600 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



tors were before they first made the acquaintance of 

 men. A swarm bred and reared in the highest civiliza- 

 tion, will escape and take up its abode in a hollow tree 

 or in a hole under a rock, or in a crevice in the face of 

 a cliff, and there the bees set to work to store honey for 



UP-TO-DATE BEEHIVES 



This shows the latest and most approved home for bees where safety 

 and comfort are provided for the industrious workers. Extremes in hive 

 construction, the large Dadant hive and the small Langstroth hive, 

 show comparative sizes. (Photograph by Frank C. Pellett, Hamilton, 

 Illinois.) 



their own wants, and they appear not to miss the care 

 and attention of men. In a forest, wild bees nearly 

 always find hollow trees for homes and as storage places 

 for honey, but in some regions, they use holes in the 

 ground. Man makes shelters, hives, and other appliances 

 of wood when he provides for his bees. For these pur- 

 poses nothing is better than 

 wood. It has all the good quali- 

 ties and few of the bad. The 

 more highly the bee business is 

 developed, the greater the use 

 of wood and the more carefully 

 the wood is prepared for the 

 various places in the industry 

 which it is expected to serve. 



It was formerly customary in 

 this country to provide hollow 

 logs for hives, which were called 

 gums. The logs were crosscut 

 into lengths of two or three feet, 

 and the receptacles thus pro- 

 vided were stood on end in some 

 out-of-the-way place, and a 

 board was nailed on the top of 

 each gum for a roof, and it was 

 ready for the home coming of 

 the swarm of bees which was. to 

 make a domicile of it. Fre- 

 quently the hive stood out of 

 doors with no covering other 

 'than the board on the top. The 



gum contained no partition, no loft, no basement. The 

 bees stored their honey in it, fastening the comb to the 

 dirty walls, and there they worked in the dark during 

 the whole season, provided they were not eaten out of 

 house and home by moths, mice, and other enemies. All 

 the ventilation they got was what they provided with 

 their own wings, fanning the air in by efficient team 

 work, arranging themselves in long rows for the purpose 

 and working their wings for fans. 



When the owner came round in the fall of the year 

 for his share, after the work of the bees for the season 

 was over, he pried the board from the top of the hive, 

 scooped out a few pails of honey, guessed at the quantity 

 he was leaving for the swarm during the coming winter, 

 and nailed the lid on again. If the bees did not starve 

 or freeze during the winter, they began in early spring to 

 fill the old gum again, preparing another haul for their 

 inconsiderate owner. 



Bees do not hibernate, as most insects do, and they 

 must have food and warmth during the winter, or they 

 will perish. They provide food enough, if permitted to 

 retain a fair portion, and their bodies furnish sufficient 

 heat, if the hive is protected in a measure against ex- 

 treme cold. 



The world has seen many strange sorts of bee hives. 

 A lion's dry skeleton answered that purpose, as is in- 

 ferred from the famous riddle propounded by Samson 

 to his enemies. Pictures in old almanacs represent 

 hives built of straw rope, wound round and round, 

 narrowing to the top, and shaped like Eskimo huts. 

 Such hives belonged in Europe where some of the people 

 called them "bee baskets;" but they never had much of 

 a foothold in America, where nearly everybody used 

 wood in some form. During early times in the southern 



A BEEHIVE IN SOUTHERN TEXAS 



The bees took possession of a common box with one side wholly open and proceeded to store their honey 

 in it. This is a freak hive and is not common, but it shows that the little workers are easily satisfied. 

 (Photograph by Prank C. Pellett, Hamilton, Illinois.) 



