THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



237 



and take lOc. per lb. for my extracted crop, 

 ri^lit tlirougli, (not 21 barrels of the ch( ic- 

 est) nett casli at my door. I did not know 

 tlu're was any asylum at Kalamazoo. Prob- 

 ably, because I never bad any friends or 

 relations in it. If your extracted honey 

 only costs you Ic. per lb. and you get 10c. 

 for it, you have a business and a conscience 

 tiiat will make a rich man of you. IIow do 

 you know bow nujcb comb honey I can pro- 

 cluce? If I should race it with you another 

 season, how in tlie name of creation am I to 

 know how much nectar you sling out? It 

 may be you can beat yourself 10 to 1, but 

 before you get too uneasy about a few bar- 

 rels of nectar, try your haiul at the yields of 

 comb honey in "fancy little boxes, realized 

 by Doolittle. Hetherington and others. I 

 can get far more than half as much cond) as 

 of extracted honey, with much less labor, 

 and then get nearly three times the price 

 per pound for it. 



Now, if you don't stop such kind of talk, 

 we will gel up a surprise party and come up 

 and see you, and perhaps locate in your 

 vicinity, iiear the "swamps of Michigan," 

 where "the extracted honey slashes down by 

 bucketsful. Hiram, toot your horn some 

 more. Jamp:s Heddon. 



Dowagiac, Mich., July 31, 1876. 



For the American Bee .Journal. 



Bees Making their Homes in Houses. 



I did not know till recently that this was 

 of frequent ©ccurence in this part of the 

 world. But my well known interest in bees 

 makes people tell me now everything rela- 

 ting to them which they think in any way 

 strange or interesting. 



A stock of bees have been living in the 

 Woodville bank for 7 or 8 years. I do not 

 know anything of the position they occupy, 

 but they must have had sutticient room as 

 they have never been known to swarm till 

 last year. The people who had charge of 

 them took the honey from the swarm so 

 late in the season that they did not have 

 time to replace it, and starved in conse- 

 quence. I think more bees ai'e lost from 

 til is cause than from any other. 



I visited a friend last week in whose 

 house there is a fine colony of bees which 

 have built their combs under the second 

 story floor, between it and the ceiling un- 

 derneath. They enter through a crack un- 

 der the eaves of the house. They have 

 been there 8 or 9 years. Last year the lady 

 came to see me and told me about them, and 

 I advised her to take up the floor and get 

 some ot the honey — insisting though on its 

 being done early in the season so that the 

 bees would have time to gather moi'e. 

 When I was there the other day she told me 

 that she had taken from them .5 gallons, or | 

 more, of nice honey. She did not invade the | 

 brood nest and did not see a cell occupied i 

 with egg brood or pollen, or any empty j 

 comb but all filled with capped honey. 

 She is quite delighted with her little store- 

 room, but intends trying to get a swarm 

 from it next spring by setting a hive above 

 with a hole bored in it and a corresponding 

 one in the floor immediately beneath it. I 

 advised her to insert some of their own un- 

 sealed brood with adliering bees in the pro- 

 posed hive and promised her an Italian 

 queen for the new stock. 



I have a friend near Bayou Sara, La., who ^ 



has a stock of bees between the walls of an 

 out-house in her yard, which have been 

 there three years, and have supplied the 

 family with some iioney eacli year, though 

 they are not so comfortably situated as the 

 bees mentioned above. The outer boards 

 are thin and there are some cracks so large 

 that you can look through them and see the 

 bees and their stores. The combs are par- 

 allel with the boards, so there is only room 

 for two or three, and the poor bees must 

 feel some of our sudden changes of temper- 

 ature very keenly. These bees are in 

 charge of a very intelligent and interesting 

 little boy. I was tlicre a wliilc since and he- 

 was delighted at tlie jirosiK'ct of a bee chat, 

 but commenced thinking the grown folks 

 would not give him a chance for it after all, 

 so after a while I proposed to him that we 

 should just have mama and sisters go to the 

 bees and he could ask as many questions as 

 he pleased. He had another stock which 

 he had managed very well. It was in a box 

 hive, but he shaded and fed it and cleaned 

 out the moths as well as he could. 



I have still another friend — all of these 

 ladies are widows — who is living in a house 

 that must contain many swarms. They are 

 located in the walls and in the spans above 

 some dormer windows. They supply her 

 with more than enough honey for her table. 



A gentleman of my acquaintance has a 

 widowed aunt, in whose house some bees 

 have made themselves a home in a dormer 

 window for many years. The window is 

 kept closed and they have a nice roomy 

 house. She suspends frames and gets them 

 filled. What a pity Novice's house apiary 

 proved a failure! Such a contrivance would 

 put an effectual stop to the stealing of honey 

 from the hives — a desideratum devoutly ta 

 be wished here. 



Many years ago a colony of bees took up 

 their quarters on the outside of a large tree 

 near Vidalia, opposite Natchez. The 

 manager of the place would never allow 

 them to be disturbed, and they remained 

 there for a number of years. In parts of 

 Texas where trees are scarce I am told bees 

 often locate in the grass, on bushes, or on 

 the outside of their hives when full and can 

 find no better places, and they manage to 

 live and often prosper in these unpromising 

 homes. 



In spite of our sweet, bright flowers the 

 year round, I fancy if they could choose, our 

 little pets would take a little of your winter 

 to get away from some of our summer. I 

 think, perhaps, much of their short lives is 

 worn away in trying to keep cool, so I do as 

 much as I can to help mine in this endeavor 

 —shade as much as possible and sprinkle 

 wlien very hot and the water can be had. 

 Last summer I had an opportunity of learn- 

 ing how much heat one little bee can fan 

 away. I had an immature drone on my fin- 

 ger.'which I had just killed, a worker lit 

 on it and commenced fanning, perhaps she 

 hoped to restore it; lier wings moved so 

 rapidly that I could not see them, and if my 

 finger had been dipped in ether it would not 

 have felt colder, ivvice I have chanced to 

 have bees open when a storm suddenly 

 came up. The behavior of the little crea- 

 tures was strange, beyond description. 

 They were buzzing as usual when they 

 noticed it and instantly they became as still 

 as death. Nothing could have displayed ter- 

 ror moi-e plainly than their demeanor. 



Woodville, Miss. AxxA Saunders. 



