898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



Now, these great results are secured 

 Illy by much care, pains and study, 

 esidts hard work, in the first place, 

 bere must be a locality. Then the 

 lan who manages the bees must be a 

 'orker. He must be right in the work, 

 eart and soul. Trusting to hired 

 elp will never produce great results 

 1 bee culture, for when a hired man 

 as caught a glimpse of what hisabil- 

 y and skill might accomplish for 

 imself, he will not be a hired man 

 ly longer. Among all the risky and 



;ti Qcertain occupations I should pro- 

 Duuce bee culture the most precar- 

 us. By a very little carelessness and 

 id management a man can in a very 

 ort time, lose all. Again, I do not 

 Qow of any occupation where a man 

 ay so quickly pick up. Beekeepers 

 th a hundred colonies or more often 

 eet with losses in wintering, cutting 

 lem down to a dozen, or even a half 

 dozen, but a man with plenty of grit 



lit id one who is well informed, will 

 ke this remaining remnant of half a 



ho )zen and in one season will almost 

 ive his whole lot of hives and combs 

 cupied by bees again^ aud this may 

 metimes be done by means of nat- 

 •al swarming, as well as artificial, 

 single colony of bees with a good 

 leen will sometimes, by natural 



ie( /^arming, increase to half a dozen or 

 ore, and the old stock, with the aid 

 the new one, will sometimes store 

 veral hundred pounds of surplus, 

 sides having enough for all of them 

 winter. The diligent beekeeper 

 [10 loves bees and (may I be per- 



!f itted to add?) God, will be constaut- 



fii meeting with happy surprises. He 

 ay nuet with some surprises that 

 e not so very ' haopy," al^o, it is 

 je; but if he h )ld3 fast to his I'atth, 



studies hard with his brain, while he 

 is not afraid to use his muscles, he 

 will surely reap a rich harvest in due 

 time. 



A host of inventions have been 

 made during the last fifty years to fa- 

 cilitate the work of the beekeeper, and 

 many of these inventions have been 

 along the line of simplicity. In place 

 of the complex and expense patent 

 hives of years ago, beekeepers now al- 

 most universally use simply a box in 

 which to hang the frames. There are 

 very few patent hives, and compara- 

 tively few patented appliances in use. 

 Great progress has been made in the 

 matter of making both hives and 

 honey-boxes by means of automatic 

 machinery, and so they may be offered 

 at a very low price In fact, hives 

 and honey-boxes are now furnished in 

 many localities at a price less than 

 what the bare lumber would cost if 

 you were to go to the average carpen- 

 ter shop aud try to buy it. The honey- 

 extractor has not been very greatly 

 changed from what it was when I 

 made my first metal ones, something 

 over thirty years ago. Perforated zinc 

 for excluding drones, and comb 

 foundation for preventing the produc- 

 tion of drones, have both been the 

 means of making C)lonies valuable 

 that would otherwise be unprofitable. 

 Utensils to hold honey for market, 

 both wood and glass, have been greatly 

 improved. Comb honey is now put up 

 in much more attractive form, and the 

 cost of the box, or "section," that 

 holds it, is far less than the old fash- 

 ioned wooden drawers. Hives are now 

 equipped with combs all worked, much 

 more accurate in mathematics than 

 any the bees every built for them- 



selves 



Injieuious machines at a low 



