VOL. IV. 



JANUARY, 1894. 



NO. I. 



Successful Bee-Keeping. 



BY G. M. DOOL.ITTLE. 



Not long ago I was asked how I 

 would work for comb honey, so as to 

 be sure of securing a good crop, if the 

 season proved favorable, so I thought 

 a few words on the subject of success- 

 ful bee-keepiug would not be amiss 

 to the readers of The American Bee- 

 Keeper. To be successful the ap- 

 iarist should have a simple movable 

 frame hive of some kind, and for 

 comb honey the brood chamber should 

 not contain more than from 1,500 to 

 1,800 cubic inches inside the frames. 

 All know that bees gather honey in- 

 stead of producing it, and that the 

 eggs laid by the queen produce bees. 

 consequently the more eggs the queen 

 lays the more bees there are, and the 

 more bees we have the more honey 

 they gather. In fact the queen is the 

 producer of honey. Therefore if we 

 wish good returns from our bees we 

 must see to it that we have good pro 

 lific queens, and that they fill the 

 eomba with brood before the honey 

 season commences, so that when the 

 honey harvest comes the bees will be 

 obliged to place the honey in the sec- 

 tions, as there will be no where else 

 for them to store it. Having the 



Combs thus filled with brood the next 

 thing is to put on the sections. Each 

 section should have a small piece of 

 comb attached to the top of it for a 

 "starter," or be filled partly or fully 

 with comb foundation of the thinnest 

 make to start the bees to work more 

 readily in them; while the center tier 

 of sections, should, if possible, be full 

 of comb left over from the season pre- 

 vious. As soon as the first few sec- 

 tions are filled, they should be taken 

 off, before colored by the bees passing 

 over them, and sections with starters 

 put in their place?, thereby causing 

 the bees to work with renewed vigor 

 to fill up the empty >pace left where 

 the full oues were taken out, and thus 

 keep taking out full ones and putting 

 empty ones in their places, as long as 

 the honey season lasts. But there is 

 another thing which plays an impor- 

 tant part in this matter, and that is a 

 knowledge of the location we are in. 

 In nearly all localities where bees can 

 be kept, there are certain plants or 

 trees which give a yield of surplus 

 honey at a certain time of year, while 

 aside from this there is little more 

 honey obtained by the bees than is 

 needed to supply their daily wants, 

 lie nee it is apparent to all that if 



