168 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



is no g'ood to carry supplies; and out- 

 apiaries are like armies in the field — 

 they need a constant stream of supplies. 

 A ffood horse and a lig"ht delivery 

 wagon, is the most economical and re- 

 liable of anything- I have tried. Last 

 season I tried a "Ford" automobile, 

 and thoroughly enjoyed getting over 

 the roads at the rate of 25 miles per 

 hour, but it had its drawbacks. The 

 first cost of the machines is too great at 

 present, but time may change that. 

 Then it is not built to carry supplies, 

 and sometimes annoys you very much 

 by refusing to go when you are most 

 anxious to get to your destination; 

 rubber tires are also an expensive 

 nuisance. 



AVOID AN OCCUPIED FIELD. 



In selecting locations it is necessary 

 to avoid fields already occupied. I 

 have seen more failures from not ob- 

 serving this rule, than from all others 

 put together. 



The question of help is one of the 

 most serious drawbacks to the out- 

 apiary business. 



AN UNUSUALLY EFFICIENT LADV BEE- 

 KEEPER. 



Last season I spent much of my time 

 at the out-apiaries, with the hired help, 

 while mj' oldest daughter, Flora, ran 

 the Sespe apiary with some help from 

 the younger sisters, and a hired man 

 to cart the honey into the honey house, 

 and take it from the hives. She un- 

 capped and extracted Ifi tons of honey, 

 and ran 100 nuclei for queen rearing. 

 As an encouragement, she was allowed 

 to keep all the money from sales of 

 queens. One out-apiary, representing 

 an investment of $1,500 in land, build- 

 ing, bees and fixtures, made $1,400 

 worth of honey; still I cannot say that 

 I enjoy running out-apiaries. I keep 

 some one at each apiary during the 

 first half of the swarming season; then 

 "shake" the balance to wind it up 

 quickly. We run our apiaries for ex- 



tracted honey, because we are so far 

 from market that comb honey would be 

 smashed in crossing the continent. 



We have a complete outfit at each 

 apiary, even down to honey knives; in 

 fact, each out-apiary is almost an ex- 

 act duplicate of what I had when I 

 married and started house-keeping. 



RUNNING EXTRACTORS BY POWER. 



The honey extractor at Sespe is run 

 bj' a Pelton water motor, but there is 

 no water above the out-apiaries, and I 

 am thinking seriously of trying a 

 motor-cycle engine cooled with a small 

 blower, to run the extractors at the 

 out apiaries; carrying it from one 

 apiary to the other. 



The greatest obstacle is in the proper 

 handling of swarms by hired help, but 

 we are overcoming this by shaking 

 swarms to a great extent. 



ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF 



Constant, personal attention is the 

 price ot success; I have known several 

 cases where two weeks of neglect at a 

 time when bees are starving in the 

 spring, caused the loss of hundreds of 

 colonies. Neglect of swarms will cause, 

 the loss of a hone3' crop. Neglect a 

 case of foul brood and your apiary is 

 ruined. Neglect to extract at the 

 proper time, and the brood-chamber 

 becomes clogged with honey, and the 

 crop shortened. Whenever I have 

 bought the bees of an unsuccessful 

 bee-keeper, I have invariabl3' found 

 poor stock and plenty' of drone comb in 

 the brood-chambers; so I regard good 

 stock and good worker combs as the 

 first requisite to success. A good loca- 

 tion is soon overstocked; then the man 

 with the best bees, and sj'stem of 

 management, and the most persistent 

 care, will survive, while his shiftless 

 neighbors go to the wall. 



Ventura, Calif.. Dec. 15, 1904. 



J 



