40 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



BY L. G. ROOT. 



(S'OME of the older readers of the 

 ^ Review will certainly remember 

 Mr. L. C. Root, a son-in-law of the 

 late Moses Quinby. Mr. Root was for 

 many years a specialist, and has been 

 President of the National Association. 

 He also revised Mr. Quinby's book 

 •'The Mysteries of Bee-Keeping. " In 

 order that his daughters might have 

 better educational advantages, he gave 

 up bee-keeping, and went to live in the 

 city. Since then the bee-keeping world 

 has heard from him only too little. 

 When he wrote me a letter and told me 

 how he was succeeding, in a small 

 way, with bees in the loft of his barn, 

 I asked and obtained permission to 

 publish his letter, which is decidedly 

 interesting. It reads as follows: — Ed. 

 Review. 



Mr. Dear Mr. Hutchinson — Yes, it is 

 good to keep in touch with the bee- 

 keeping friends. While I am able to 

 keep bees only in a very small way, I 

 am much interested, and I cling to old 

 associations with deep feeling. When 

 I came to the city to live with my 

 daughters, I sold all of my bees, but, 

 three years ago, I took a swarm from 

 an attic in town, and for the want of 

 a better place, I put it in the loft of 

 our barn. Two years ago I increased 

 to two, and took 100 pounds of comb 

 honey. I soon began to see there were 

 many advantages in the indoor man- 

 agement of bees. The two colonies 

 wintei-ed so well that, a year ago this 

 spring, they both swarmed in April, 

 and I increased the two to eight, last 

 season, and took 50 pounds of comb 

 honey. Last fall I had four more 

 swarms given me. They had only 

 partly enough honey for winter. One 

 of them had none. In spite of the 



severe winter they took feed from the 

 feeder, and three of them wintered ex- 

 tremely well. One being queenless, 

 it had to be built up this spring. I am 

 now sellimg nine stocks, as I cannot 

 handle the number I now have, for 

 want of room. 



ARRANGEMENT OF HIVES. 



The colonies are arranged on the 

 south and east side of the barn. I 

 prefer to have the front of the hive a 

 little back from the side of the barn, 

 with a passage to the outside, as the 

 bees are less afifected by cold air that 

 comes in through the entrance. The 

 temperature would vary all the way 

 from below freezing to ordinary win- 

 ter weather. Our horses were kept in 

 the stable below, and, for washing 

 wagons and caring for the horses, a 

 coal fire was kept in the barn; amount 

 of fire varying with the weather. 



HOUSE-APIARY MAY BE WARMED IN 

 WINTER AND COOLED IN SUMMER. 



Some of the advantages of this indoor 

 manipulation of bees are that they 

 can be handled with much less liability 

 of robbing, and feeding can be resorted 

 to at any time without exposure. By 

 using a frame covered with wire cloth, 

 for a honey board, and having proper 

 ventilation in the bottom board, I could 

 have full sheets of foundation drawn 

 out without their sagging, and that 

 too, without using wires in the frames. 

 The wires are, to me, an objection. 

 In hot days when bees are inclined to 

 cluster idly on the hives, I found that, 

 with this ventilation, they would con- 

 tinue to work. 



In the hottest weather I often cooled 

 the room by spraying with cold water. 

 In short, the advantage is that such a 



