224 



THE AMERICAN A PIC UL TUB 1ST. 



preparatory to removing them to 

 the cellar. The colony now inhab- 

 its the solitar}' recesses of Tamarac 

 swamp, but their queen never left 

 the trap alive. What did they do 

 fdr a queen ? Ah ! thereby hangs a 

 tale. 



Last year at the close of the 

 hone}'^ flow, there were forty-one 

 colonies in the apiary, which were 

 doubled up toSlJ-, with the result 

 that those united were so full of 

 bees in the spring, that, — well, as 

 mentioned above, the Tamarac 

 swamp solved the problem for, at 

 least, some of them. This season 

 I have tried to run the old colonies 

 as nuclei, by the side of the prime 

 svv^arms, on the double stands. 

 Curiously heavy nuclei they are, 

 though their field bees weva repeat- 

 edly drawn ofl', into the primes, by 

 moving them from one side to the 

 other of the latter, a la Heddo7i, or 

 to the back of them, — anywhere, 

 so their field bees should not find 

 them. Think you, that the primes 

 also, were thus made heavy or light, 

 ■with their half dozen or less stories 

 of extracting frames? These very 

 heavy colonies worked right along, 

 cold or hot, when it rained, even, 

 so long as they were allowed to oc- 

 cupy their meeting houses. But 

 what resulted if an attempt was 

 made to contract their brood-cham- 

 bers, and give section cases? And 

 how about the one thousand lovely 

 three-fourth pound sections received 

 from Dr. Tinker? Such devices, 

 without number, were emi)loyed to 

 induce them to fill those sections. 

 No matter how many cases were 

 given, they would either refuse to 

 stay in the hives at all (and this 

 was most usually the case) or 

 otherwise, store about fifty pounds 

 in the sections, and then prepare 

 to swarm. This would never do. 

 Even if I could have put up with it 

 myself, and let them doze along, 

 Mephisto's eyes were everywhere. 

 Each noon he went over the apiary, 



singling out the delinquents the 

 moment they showed signs of slack- 

 ening speed ; and I had to employ 

 some device to, at least, keep them 

 inside the hives ; though it is my 

 private opinion, that, when within, 

 they often loafed all the same. 

 Sometimes the comb honey of a col- 

 ony, grown lazy, was exchanged 

 for the extracting-frames of one 

 just made up, taking bees along. 

 Sometimes 1 made up a colony 

 with young queen in the hive from 

 which the prime swarm had issued, 

 and put in place of the prime when 

 that grew slowly ; giving the newly 

 prepared colony, all the surplus 

 and returning bees, and taking 

 away the sleepy lower story to be 

 looked over, and stirred up from 

 its lethargy. Giving drone brood, 

 which had been uncapped, alwaj's 

 seemed to rouse the very laziest 

 colonies. 



Sometimes, when wishing to draw 

 bees from the old colony, to pre- 

 vent after-swarming, and unable to 

 move the heavy hive, a stor^^ of ex- 

 tracting fi'ames was placed above 

 it, and when well covered with bees, 

 removed to the prime. 



Well, after all this work and 

 worry and study, it is certainly 

 rather disheartening, to be haunted 

 by a private suspicion that every 

 movement made was probably 

 about the worst that could have 

 been made. Raising comb honey 

 is, 1 fear, too difficult a problem for 

 me to solve ; thougii I did succeed 

 in getting about 700 of my 1,000 

 sections very tolerably filled, and 

 capped, — some of them most beau- 

 tifully. This latter clause points 

 to my difficulty. I want all the comb 

 honey to be most beautiful. And 

 again, I feel sure that with one 

 quarter the work, double the amount 

 of honey might have been obtained 

 from those colonies, if worked for 

 extracted honey. 



Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. 



