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THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



November 



the workers choose, for they stand guard 

 and do not allow her to come near the 

 queen-cells, which causes her to sulk 

 and wish for a new home. A week or so 

 before a young queeu is to be hatched 

 out, the swarming note is given, when 

 the old queen with the greater part of 

 the colony, after they have filled them- 

 selves with honey, fly forth to seek a 

 new home, leaving the old hive to the 

 new queen, who will soon emerge from 

 her cell and go about her business of re- 

 populating the hive. It is sometimes 

 desirable to prevent swarming and keep 

 the whole force of bees together storing 

 honey, in which case the queen-cells can 

 be cut out every week or so. As the 

 cells are very often built on the lower 

 ledge of the comb, they can be seen by 

 looking at the under side of the hive. If 

 the bees cover them too thickly they can 

 be dispersed with a little smoke. 

 Englewoud, N. J. 



There is not a moment without some 

 duty. — Cicero. 



BEE-KEEPING ON NEWSPAPER 

 BUILDING. 



BY M. V. KEEVE. 



THERE has been a colony of bees on 

 a ledge outside of a fourth story 

 window of the Public Ledger 

 building, Philadelphia, for six seasons 

 past. It is the property of Mrs. E. S. 

 Starr, who edits "Farm and Garden,'" 

 "Bee-keeping," "Dairying," "Horticul- 

 ture" and columns on kindred topics 

 for the Ledger. The bees are in a dove- 

 tailed hive and are apparently as much 

 at home as if they were on the street 

 level; in fact, more so. Their field is in 

 the adjacent public squares. Indepen- 

 dence and Washington, with probable 

 side trips to the nearby candy factories. 

 The original colony did not survive 

 the first winter and new tenants 

 were put into the hive, and each 

 year since a surplus has been re- 

 ceived. Mrs. Starr says that at first 

 her surplus had a variety of flavors. 



such as lemon, peppermint, sassafras etc.; 

 bnt that since the candy men have put I 

 wire screens on their windows and shut t 

 out the winged depredators, the returns' 

 from maple, sycamore, tulip poplar and ' 

 basswood trees of the public squares, I 

 the Pennsylvania Hospital grounds and j 

 the churchyards, have been more satis- 

 factory. One year there was a bright j 

 red streak with raspberry flavor, sug- I 

 gesting that the busy marauders had i 

 found somedody's jelly put out to cool 

 and had cleaned it up. This year the 

 hive body store combs are expected to 

 yield twenty-five pounds to the extrac- 

 tor. What will be taken from the 

 supers will be fed back for winter and 

 the comb melted for its wax. 



The experiment is regarded as demon- 

 strating that a family with a house on a 

 city street and no dooryard, can keep 

 bees on a roof, and without any expense 

 save a little attention, have a harvest of 

 honey sufficient for the family and pos- 

 sibly some over for friendly neighbors. 

 There are, in fact, several Philadelphia 

 bee-keepers wlio have house-top apiaries. 



Mrs. Starr prevents swarming by re- 

 moving a few frames with adhering 

 bees to an apiary on her farm, near Sea 

 Isle City, N. Y., where she has ten 

 colonies, all Italians, whenever "the 

 house gets crowded." She replaces the 

 absent frames with others filled with 

 foundation. 



Rutledge, Pa. 



Dispatch is the soul of business. 



— Chesterfield. 



"THE LIFE OF THE BEE." 



RECENT additions to the bee-keep- 

 ers" library have been few, but 

 the advent of Maeterlinck's new 

 volume, "The Life of the Bee,'" fully 

 compensates the patient waiting. It is 

 not a technical treatise, though the 

 author displays a remarkable familiarity 

 with the bee and its characteristics. 

 While it is a work of especial interest to 



