784 SWITZERLAND COUNTY, INDIANA. 



My house is nine by sixteen feet, eight feet story in the 

 clear. It contains twenty-eight colonies of bees, twelve on 

 each side and four in the end opposite the door. I use a small 

 heating stove, as occasion requires, in continued cold or damp 

 weather. In the very coldest weather, I can in thirty minutes 

 raise the temperature to ninety degrees, thereby causing the 

 bees to swarm their entire quarters. Or, if it is advisable 

 I let them fly out in the open air. These are comfortable 

 quarters for the bees, convenient and quick in handling them. 

 A home for every thing, and every thing in its home, with 

 perfect control over heat and cold, and total exclusion from 

 the corroding effects of the weather on the bee boxes, are the 

 essentials to successful bee culture. 



COST OP BEE HOUSE. 



My house, all complete, bees excepted, cost me one hun- 

 dred and fifty dollars. It is floored and sealed with dressed 

 pine flooring, and is sided or weather-boarded with poplar 

 weather-boarding. It has a shingle roof, is painted a lead 

 color, with two gutters to carry off the water. Taking into 

 consideration its cost, I have no other item of my mixed 

 farming that yields so good a dividend. My next outbuilding 

 to be erected is a combined honey and fruit house, to be built, 

 as regards walls, floor, ventilation, etc., after the order of my 

 bee house. 



