136 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



June. 



GETTINQ A START. 



How a Young Man Without Capital May Sur- 

 roumtf Himself With an Apiary. 



(E. F. Atwater.) 



YOUNG MAN, (the one with a 

 small apiary in the back yard), 

 you want increase, but bees and 

 hives cost money. Perhaps a few sug- 

 gestions from my experience may help 

 you. 



Formerly I lived in South Dakota 

 where black and hybrid bees were kept 

 by the farmer-bee-keepers. I bought 

 (worked a week for one fine breeder) 

 queens of Italian stoclc and Italianized 

 my bees. On any and all occasions I 

 called in the farmers who were inter- 

 ested and showed them my bees. The 

 breeding queen mentioned above was 

 a wonder, her bees fine workers and 

 remarkably gentle. When showing 

 this colony I never used smoke or veil 

 and so quiet were they that, if the 

 hives were carefully opened and frames 

 removed without much snap or jar, 

 the queen would continue laying right 

 before our eyes. Mr. Farmer was al- 

 most invariably anxious to have his 

 bees I'talianized and this was the plan: 

 When his colonies became fairly strong 

 I would go to each and take out a 

 frame of brood and a frame of honey, 

 well covered with bees, but not taking 

 the queen. These frames were put in 

 nucleus hives and taken home, and a 

 ripe queen-cell given to each. When 

 the first queen began to lay and had 

 filled her combs she was removed and 

 another ripe cell given to the nuc- 

 leus. 



These early queens were then in- 

 troduced among Mr. Farmer's bees, 

 in payment for the frames of brood, 

 honey, and bees. When the second 

 queen in each .nucleus began to lay the 

 nuclei were carefully built up to full 

 colonies, and, if the honey-flow con- 

 tinued, sometimes yielded a small sur- 

 plus, or were again divided. 



I always tdok every opportunity to 

 show the farmer or would-be bee-keep- 

 er the tiered-UQ supers of honey on 

 my hives- Then if he expressed any 

 dissatisfaction in regard to his own 

 honey-crop, I then and there ofifered 

 to handle his bees on, shares, for half 

 the product of honey, wax, and in- 



crease. Of course, if you can get bees 

 on better terms, do so. 



Don't despise the "puttering" with 

 very small apiaries, unless you can use 

 your time to better advantage else- 

 where, as every pound of honey so se- 

 cured helps to buy supplies- By these 

 and similar methods, working perhaps 

 a day a week and that mostly morn- 

 ings and evenings while attending 

 school, one can secure quite an apiary 

 at small cost. 



For the above plans, and many an- 

 other, I am indebted to Mr. Thos- 

 Chantey, of Meckling, S. D., who, like 

 Doolittle, seems always willing to give 

 freely the results of his many years' 

 of work and study with the bees. 



Boise, Idaho, Feb. 10, 1903. 



BEES AND YELLOW ' JESSAMINE. 



Its Poisonous Effect Upon the Bees Sometimes 



Alistaken for Paralyses, Which inlSome 



Respects it Resembles. 



(C. S. Harris.) 



I HAVE the misfortune of having 

 within easy reach of my bees great 

 quantities of yellow jessamine, or 

 jasmine, gelsemium sempervirens being 

 its botanical name, I think. In sev- 

 eral places the vines cover nearly an 

 acre of ground, while almost every one 

 around me cultivates one or more" of 

 the vines because of the beauty of the 

 flowers. 



When I began keeping bees here 

 and discovered, in the spring, great 

 numbers of bees dying and dead in 

 front of the hives, I supposed they 

 were stricken with paralysis, and yet 

 the symptoms did not appear exactly 

 .those of that disease. Most of the 

 bees efifected were the just-hatched, 

 downy ones and they had no trembling 

 motion, but seemed stupefied or intox- 

 icated. The old bees effected had the 

 distended, shiny appearance of bee- 

 paralysis, it is true, but ordinarily they 

 were few, except in queenless colonies 

 or where, for any reason, but little 

 brood was being reared- Very for- 

 tunately the queens are seldom ef- 

 fected. 



After a few seasons I found that this 

 trouble made its appearance with the 

 jessamine bloom, from which the bees 

 stored some honey and considerable 



