546 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 27, 



here shown was taken by himself. He was not quite sure it 

 was a first-class picture, as the camera failed to work satis- 

 factorily, we believe. As this, of course, is being written 

 before this number of the Bee Journal can be printed, we can- 

 not say just how well the picture will look after taken from 

 the press. We hope it will be clear and good, for we have 

 never seen a neater apiary than is Mr. Everett's, and we de- 

 sire all to have a good view of it. 



Mr. E. shows much taste in painting his hives. The hive- 

 stand is white, the hive bottom-board red, the brood-chamber 

 white, the wood-zinc queen-excluder red, the supers blue, and 

 the hive-cover and shade-board white. Thus it is red, white 

 and blue — giving the apiary a very patriotic appearance. 



We wish to call attention to the clean ground upon which 

 Mr. Everett's apiary stands. It is a sort of fine gravel or 



Mr. J. D. Everett. 



sand, and scarcely a blade of grass or weed grows upon it. 

 His chickens roam at will over the yard, and perhaps help to 

 keep down the little grass. He says they never eat any of 

 the bees, so Jar as he knows. 



At the east and west ends of the bee-yard there are shal- 

 low tubs of water — perhaps 6 inches deep and 2 feet in 

 diameter, in which are put pieces of wood upon which the 

 bees can stand to sip. Both tubs were well patronized, as 

 shown by their " living rim " of bees, and also many on the 

 wood pieces. The water is changed often. 



Mr. Everett was born Jan. 5, 1849, on the banks of the 

 upper Tennessee river, in Sullivan county, and during the 

 period from 1859 to 1866, he lived in Lee county, Va. He 

 first became interested in bees while a child, his grandfather 

 and father both keeping them in a small way. He left the 

 South in 1866, coming to Chicago, where he lived until 

 1888, when he moved to Oak Park. Mr. Everett had always 

 had a desire to keep bees, but the opportunity did not present 

 itself until he moved to Oak Park. 



In 1893 he sent to Michigan, and purchased two colonies 

 from Mr. James Heddon. He has experimented quite exten- 

 sively with them, and now has 65 colonies, although he in- 

 tends to double them up before putting them into winter 

 quarters. 



He uses the Heddon double brood-chamber hive, hives all 

 swarms in a half brood-chamber, and pushes them into the 

 supers as fast as possible. When the honey season is about 

 over, he puts two of the half brood-chambers together, and puts 

 on next to the bees a honey-board, with blanket of wool lined 

 with cotton-duck. For wintering he also uses a three-inch 

 tray for each hive, which has three one-inch auger-holes on 

 the sides and back, covered with wire netting ; this tray has 

 the upper edge all around rabbeted out one-half inch deep, so 

 the hive taken off of the bottom-board telescopes into it one- 

 half inch, leaving a space of 2}4 inches between the bottom of 

 the frames and the bottom of the tray. In the front end 

 of the tray the lower half is movable, so that it can be 

 taken out to remove dead bees. However, he has never had 

 occasion to remove any, as they have so much room below 

 the frames that they do not seem to give any trouble. He put 

 away 31 colonies last fall, in the cellar, piling the hives up 

 like empty boxes, and every colony came out alive last spring. 



Mr. Everett's bees have done fairly well this season, as 

 he thinks he will secure about 1,200 pounds of beautiful 

 comb honey, besides the increase of colonies. He doesn't 

 make any effort to control swarming, as he believes Nature's 

 way the best, although a little troublesome at times. After 

 July 1st he forces the swarms into the weakest colonies. 



Mrs. Everett takes great interest in the apiary, and over- 

 sees the putting away of honey, and naturally a fair share of 

 the returns. Mrs. E. was born in Henry county, Illinois. 

 They were married Oct. 15, 1871, one week after the great 

 Chicago fire, by candle light. 



We may say further that though Mr. Everett is successful 

 with bees, of course he does not depend at all upon them for 

 an existence — not much — for he has been with the well-known 

 Chicago wholesale dry-goods firm, John V. Farwell Company, 

 for about 30 years, and holds a responsible position at a 

 deservedly good salary. But his highest ambition is some da»y 

 to own a nice little farm of 40 acres somewhere in the rich 

 agricultural portion of northern Illinois, there to live sur- 

 rounded with bees, poultry, and various kinds of pets. We 

 hope he may soon have his heart's desire. 



^ 



Season's Record — Observations and Reflections 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



We have been having some rainy days, and the bees 

 are taking a rest, and that gives me an opportunity to 

 record some of the work done, some of the observations made, 

 and some of the reflections to which these operations and 

 observations give rise in this year of our Lord, 1896. 



Just before the rains came I noticed a colony of bees that 

 seemed to have suspended work, although the other colonies 

 in the yard were all in a state of great activity. This was a 

 colony that built up so late that I did not think it would do 

 much work in the sections, so I put on another hive-body 

 filled with empty comb and frames of foundation, placing bee- 

 zinc between the two stories, and left the bees to do what 

 they would. To-day (July 24) I looked in to see if I could 

 find out the reason for their inactivity. I found the frames 

 of the upper story all well filled with comb, which was nearly 

 filled with sealed honey. In the center of the lower half of 

 each frame there was a patch of empty cells. This patch was 

 in the shape of a half-moon. All the other cells were filled 

 and sealed clear up to the edges of this half-moon, but there 

 were no signs that the bees intended doing anything with 

 those empty cells. Did they leave them unfilled with the ex- 

 pectation that the queen below would come up and fill them 

 with eggs ? or was it an invitation to the bee-keeper to put a 

 queen in the upper story? I took out two frames, giving 

 them to nuclei that were not strong enough in workers to 



