1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



147 



true and pointed friend, the old box 

 hive. I here you say, fudg ; fogy ; 

 fool ! but don't judge too quickly, nor 

 don't call rae cranky, for surely my 

 experience proves that I am not. Now 

 suppose you had an acre, or say even 

 200 tall hives of bees, 28 inches high, 

 just for breeders. They would live 

 sure, with all that white honey in 

 them, that is the 'point they would live, 

 and ©ut doors too. You would bore 

 two holes, about inch holes, in or on 

 top the hives and put a loose box over 

 them. This xnust be done sure, leave 

 the entrance open as in summer. 

 Mine dont rob, they are all so power- 

 ful. I say if you had them you would 

 not need to look at them during the 

 whole year, only to catch their swarms 

 and put them in small hives, say 7 or 

 8 inches high, and worked for comb 

 honey for all there was in them until 

 fall, and then take them up, or have 

 an auction and sell them, or do what 

 you please with them, I say you would 

 not call rae cranky when you saw 

 your thousands of pounds of, — oh 

 such white honey, for you put the 

 swarms from your breeders into empty 

 hives to work them each year, and 

 how can your honey be travel stained ? 

 It can't, it is beauty itself. Managed 

 in this way the thing goes right on 

 each year, same as your dairy, and 

 with not much more loss of colonies 

 than cows. Now please don't com- 

 mence to worry, for when we all get 

 at it in this way, there will be 100 

 colonies where only one is now. 

 Every farmer will have as big a patch 

 of bees as he now has " taters " and, 

 — well you commence right now get- 

 ting out timbers for a forty acre plant 

 to furnish small hives and sections. 

 No joking, I am in earnest. I wrote 



about "tall hives that live" for 

 breeders, some time ago in the A. B. K. 

 and although large bodies move slow- 

 ly, Dr. Miller wrote encouraging 

 words, saying among the rest, that he 

 seldom read an article twice, but mine 

 was an exception, and after his second 

 perusal of its contents, he said he was 

 convinced there was a great deal in 

 my plan, and with my consent he 

 would send the article over my name 

 to some paper, the name of which I 

 have forgotten. Now I am candid in 

 my views and experience in reference 

 to these tall hives, for they will live 

 where frame hives will not. And I 

 earnestly wish that the readers of the 

 A. B. K. would give us their thoughts 

 on the subject through this journal. 

 Ovid, Pa, 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



BY MRS. L. HARRISON. 



In my early days in bee-keeping, I 

 did much hard work in spring, scrub- 

 bing and cleaning hives, and chang- 

 ing bees from soiled hives into clean 

 ones, and I imagined that they 

 thanked me for my kindness. I've 

 no doubt that I killed many a weak 

 colony, by lowering the temperature 

 of the brood-nest. Now I let the 

 bees do their own house-cleaning. 



SPREADING BROOD. 



One spring after a very disastrous 

 winter, which nearly destroyed our 

 apiary, it was my thought by day 

 and by night, how I could make the 

 most of the remnants of the colonies 

 left. I endeavored to follow in the 

 foot-steps of a successful bee-master, 

 and got left. With his experienced 

 eye, he would have known when it 

 would have been safe to separate the 



