1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



417 



Upstairs the plan is similar. The 

 carpenter shop is over the extract- 

 ing room and the office is over that 

 end of the garage. Both have a fine 

 view of the apiary and get lots of 

 sunshine for the early spring days, 

 when most of our shop work is done. 

 Tlie other longitudinal half of the 

 building is on the cold side during 

 that period, and is used largely for 

 storage of new material to be made 

 up. It has a large pair of trap doors 

 over the garage, where goods are 

 handed up or down from the truck. 

 For heavy boxes a pulley hoist is 

 used. Both rooms are fitted with 

 square box cupboards between the 

 windows. These have heavy plank 

 tops and are built for work benches 

 as well as storage. One man can 

 work comfortably on each. Before 

 this appears in print we hope to have 

 the whole building well equipped with 

 electric lights for the dark mornings 

 and afternoons which are coming all 

 too rapidly. 



The prospective builder should con- 

 sider verj' carefully what his space 

 requirements are going to be. Where 

 there is a building at each outyard it 

 is hard to realize what total capacity 

 is available. Just total up and then 

 remember that all that space must 

 be supplied by the central plant. To 

 use an old piece of advice, calculate 

 how much room you need and then 

 double that and you may have nearly 

 enough. Especially w'here much hired 

 help is used "a place for everything" 

 is very important. "Things of a kind 

 together" is another way we have of 

 expressing it. For instance, the queen 

 excluders are all piled in one place. 

 When they all go out and are in use 

 that place should be vacant and re- 

 main so until they come back. Then 

 the helper with but a dim idea of 

 order has less excuse for leaving 

 some in every room in the building 

 and the rest piled up around the 

 apiary door. 



JLa^~ " 



<&-»^i°--'^ 



a 



Special rooms for each branch of 

 the inside work are very helpful. 

 Then the machinery and supplies can 

 be left in order for conveniently tak- 

 ing up that work when the time 

 comes. In addition to the rooms we 

 have, I would like a room especially 

 for rendering wax, and another for 

 making feed. Our honey room is 

 just large enough for a tank room. 

 There should be another room quite 

 as large for storage of the crated 

 honey. This would be the shipping 

 room and have a desk with shipping 

 tags, stencils, etc. These at present 

 are kept very comfortably in the 

 office. We find it an advantage to 

 buy tins, sugar for feed, and other 

 supplies months in advance. They 

 might well be stored in the rooms 

 where they are to be used. 



An old barn, which we found on 

 the place, has been pressed into ser- 

 vice for such storage and for winter- 

 ing material — an item which has not 

 been previously mentioned. 



MORLEY PETTIT. 



THE HONEYBEE IN RUSSIA 



While the human insect is trans- 

 forming Russia into a large' plunder 

 field, giving up that rich country to 

 famine, and while the bolchevik foul- 

 brood destroys the most prosperous 

 colonies, let us examine what the real 

 honeybees were and are doing; those 

 little monarchico-democrats who put 

 in practice so nicely the dream which 

 has hatched in the heart of the Rus- 

 sian peasant — A republic with a czar. 



If there is a country which may be 

 called the paradise of honeybees, it 

 is certainly Russia, that of the Cen- 

 ter and of the South, of course. 



First, it is the country of basswood, 

 of vast forests with powerful vegeta- 

 tion, of blooming plains, of numerous 

 streams, whose capricious meanders 

 water fat prairie covered with honey 

 plants and bordered with rows of 



v) I 1 \N 1 J n1* 1 1, >fl I — I 



d 



o^ 



3. 





I 







Jig hlcLjJyO^ 



W o-U^ (U-JU . 



r 



^'.^►U C****^ "^^^Jw 



Ijt [^ 



O 



^ ^:^ 



*y^ 



■^^v^Ieb: 



I — » ^-, I — I 



>j«r 



Ground plan of Pettit's central plant 



willows, whose golden and silvery 

 catkins full of pollen announce to the 

 bees the arrival of spring. 



But while nature, in Russia, gener- 

 ously gives to bees what they need, 

 the orthodox religion of that country 

 needs the bee for the production of 

 beeswax, which is used in the manu- 

 facture of wax candles, which are of 

 constant use in the practice of the 

 cult. So the little intermediary be- 

 tween nature and man, for the sus- 

 taining of life, becomes also a link 

 between man and his Maker, for the 

 needs of the soul. Whether there is 

 a favor to ask, a sorrow to calm, a 

 memory to honor, a festival to cele- 

 brate, baptism, communion, marriage 

 or burial, the beeswax is trans- 

 formed into a little sweet-smelling 

 flame, burning before the altars to 

 accomplish the mission of peace and 

 hope. It is therefore natural that 

 bees should secure, in Russia, the pro- 

 tection of the Church and the good 

 will of the inhabitants. 



Since the Church needs the bees, it 

 sustains their interests by stimulating 

 the cultivation of rape and buck- 

 wheat. Rape serves to manufacture 

 the vegetable oil used in the cooking 

 of vegetables during the days of ab- 

 stinence and of Lent. Buckwheat 

 supplies the meal used in the prep- 

 aration of the cakes which inaugu- 

 rate the end of the fasting. Both of 

 these plants produce large stores for 

 the active pilferers. So a close rela- 

 tion unites the bees to the Church, 

 which carefully protects those little 

 sisters of charity whose life is de- 

 voted to celibacy and who work in- 

 cessantly anl lose their life, some- 

 times, in the defence of their home. 

 It is therefore quite natural that each 

 convent should possess an apiary, 

 managed by a monk who fulfills this 

 duty as a sacerdotal office. By de- 

 stroying religion and abolishing the 

 traditions of the Greek Church, the 

 bolchevist has done a great damage 

 to the bees. 



But if each convent has an apiary, 

 each village has or had one, or more, 

 great domain where could be found 

 an apiary installation where the lat- 

 est methods were practiced. It is 

 easy to imagine what has been the 

 fate of those fine apiaries, in the uni- 

 versal plundering. The country peo- 

 ple, seeking persona! gain, divided the 

 colonies among themselves and, in 

 their ignorance, often allowed the 

 colonies to perish. So the bees also 

 have been victims of the revolution. 



In order to safeguard them against 

 dust and bad odors, the bees, in Rus- 

 sia, are nearly always located at some 

 distance from the cities and villages. 

 They place them often in open forest, 

 in clearings made for the purpose, in 

 the quiet and peace which they enjoy. 

 Either the monk or the peasant, as 

 the case may be, lives by the apiary, 

 and if the bees are wintered there, 

 he spends the whole year near them. 



As to the kinds of hives used, they 

 are not very varied. It is first the old 

 national hive, made of a hollow bass- 

 wood trunk standing on end. The 

 weather, which gives to wood the 

 color of stone, causes these hives to 

 resemble monuments and likens the 



