1697. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



819 



the market is glutted and prices ruinous. Your honey, after 

 being shipt to Chicago or St. Louis, is very often reshipt in 

 detail, even to grocers living within 5 or 10 miies of your 

 home. Let us do away with these methods. If our honey 

 must be sold cheap, let us give the benefit of it to the home 

 consumption. It may not pay us at first to soil to consumers 

 or to small dealers at the price we would get in Chicago, but 

 let us remember that the trade that is built up in one or two 

 seasons may remain with us for years, and perhaps at higher 

 prices, if we take care of it. 



We have repeatedly caused producers of honey to find sale 

 at home, by suggesting to them to offer the honey to their 

 neighbors at the same price as they would expect by shipping 

 it. At the present prices of extracted honey a large crop may 

 be disposed of among a few neighbors. Bear in mind, that 

 whatever you sell at home relieves the market of just so much 

 stock, and makes it easier for prices to rise. Honey is now 

 too cheap to go a-begging if the proper methods are followed 

 for the sale of it. Hancock Co., 111. 



Home-Made Fonudation for Brood-Chambers. 



BY "COMMON-SENSE BEE-KEEPING." 



Several years ago I got in a rush when my bees were 

 swarming faster than I could provide them with frames for 

 the new hives made to receive them, so I caught an idea of 

 making the bees build their combs on the underside of the 

 top-boards of the new hives without frames, as straight and 

 as true as a board ; so that later on I could slip those new 

 combs into the frames after the plan of transferring them, 

 with but very little trouble. 



It was done by tracing the tup-board with a line of warm 

 wax, and it workt like a charm, for most of the combs in those 

 hives were built as true as could be desired. One reason for 

 this, however, may be that I always set my hives with a spirit- 

 level crosswise of the way I wish the comb to hang. This 

 gave me a pointer, and so I began to put starters in my brood- 

 frames in the following way : 



Cut a strip long enough to slip between the end-bars and 

 shove up nicely against the top-bar. On the back of this strip 

 put stops on both ends, so that when in position it will let the 

 face side of the strip come exactly to the middle of the top- 

 bar. The strip should be made perfectly smooth on the face 

 side, and then wet with scalding water, after which it should 

 be dipt in cold water, and it is feady for use. 



Have your wax melted in a dish somewhat deeper than it 

 is wide, with water in the bottom to prevent the wax from 

 burning ; then a small paint-brush (a sash tool) is all the 

 machine you want for the business of making starters. Now 

 take the guide-strip from the water and wipe it slightly with 

 a damp cloth, and place it in position in the frame as above 

 described. Don't touch the inside of the top-bar with wet 

 fingers, or the hot wax will not adhere to the portions thus 

 toucht. Now dip your brush into the hot wax, and run it 

 lightly along the top-bar against the guide-strip, and there 

 you have a starter. If you wish to make it heavier, stroke it 

 again with hot wax and it is done. Care should be taken to 

 not thrust the brush so deeply into the hot wax as to reach 

 the water that is under it, or it will not work as nicely. When 

 I wish to let loose of my brush I have it fixt so that I can 

 hang it inside the tin bucket that holds the wax, without fall- 

 ing therein. 



Hold the strip in place until the starter is cool, and then 

 push the top of the guide-strip back from the starter, and it 

 will loosen nicely. The cooling of the starter may be hast- 

 ened by the use of a fan or cold water. 



When I found that the bees were delighted with these flat 

 starters, I began to make them wider by using a board that 

 would fill the frame in the place of the guide-strip, and a 



wider brush, and was surprised at the readiness with which 

 the bees built cells on those flat foundations in the hightof 

 the season ; but when the work got slack outside they devoted 

 themselves to some amusing antics in the way that fixt the 

 unfinisht ones in the ends and corners of the hive. 



Make starters first, and If you fall a few times melt the 

 scraps over, and try again till you can make a full sheet of 

 foundation, except at the corners, which the bees will quickly 

 fill when they get to that. 



You will soon observe that drawing the hot wax with a 

 brush seems to lengthen its grains, and render It tough until it 

 is melted again. This is a great point in favor of Its use. If 

 put in rightly it won't sag at all, and is quickly put into the 

 frames, and is better adapted to being workt in the winter 

 than the other kind, besides being cheaper. I call it "com- 

 mon-sense foundation." Pennsylvania. 



QUEEN MAB. 

 A Christmas Story lor Youug Bee-Keepers. 



BY GEO. H. 8TIPP. 



{ Written rjprensly fur the American Bee Joiirna!.) 



A certain old Spanish romancer once wrote a story in 

 which he described a very beautiful, though mysterious island 

 lying far to to the west beyond the limits of somewhere. In- 

 deed, it was pictured as a land full of sunshine and flowers 

 and happiness— a veritable land of milk and honey. Of 

 course, it was inhabited by genii and fairies and elves and all 

 those wonderful creatures of magic and fancy which can only 

 dwell in mysterious countries not outlined in the maps of our 

 school-books. Notwithstanding this oversight on the part of 

 the wise men who make geographies, there Is not a boy nor a 

 girl who has not read stories, perhaps whole histories, of 

 fairyland and its inhabitants. 



Strange to say, there is a land— a land of reality— which 

 in many ways, resembles and even bears the very name of 

 that fabled land of Spanish lore. It is the land of gold, the 

 land of perennial fruits and flowers, the land of the setting 

 sun — California. 



* * 



It was Christmas in the year eighteen hun well, the 



chronology of my story matters little. Suffice to say it was 

 Christmas, as bright and fresh and clear as pearl from royal 

 diadem. The sun was shining warmly ; the grass springing 

 from roots recently washt by refreshing showers, had carpeted 

 the earth with green; the pure white "snowdrops" hung 

 pendant from long since denuded stems in the rusty brown 

 woods, and dainty flowers here and there peept forth shyly 

 from mossy banks, seemingly determined to join in the "glad 

 tidings," which all Nature, on this day, seemed intent on sing- 

 ing. In fact, it was just such a perfect day as one might ex- 

 pect to read of in the fairy California of old— just such a day 

 as one may often see and enjoy in the real California of today. 



Under such a sky, in such a land, little wonder that 

 Golden-locks, sweet child of Nature, satiate with material 

 joys of the happy morn, restlessly tossing to and fro in the 

 hammock which swung on the front porch in the warm sun- 

 shine, should at last close those questioning windows of the 

 soul and sink slowly into restless slumber. 



» 

 . » * 



Queen Mab had just ascended her royal throne on this 

 eventful day, when she called her swift-winged and faithful 

 subjects about her aud proclaimed a day of feasting and 

 joyous merry-making. 



Altho the fairies were not unaccustomed to seasons of 

 idleness, this day was so fair and warm that the flowers were 

 opening their buds and distilling sweet nectar for the gods. 

 The fairies, therefore, were loath to understand why work 



