82 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



April 



You may say you want to get all 

 you can out of your bees and must 

 use small hives in order to do so ; then 

 if you lose them you have got some- 

 thing out of them. Well that is a 

 good way to do if you are going to 

 quit the bee business, or if you are a 

 believer in luck, but it is not a very 

 sensible thing to do no matter who 

 does it, for can't you see that you 

 worse than sold your bees when you 

 done it? 1 know bee-keepers, I mean 

 bee- killers, who have been twenty 

 years trying to make money by keep- 

 ing bees , but so far have only suc- 

 ceeded in making simpletons of them- 

 selves. They don't know any more 

 now than when they commenced, but 

 they thought they did and talked a 

 good deal about it. I ain't quite sure, 

 but still I think I am right when 1 

 say these same ex-bee-killers have 

 turned patent right men. If they 

 must kill their own bees, why do they 

 sell implements, which will destroy 

 bees, to innocent people? 1 would 

 not talk so, but when you consider 

 the vast pressure that is under the 

 safety valve you won't wonder that a 

 little blows off now and then. No man 

 takes kindly to the loss of hundreds 

 of dollars, and such losses are apt to 

 make him remember the source 

 whence they came. 



Yes , I remember my early experi- 

 ence in bee-keepine; I remember 

 when young and ignorant of the first 

 rudiments of bee-keeping 1 would go 

 to some man who knew how and ask 

 him a few questions, and he would 

 act as if his teeth would drop out if 

 he opened his mouth. One even told 

 me that he got as high as two dollars 



for answering a few questions. 1 

 concluded that he must live on corn 

 in the ear, and I left him without 

 buying any bristles. All these things 

 have taught me to deal very kindly to 

 those who don't know how to keep 

 bees, or who stand in need of help. I 

 do it because a Christian should, for 

 "no man liveth to himself," never- 

 theless some animals do. 



There is no great secret about keep- 

 ing bees successfully any more than 

 there is about raising farm crops or 

 live stock of any kind, except that a 

 little neglect is more apt to prove fatal 

 to bees on account of their being the 

 smallest animal raised. If you put 

 the same proportion of hogs or other 

 stock in as small a space accordingly 

 as bees, and have poor ventilation, 

 and separate them by partitions so 

 they can't huddle together, in the 

 manner as the modern frames separ- 

 ate the bees, and especially if instead 

 of natural food you supply a scanty 

 allowance of some food wholly unnat- 

 ural to them, 1 say what do you 

 think would be the result in the 

 spring? 



You see if you only understood a 

 few plain facts in regard to the prep- 

 aration and care of your bees, there 

 need be no more chance of your los- 

 ing them than there is of your losing 

 any other farm stock. I will try to 

 tell 3'ou next time just how to man- 

 age box hives so as to be sure of your 

 bees. I will give directions for all 

 four seasons. 



I don't italicize my words, for I am 

 heavy enough to hold my end of the 

 plank down without it. There are 

 many who are almost discouraged, 

 and don't know what to do. They 

 are the ones that long to be told, 

 while there are others who are a long 

 way off from being told, simply be- 

 cause they desire to be burned yet a 

 little more. 



Ovid, Penna. 



