, etc. After remedying 

 it, the rocks were left off, unless I had to give it eggs from 

 which to rear queens, in which event instead of removing the 

 rocks one more was added, thus making four. These I let re- 

 main until the queen had not only been roared, but fertilized 

 and laying. Thus you see, a good portion of the time during 

 the working season there were rocks on some of the hives, 

 thus telling me the condition of things on the inside. 



As for planting something for the bees, I have had quite 

 a good deal of experience on a small scale. I have tried 

 mignonette, sunflower, both sllverhull and common buck- 

 wheat, sweet clover, Simpson honey-plant, and lucern. The 

 last named I gave rather an extensive trial, having planted 

 two acres of it at one time, and about '4 acre at another. The 

 alfalfa, or lucern, in the first trial came up beautifully and 

 grew splendidly until it was about eight inches high, then the 

 drouth coming on, it ceased to grow, and finally died out alto- 

 gether, which, of course, gave me no chance whatever to test 

 its honey producing or yielding properties. The second trial, 

 however, was a greater success, so far as growth was con- 

 cerned. It bloomed profusely, but the bees paid very little 

 attention to it, as, at the time it was in bloom there was an 

 abundance of wild flowers which they seemed to prefer. Thus 



