bees ? If he desires to keep bees only to 

 furnish his own table with honey, better 

 purchase a small quantity of No. 1 hives, 

 and keep them well painted. We know of 

 a farmer who owns 20 hives ; he says that 

 he "does not want to go into the bee busi- 

 ness," so he selects 10 of the choicest colo- 

 nies to winter, brimstones the rest, and 

 shuts up the hives until another season. 

 The following season he lets them swarm 

 once, and puts them into the hives filled 

 with comb and honey, and puts on surplus 

 boxes. The second swarms are returned 

 after the queen cells are destroyed. In this 

 way he gets a large supply of honey with- 

 out any extra outlay, except for surplus 

 boxes. 



We fail to see any benefit resulting from 

 a window in the side of a hive — patent hive 

 venders might. The bees would soon cover 

 the glass with propolis, and if they did not 

 only the side of one frame could he seen re- 

 vealing very little of the condition of the 

 colony. 



A friend writes : " I was over my field 

 of red clover the other day, and saw thou- 

 sands of Italians hovering over the heads 

 of clover, I will give it as my opinion that 

 some of the bees I saw probing the honey 

 cups in the red clover, were gathering the 

 sweet nectar." The unparalleled drouth 

 has caused the heads of red clover to be 

 smaller than usual, and bees can reach the 

 nectar, as it is claimed by some apiarists 

 that Italians often gather honey from the 

 second crop, for the same reason. We 

 should try to raise bees, as the Irishman 

 says, " with a longer fut," so they can al- 

 ways reach this mine of wealth stored in 

 the deep corollas of the red clover. 



Peoria, 111., June, 1879. 



From the Prairie Farmer. 



Bee Moths and Italian Bees. 



MRS. E. J. BAXTER. 



"Are you never troubled by bee moths ? " 

 asked a successful old farmer who seemed 

 to be very much disappointed at not finding 

 moth traps about our hives. " No," I an- 

 swered, " the best way to make a hive moth 

 proof is to keep it full of Italian bees." 



He believed, as many do, that moths had 

 destroyed his bees, and what he wanted was 

 something to keep them off. The fact is that 

 bee moths take possession of the honey 

 combs only when the bees can no more de- 

 fend them. Bee moths can no more destroy 

 a colony of bees than the insect which ruins 

 costly furs can kill the animal that fur- 

 nished it, or the moth worm which feeds 

 upon woolen fabrics can become injurious 

 to sheep. 



An inexperienced bee-keeper may think 

 that his bees are doing well even when they 

 are losing strength from such causes as 

 as starvation, loss of the queen, or drone- 

 laying queen, etc. The person well ac- 

 quainted with the ways of bees can see at a 

 glance whether they need anything or not 

 and supply their wants in a few minutes, 

 thus rescuing them from moths. 



Many colonies died last winter on account 

 of the deep snow, which closed the entrance 



of the hive and prevented ventilation. Un- 

 initiated bee owners may see bees going in 

 and out of those very hives as the spring 

 sun begins to shine, and not being acquain- 

 ted with the ways of robber bees, may infer 

 that the bees have wintered safely. If 

 after some time they find ugly worms crawl- 

 ing all over the combs, their conclusion will 

 be moths must be very destructive to bees. 

 I have often heard practical bee-keepers 

 say that they never take the trouble of kill- 

 ing moths, as they considered them perfectly 

 harmless. I would he disposed to make the 

 seemingly absurd statement that bee moths 

 do bees more good than harm, for they pun- 

 ish the bee-keeper whenever he neglects 

 some of his duties toward his bees, when 

 they destroy the combs. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



California Honey Evaporators, Etc. 



S. C. GRIDLEY. 



The American Bee Journal for 

 June arrived last evening ; am always 

 glad to receive it. I have noticed from 

 time to time items in the Journal in 

 regard to the way we do in California 

 to evaporate the water out of honey. I 

 will give you my plan of doing it, 

 which I think is better than deep tanks: 



The honey from the extractor runs 

 through a galvanized iron pipe, \}i in. 

 drain, a distance of 50 ft., emptying 

 into a pan 3x6 ft., 4 in. deep, made in 

 this manner : 



n 



b 



This pan is put into a wooden case 

 and covered with a glass sash ; set it at 

 an angle of about 45°. The honey runs 

 around these partitions, back and forth 

 a distance of 100 ft., before it reaches 

 the outlet at the further end ; from 

 there it passes through 10 ft. of pipe 

 into the tank, containing one ton. By 

 the time it reaches the tank the water 

 is pretty well evaporated. 



Three days ago a terrible lire sprung 

 up in the woods, and my apiary being 

 in the track was burned through. My 

 shop with all mv tools, 13 doz. 80-lb. tin 

 cans, 200 new hives just painted, with 

 their frames, etc., my bee books— Lang- 

 stroth, Quinby, Wilkin, Harbison— and 

 Journals, besides some circulars of 

 apiarian supplies that I had not yet had 

 time to read ; in fact, burned every- 

 thing but my smoker, which was in the 

 extracting house. Fortunately, it only 

 burned 4 colonies of bees, the rest es- 

 caping. On examination after the fire 



