AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



115 



go into the business extensively again. I 

 shall place all my hives in a straight 

 row, and build a car track behind them, 

 and I can easily run all my honey into 

 the extracting 'house. This will facili- 

 tate things greatly. The past summer 

 I had ray hives set on stumps, and I tell 

 you it was a job to carry the combs to 

 the house where I extracted. 



Some will ask, why I kept ray bees on 

 stumps. Well, I had no other place to 

 put them. This country is heavily tira- 

 bered with yellow pine, sugar pine, in- 

 cense cedar, cypress, spruce, fir, ma- 

 drona, oaks, etc.; and it is extremely 

 hard to clean, but after the land is once 

 cleaned, it is very valuable. 



Land that was one year ago covered 

 with pine stumps, is now covered with 

 strawberry plants, fruit trees, and orna- 

 mental plants, and they look splendidly, 

 too. It took an immense amount of 

 work, but it pays well. 



The bee-hive that I use, and the one 

 that I expect to use for a long time, 

 takes frames about 7x14 inches; the 

 hive is about 14 inches wide ; two 

 stories comprise a hive, which is about 

 16 inches high. I tier up several stories 

 high in the honey season. I find that I 

 can handle bees very rapidly ; can 

 shake the bees from the combs without 

 even breaking the comb loose from the 

 frame ; with the Langstroth hive, or 

 frame, rather, the combs will give way 

 occasionally in hot weather, if not 

 wired. 



I think that I shall always run for ex- 

 tracted honey at this apiary. In Placer- 

 ville, Calif., where I used to rear bees 

 for sale, I had a decided preference for 

 Carniolan bees. I think that I shall 

 rear them largely. The so-called Golden 

 Italian bees — if I can prove to my satis- 

 faction that they will equal the Carnio- 

 lans, I will insert a number of queens. 



When I was extensively engaged in 

 rearing queen-bees, the call was for the 

 leather-colored Italians — and very few 

 of the light-colored queens were called 

 for; now it seems t>o be the reverse, all 

 queen-breeders are advertising the Gold- 

 en Italian bees and queens. 



The Holy Land and Cyprian bees seem 

 to have gone out of fashion ; so also the 

 Albino. I see that the Carniolan race is 

 not much advertised in the bee-papers 

 any more. Well, I shall pin my faith 

 to them for awhile yet, until I find some- 

 thing better. 



A cross between the Carniolan and 

 Italian race of honey-bees, makes won- 

 derfully energetic bees; they protect 

 their hives well, and are marvelous 

 honey-gatherers. 



There has been a greater interest 

 manifested in bees this season than for 

 a long time, and I contemplate, from 

 now on, that a great many will engage 

 in this industry in the Sierra Nevada 

 mountains. 



I am pleased to see that the Amekican 

 Bee Journal is improving so steadily. 

 Later on I shall give you some bee-notes 

 for its columns. 



Grizzly Flats, Calif. 



Daiiier in ClimMiis for Sw arms, Etc. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY LEWIS K. SMITH. 



As a caution to my brother bee-keep- 

 ers, I will say : Don't climb unless you 

 are sure of your footing. On the 26th 

 of last May, I was called on to hive a 

 swarm of bees that had settled high up 

 in an apple tree. Having been a great 

 climber from childhood's days, I bounded 

 up to the top of the tree, and sawed off 

 the limb containing the swarm while I 

 stood on a limb below. The additional 

 weight of the bees and limb split off the 

 one on which I stood, and down came 

 Smith, bees and all — a distance of 22 

 feet. That it did not kill me I am hum- 

 bly thankful to Him who holds us in the 

 hollow of his hand. For nearly two 

 days I was partly paralyzed, and was 

 finally relieved by the application of an 

 electric battery, and other means ap- 

 plied by two eminent physicians who 

 were unremitting in their attentions day 

 and night. 



Do we sufficiently appreciate th6 ar- 

 duous labors of those men of science, 

 working day and night with both mind 

 and body, taxing every energy, and en- 

 listing every sympathy of their being ? 

 Is it wonderful that they wear out, 

 break down, and die suddenly? When- 

 ever I think of those terrible hours of 

 suffering, when my digestive system was 

 completely paralyzed, and my life was 

 wavering in the balance, my heart goes 

 out in thanksgiving to a merciful Provi- 

 dence, and I treasure the faithful minis- 

 trations of my physicians and friends. 



DRUMMING BEES FROM A HIVE WITH 

 CROSSWISE COMBS. 



Let me add one suggestion to the in- 

 structions to F. M. L., on page 716 of 

 the Bee Journal for Dec. 7, 1893, 

 relative to drumming bees out of a hive 

 with cross combs, into a box above. If 

 he will go to some hive having nice, 

 straight comb, and get a frame or two 



