THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



71 



pute ; but hundreds of instances have 

 proved tliat Italians will store just 

 as much honey in sections above a 

 honey- board as though the honey- 

 board were not there. 



In this locality bees do not propolize 

 smooth surfaces unless they are in 

 contact, and other similar localities 

 are quite numerous; hence, the 

 nearer sections can be aerially sus- 

 pended the less they are proplized. 

 When one tier of sections comes in 

 contact with another tier, the lines of 

 contact are increased. 



At last we are getting down to 

 solid facts ; we know, now, how con- 

 tinuous-passage-way cases are manip- 

 ulated ; it is with the aid of wedges, 

 chisels, brush-brooms, lots of peep- 

 ing between the cases, and " some 

 practice." 



He says that it takes about 2 min- 

 utes to put an additional case upon 

 his hive. It takes us about 10 sec- 

 onds to perform the same operation 

 with tlie Heddon case, and we have 

 no use for wedges, nor brush-brooms; 

 there is no peeping between cases, 

 and no bees killed. 



Rogersville, c5 Mich. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



The Weather and Bees in Texas. 



20— B. F. CARROLL, (-50-115), 



We are having some winter " down 

 South " now. The mercury reached 

 n° Fahr. on Jan. 1.5, and the ground 

 has been covered with snow ever 

 since. A o-inch fall of snow occurred 

 last night. Our bees freeze badly 

 during these cold spells, for occa- 

 sionally the mercury will go up to .560, 

 and even 65'^ Fahr., and the bees be- 

 gin to clear out the dead and to clean 

 up, when all at once the wind changes 

 to the north and the thermometer 

 falls in a few hours to the freezing 

 point, sometimes away below, while 

 the bees are scattered all through the 

 hive, and many bees freeze before 

 they can get to the cluster. My bees 

 will be very weak when spring opens, 

 on this account. If I were running 

 my apiary for honey alone, I could 

 not object to my bees being weak 

 early in the spring, as it would take 

 less feed. I begin to stimulate them 

 and get the queens down to real busi- 

 ness by April 15, and by June 1 my 

 hives are all full ot bees, just in time 

 for the horse-mint. This should be the 

 aim of all bee-keepers who desire to 

 make the most from their bees ; to 

 know from what source their surplus 

 honey comes, and about what time, 

 and then work so as to have the liives 

 full of bees just at that time; if the 

 weather is all right and the flowers do 

 their part, the honey crop is a cer- 

 tainty. 



After four years of handling the 

 Cyprian bees, I have concluded that 

 when "Count Kolowrah-Krakovsky, 

 Chancellor Cori, Hilbert, Stahala and 

 Gravenhorst inscribed upon their 

 banners, ' Cyprian bees everywhere,' " 

 they knew what they were doing. I 

 am satisfied that they are the best 

 honey-gatlierers in America, but not 

 the gentlest bees, and hence will keep 



none but Cyprians in my home bee- 

 vard. I think that by breeding the 

 best behaved ones every year, that in 

 hve years I can have Cyprians as gen- 

 tle as the Italians. Our prospects are 

 good for a big honey crop this year, as 

 the ground is a green mass of young 

 horse-mint. I never saw a better 

 stand of it. I live 200 miles north of 

 Austin. 

 Dresden, (5 Texas, Jan. 20, 1885. 



Homestead. 



Elements of Success in the Apiary. 



EUGENE SECOR. 



Success, in any undertaking, does 

 not always depend on brains. If it 

 were so, only those who possessed the 

 power of mind to master difficult 

 problems at a glance, would ever suc- 

 ceed, while those with only mediocre 

 talents must always lag behind, if not 

 ignominiously fail. 



Many suppose that success and 

 brains are synonymous terms. On 

 the contrary, the persistent toiler 

 whose vocabulary does not contain 

 the word fail, will often out-strip, in 

 the race of life, the brilliant, brainy 

 young man who expects to jump to 

 the forefront at a bound. Brains is 

 a good thing to have, nevertheless, no 

 one is hardly ever overstocked with 

 it ; but the will is the motive power 

 which drives the engine successfully. 



Successful bee-keeping, like a great 

 many other things, depends not so 

 much upon the supposed innate abil- 

 ity, theoretical education, or on the 

 capital brought into the business, as 

 upon that quality of mind which is 

 never weary of going into details of a 

 subject, nor discouraged by slow ad- 

 vancement. In this respect it is like 

 many another avocation. The mer- 

 chant who cares more to gratify his 

 love of ease, than to follow out the 

 daily routine behind the counter or at 

 his desk, will hardly be the Stewart 

 of his time. The lawyer, no matter 

 what his natural abilities may be, 

 who enjoys boon companions and the 

 card table better than the dry details 

 and persistent work of searching the 

 legal authorities when he has an im- 

 portant case in court, will probably 

 never rank with Rufus Choate or 

 AVm. M. Evarts as an attorney. And 

 the bee-keeper who puts his swarms 

 in hollow logs or soap-boxes to avoid 

 labor, or who allows the moths to de- 

 stroy them for want of a little atten- 

 tion, and " brimstones " them in the 

 fall to get the honey, rather than to 

 exert himself bv providing them with 

 the proper auxiliaries toward getting 

 the surplus in the handsomest and 

 most marketable shape, will never be 

 a Langstroth nor a Quinby in the 

 science, nor a Hetherington in the 

 amount of money he will gain through 

 the labors of the " busy bee." 



The prime object in bee-keeping is 

 tomake money. Dollars and cents is 

 the only criterion by which the prac- 

 tical Yankee will judge of the merits 

 of any business. Any other view of 

 it interests only the student in natural 

 history, or the amateur who wants to 

 do something to kill time, or to give 



play to his natural genius for labor. 

 So we affirm that if the business does 

 not pay. the bee-keei)er does not suc- 

 ceed. The ardor of the most enthu- 

 siastic beginner will soon abate, un- 

 less he hears the chink of the ducats 

 in the tiller. 



Whether one colony or a thousand 

 be kept, each one must be made to 

 pay a fair rate of interest on the in- 

 vestment. 



As before hinted, no lazy person 

 need ever expect to succeed with bees. 

 The idea that we can sit idly by and 

 get rich, while this pattern of in- 

 dustry does all the work, is a delusion 

 and a snare. No one ever did or ever 

 will succeed at the business, who 

 looks upon it as a scheme to make 

 money without labor. If one looks 

 upon the labor question as the Irish- 

 man did who said that he had nothing 

 to do but to carry the brick and mor- 

 tar up four flights of stairs, and there 

 were men enough up there to do all 

 the work, it is very likely that one 

 will succeed. The bees are " the men 

 up stairs to do all the work," but they 

 must have the "brick and mortar" 

 brought to them, or, in other words, 

 everything provided that is necessary 

 — in the way of modern implements. 

 The apiarist must possess skill and 

 energy enough to adopt and apply 

 modern methods. Bee-keeping is no 

 sinecure. 



The location of an apiary is of the 

 very highest importance. Where no 

 honey-plants abound, or where the 

 field is already overstocked, of course 

 there must be disappointment or fail- 

 ure. But simply because a person 

 happens to live in a locality luxuriant 

 in flowers and abounding in fragrance, 

 is no reason why he should assume to 

 act as custodian of the wealth of the 

 honey-bee. The tramp who sleeps 

 night after night by some hay -stack, 

 with the starry heavens above him, 

 and the grand spectacle of the vaulted 

 canopy continually before his eyes, is 

 not, therefore, necessarily qualifled 

 to write a dissertation on astronomy. 

 Unless the bee-keeper possesses the 

 other qualiflcations needed, all the 

 aroma from the garden of the gods 

 will not make bee-keeping pay. 



A little knowledge of the natural 

 history of the bee is positively neces- 

 sary. In these days it will not do to 

 look upon the mother of the colony as 

 the " king bee," and as simply an 

 ornament, clothed with regal au- 

 thority, directing the movements of 

 his subjects. Modern investigation 

 and knowledge should have relegated 

 to the shadowy past, all such super- 

 stitious notions of the box-hive age. 

 It is desirable, if we wish to compete 

 with the honey-producers of to-day, 

 to understand at least a little of the 

 science. Wlien the 6.50 horse-power 

 Corliss engine that was to run the 

 acres of machinery at the World's 

 Fair was started, it needed only the 

 hand of a child to pull the lever ; and, 

 although the child knew nothing of 

 the power of mechanism of the pon- 

 derous giant, it moved off with the 

 same quiet precision as if the master 

 mechanic had held the throttle-valve. 

 But in directing the movements of 

 the little apiary, it needs the hand of 



