THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



251 



■" stranger, you might go about these 

 diggings for a year and never see tlie 

 need of a shooting-iron, but, stranger, 

 if you ever did need one, you would 

 need it awful bad." Tlie same is 

 true of reversible frames ; you may 

 not need them fur a wliole season, 

 but when you do need them they are 

 very convenient. 

 North Manchester, 5 Ind. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Apiculture as a Business, etc. 



E. J. SMITH. 



I do not agree with those who ad- 

 vise making bee-keeping a specialty. 

 If a specialist beekeeper allows his 

 bees to swarm, he will soon have a 

 large number of colonies which he 

 must locate in different parts of the 

 country, and in doing so he must 

 crowd out any with a few colonies ; 

 so there is no use for those with no 

 experience, such as farmers, etc., to 

 try to make a little money out of bees 

 to help them along. Out of 2-5 bee- 

 keepers here who keep 10 or more col- 

 onies, only 4 make it a specialty. 

 Bee-keeping has been a great help to 

 farmers. One who rented a farm for 

 $200 a year, was able to pay the rent 

 from the receipts of his apiary, and 

 thus was able to save something each 

 year with but little extra help. I 

 have but 65 acres of cleared land, and 

 I could save but little in good seasons, 

 but now I hire a man to do the work 

 on the farm, and I attend to the bees, 

 and by so doing I have made a success 

 of it. 



We must endeavor to produce our 

 honey at the lowest possible cost, so 

 as to compete w-ith the California 

 honey which overstocked our best 

 markets in the East last year ; or we 

 will have to sell our honey so low 

 that it will not pay the cost of pro- 

 duction. 



I would say to any who are just 

 starting in the business, or who in- 

 tend to do so, if you have patience, 

 pluck and perseverance, and like the 

 business better than any other ; if 

 you like to work hard both early and 

 late ; and if you have a good locality, 

 you will succeed. All the talk about 

 bee-keeping being such an easy busi- 

 ness for sick folks and women, is all 

 wrong, and is liable to mislead many. 



Although reversible frames may 

 prove a success for some sections of 

 the West, I do not believe that they 

 will ever be of practical use in the 

 East, for the following reasons : 



1. As we have no fall crop of honey 

 here, except in a very few localities, 

 we should have to feed to bees all 

 their winter stores, were we to get all 

 the frames so full of brood that the 

 bees would be compelled to put all 

 their best honey in the sections ; and 

 were we to have a drouth at the close 

 of basswood bloom, as we had the 

 past season, we should have to feed 

 them in August when it is so hot that 

 the bees will rob if they have- the 

 least chance to do so. 



2. In looking for queens, and in 

 other manipulations necessary for the 

 handling of all the frames, there 



would be great danger of killing the 

 queen aiul a large number of workers, 

 l)y cutting them in two when revers- 

 ing the frames. It would be far bet- 

 ter to have (jueens prolihc enough to 

 keep the frames full of brood and not 

 have to be to the trouble of reversing 

 them, for I do not believe that pollen 

 is the only cause of bee-diarrhea, as 

 there was a lot of it in nearly all my 

 hives during the past winter, and I 

 am not nearly so much afraid of loss 

 in the winter as in the spring. It 

 would be no advantage to me to have 

 the combs fastened at the bottom, 

 except in extracting, and then I think 

 that it would be a disadvantage to 

 the bees. 

 Addison,K) Vt. 





OUR L^£7^ 



Report, from W. D. Markham, 

 nart,*o Mich., on April 13, 188.5^ 



My 80 colonies fif bet s have been in the 

 cellar .5 iiiontlis to-day, and they appear to 

 be in as good condition as when I put 

 them there. Tliere are no signs of diar- 

 rhea among them. 



No Loss in Wintering.— D. F. Park, 

 Athens, 5 Pa., on April 10, 1885, 

 writes : 



About April 1 we had a warm day which 

 brought the bees out finely. I find that 

 my apiary of (JO colonies is all right, but 

 they are very late in starting hrood-rear- 

 itig. I have made many inquiries of bee- 

 keepers here, and 1 find the losses very 

 small. Two of my neighbors, with BO col- 

 onies each, report a loss of but one in both 

 apiaries. All have been wintered on 

 summer stands, and a part of them with 

 only outside packing, natural stores, and 

 plenty of pollen. 1 think that this loca- 

 tion is very favorable, as it is on a narrow 

 strip of land between two livers, which 

 flow ill parallel lines about .50 rods apart, 

 while a mountain shuts off the west wind, 

 so that it rarely gets 14° below zero. We 

 find tlie rivers a great detriment in sum- 

 mer, as great numbers of bees fall into 

 the water when coming home laden, es- 

 pecially at nightfall, when a chill seems to 

 arise from the water, which affects thera 

 when tij iiig low. 



Triinsferring Bees, etc.— Chas. Har- 

 rold, Hamburg, ? Iowa, on April 6, 



1885, says : 



I have been transferring bees the past 

 winter and this spring, and experimenting 

 some in that line. I have now found a 

 plan that just suits me. I have trans- 

 ferred bees by placing a new hive beneath 

 the box-hive during a honey-flow, and also 

 by removing the top from the box-hive, 

 and placing two top-stories over the part 

 reniaiiiiiig, one story tilled with frames of 

 honey, and the other with thin quilt and 

 ohaff 1 acking. I put them into the cellar, 

 and 1 found the bees up to the quilt about 

 the middle of the winter ; 1 removed the 

 frames, bees and brood to the lower story 

 on Feb. I, but 1 did not like this plan, on 

 account of the troublesome way of pack- 

 ing for winter; .so, by experimenting with 

 resin and beeswax, 1 found that I could 

 make a preparation by using resin and 

 heeswax, half and half, that was just the 

 thing 1 wanted. I now remove the box- 

 hive to a warm and well-prepared room- 



place the empty hive and frames on the 

 old stand, and being prepared with the 

 necessary tools for tearing the box-hive to 

 pieces, and a table or bench, and a long 

 and flaring pan with the ineparation, and 

 knives for cultiiig Iheconibs, I am ready 

 for operation. 1 (•nt the combs out, im- 

 merse their edges, which I wish to stick to 

 the frames, in the jireparation, and laythe 

 frames on the tabh', press the combs up 

 against the top-bars, let them lay in this 

 position till they become cool, and then 

 hang them in the empty hive. The hive 

 that is placed on the stand catches the bees 

 that take wing. .Shake the remaining ones 

 into the hive that contains the brood, and 

 place them on the old stand. This gives 

 me the best results of anything that 1 have 

 ever tried, I no longer dread the job 

 of transferring bees. My bees are doing 

 well now. They are hard at work on 

 the maple and elm, bringing in pol- 

 len and honey. About 75 per cent, of 

 all the bees in this section perished during 

 the past severe winter. I have lost sev- 

 eral queens this spring, but I do not know 

 the cause. I fouiul them dead in front of 

 a neighboring hive. 



Wintering Bees.— A. L. Edwards, 

 (110-110), Skaneateles,© N. Y., on 

 April 9, 1885, writes as follows : 



I have just read the letter of Rev. J. 

 Kearns, detailing the success in wintering 

 bees, and 1 think that he has found the 

 right way. I have wintered my bees in 

 the same manner for ti years, and I have 

 not'lostone colony in my double-walled 

 chaff-hives on the summer stands, save 

 from the loss of queens remaining undis- 

 covered too long, thereby having to double 

 up the queenle.ss colonies with others. So 

 far, this season, I have not lost a "colony 

 from any cause whatever ; and I believe 

 if bee-keepers would adopt the large chaff- 

 hives made to contain 3 colonies, with 5 or 

 6 inches of dry sawdust packing around 

 them, and theii see that all other known 

 conditions are complied with, such as 

 good stores, good queens, plenty of bees, 

 and ventilation over the packing, there 

 would be fewer reports of such wholesale 

 slaughter of the bees in wintering. From 

 my experience, 1 think tliat it is usually 

 the bee-keeper's own fault if the bees 

 perish in winter. 



Good Success for a Boy. — Bertie W. 

 Peck, Richmond Centre, (5 Ohio, on 

 April 8, 1885, writes as follows : 



I began the season of 18S4 with 14 colo- 

 nies, increased them to 'i4, and obtained 

 1,000 pounds of honey, mostly extracted. 

 The past winter has been the worst one 

 on bees that 1 have ever experienced, the 

 loss of bees being greater than during the 

 winter of ISso-Sl. I now have 15 colonies 

 left, and the most of them are in good 

 condition. I began keeping bees when I 

 was 16 years old (I am now 21), and I 

 think that 1 have had good success for 

 a boy ; of course the Bee Jouknal has 

 been a great help to me. 



Still Cold.— G. M. Doolittle, Boro- 

 dino,© N. v., on April 15, 1885, writes 

 thus concerning the present unfavor- 

 able weather : 



So far this year my bees have not had a 

 flight, on .iccoiint of the still continued 

 cold weather. This is the latest that I 

 have ever known bees on the summer 

 stands to be kept without a flight. Those 

 whose bees have had several flights, must 

 see that bees in this locality have some- 

 thing to contend with besides pollen. I 

 have lost 7 colonies out of 40, on summer 

 stands, and nuist lose more it it does not 

 warm up soon. 



