248 



THE MBffl®RIC3SM MMW JQXTMPIMlr. 



ever}' one has bis arbitrary opinion 

 upon, jet failures are made in a thou- 

 sand ways — and vvliat is the matter ? 

 Thousands of dollars have been ex- 

 pended by experimenting and working 

 from speculation and theory, which 

 never have been rewarded with anj* 

 successful results, while occasionallj' a 

 happy thought striking parallel with 

 the natural habits of the bee, with a 

 device of nominal cost, has been 

 adopted because of its being a success. 

 To-day, the discussion is centered 

 strongly upon the annoyance of the 

 " brace-combs,"' and how to remedy it 

 by modification of the top-bars of 

 the brood-frames. Many believe alike 

 upon a certain point, j'et some others 

 have tested the same, and met with 

 failure. It seems evident to me, that 

 as long as it is the habit of bees to pro- 

 duce those brace-combs under certain 

 circumstances, thej- can never be suc- 

 cessfully avoided while the opportunity 

 is still offered by the peculiar mech- 

 anism of the hive. It is impossible 

 for anj- device to be favored with the 

 desired results, that does not meet the 

 natui'al requisitions of the bees, for 

 you are not going to culture them 

 against their habits, any more than 

 you will be able to teach the pig to an- 

 swer questions, and play cards upon 

 any other conditions than in con- 

 formity with its gluttony. 



The bee, however, is no doubt one 

 of the most peculiar of all insects, in 

 apparentlj' deviating from its natural 

 course of action ; but this is merelj- 

 apparent, for doubtless it is as true to 

 its nature as any creature that God 

 ever ushered into life. Probably, the 

 occasion for so very many being led 

 astray in relation to the working of 

 this insect, is from the fact that the 

 slightest ditl'erence in the construction 

 of appliances used for its facility in 

 operating, may occasion widely differ- 

 ent results leading in the direction of 

 either success or failure. 



I am doubtful if the brace-comb dif- 

 ficulty will ever be successfully dis- 

 pensed with, unless some digression is 

 made from the line in which discussion 

 is being had. Now, I feel confident 

 that I have solved the enigma, but I 

 desire to further test my theory by 

 actual demonstration. If I have hot 

 made a mistake as to what bees will 

 do, I shall be happy to offer by the 

 middle of the summer a valuable gift 

 to the bee-fraternity. But this is only 

 adjunctive of what may yet be done to 

 improve and facilitate the work. 



A method of wintering bees without 

 loss in this latitude, is yet to be de- 

 vised. Now this is a problem that is 

 yet to be solved, and one which the 

 future must at a late day, usher to the 

 light ; for the wants of man in the past 

 have in the line of progress forever 



been supplied, and when the wise head 

 shall ask properlj' this favor in behalf 

 of humanity, time shall soon bring 

 forth the happy results. But in this, 

 whoever hopes to have the honor of 

 first discover}', must study carefully 

 the habits of the bee. 



HONEY-HOUSE. 



Directions About Building 

 for an Apiary. 



One 



Written for the Farm,Fleld and Stockman 



BY S. E. MILLER. 



A honey-house located in or near 

 the apiai'y will be found very handy 

 for the following purposes : Extract- 

 ing, removing comb honey from the 

 supers, and in fact for doing all the 

 work pertaining to the apiary, as well 

 as for a store-house for honey, the im- 

 plements used in the apiar}% empty 

 hives, and supers not in use. 



The size of the house should depend 

 somewhat upon the size of the apiary, 

 and might vary from a lO.xlU building 

 to one four or five times as large. I 

 think that any one having only a small 

 apiary of eight or ten colonies will find 

 it very convenient to have a suitable 

 house. One of our veteran bee-keep- 

 ers recommends having the house at 

 one side of the apiary, so that the en- 

 tire apiary can be taken in by a view 

 from a single door or window. Al- 

 though I have had no experience in 

 this line (having only lately built a 

 house, and not yet put it into practical 

 use), I shoulil much prefer to have the 

 house in the center of the apiary, thus 

 saving many steps while working- at 

 extracting, etc. 



The object in this age is to accom- 

 plish the most work with the least ex- 

 penditure of strength, and produce our 

 pi-oducts at the smallest cost, so as to 

 be able to cope with our competitors. 

 The producer of honey finds himself 

 no exception to the general rule ; 

 therefore he should consider well his 

 plans and try to find the "shortest 

 cut" to all things pertaining to his in- 

 dustry, and should see that everything 

 is so arranged in the house tliat he 

 may not be compelled to take any un- 

 necessary steps. 



Perhaps I can best explain my ideal 

 honey-house by giving a description of 

 the one just built by us (Miller Bros.). 

 Our apiary contains about 75 colonies, 

 is designed to accommodate 100 ar- 

 ranged hexagonally, the rows being 

 seven feet apart, and the hives seven 

 feet apart in the sows. The center of 

 the house is the center of the apiary. 

 Thus it will be seen that it is about 15 

 steps from the outside, or most dis- 

 tant, hive to the center of the house. 



The house is 24x15 feet outside, one 

 story high, having a rubber roof with 

 a pitch of two inches to the foot. There 

 are two windows and one door on the 

 south, one window on the east, one 

 door and one window on the north, 

 and one door on the west, thus ad- 

 mitting of either seeing or vvalking out 

 on all sides. 



When completed, there will be two 

 rooms, the smaller (west) room to be 

 half the size of the larger, to be used 

 as a store-room for honej-. This has 

 a window in the south side, and a door 

 in the west, and is so arranged that 

 comb honey stored therein can be 

 fumigated with sulphur in case the 

 moth-worms should get in it. 



The larger room will be the extract- 

 ing-room, containing the extractor, 

 uncappiiig-can, a table for general use, 

 scales, empty hives, supers, empty and 

 surplus honey-combs in winter, and 

 all implements belonging to the apiary. 

 The windows will be covered by 

 wire-cloth or screens, so arranged that 

 bees which may chance to get into the 

 house may escape, but those outside 

 cannot get in. This can be done by 

 nailing two cleats about half an inch 

 thick on the window-facing, and fast- 

 ening the screen to this, allowing it to 

 run about four inches above the upper 

 panes, fastening at the sides and bot- 

 tom, but not at the top. Bees that get 

 in will go to the window, crawl to the 

 top of the screen and escape, while 

 those outside are not at all likely to 

 find the entrance. We might also 

 have screen-doors, but do not consider 

 them necessary. 



The best thing 1 can suggest to those 

 not wishing to build a house, is a tent. 

 This can be put up to do the extracting 

 in, and taken dov/n and put in shelter 

 when not in use : l>ut I can say from 

 experience, that this is very trouble- 

 some and inconvenient. 

 Bluffton, Mo. 



MARKETING. 



Good Siig^gcstions About Selling 

 Extracted Honey. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY WM. H. GRAVES. 



For some time I have been strongly 

 prompted to write an article, ventilat- 

 ing some of the erroneous impressions 

 of the present day in regard to our 

 pursuit. A few weeks ago I returned 

 from a trip to some neighboring 

 towns for the purpose of disposing of 

 some extracted honey. My experience 

 during that time will form the basis 

 for this article, as it only confirmed 

 what had been previously decided by 

 me to be a settled fact. 



