1884 



glea:nings in bee culture. 



cus Aurelius, In the year 173, such attire was worn 

 only by ladies of the highest rank. The Syrian vo- 

 luptuary, Heliog-abalus, was the first who wore a 

 rlress wholly composed of silk, in the year 218; but 

 in 270, Aurelianus denied to his wife Severa such a 

 dress uolored with purple. "Let us not," said he, 

 "exchange gold for spiders' web;" and, indeed, at 

 that epoch silk was of the same value with gold, 

 weight for weight. 



The silk-trade increased, nevertheless, more and 

 more in India, Persia, and Arabia; principally from 

 the progress of luxury in eastern Europe, and the 

 consequently greater demand for silk fabrics. No 

 law could counteract such a propensity; and it was 

 accordingly disregarded entirely in the eastern em- 

 pire, under the reign of Justinian I., from .527 to 56.5. 

 Through the intercession of the ill-advised Empress 

 Theodora, the wife of that Emperor, a monopoly of 

 the silk-trade was granted to a broker by the name 

 of Peter Bersames, who became afterward chief of 

 the imperial body-guard. At this time, not only 

 silk stuffs but raw silk was imported from China, 

 through Persia, and chiefly by way of Samarcanda 

 and Bokhara, into the Phcenician cities of Tyre and 

 Berytus, where silk was manufactured, and from 

 whence it was afterward conveyed into foreign coun- 

 tries. The monopoly granted to Bersames tended, 

 however, to diminish greatly in those cities the 

 profits of the silk manufacturers and traders. The 

 greater number of the former emigrated into Per- 

 sia, and there opened work shops. 



the colony. If sickness, induced by want of 

 air, should lead them to do this, we are right 

 in your line of thought exactly — or, per- 

 haps, your uncle's line of thought. You 

 know i have told you during this past fall to 

 leave the entrances to chaff hives open the 

 full width in winter. I am pretty well satis- 

 tied, also, that the packing over the bees 

 must not be too solid. It needs to be loose, 

 like chaff in a very open and porous sack, 

 like burlap or very coarse bagging ; and be- 

 sides this, there must be ventilating-holes of 

 pretty good size in the cover — I should say, 

 at least a hole on opposite sides, U inches 

 in diameter. This hole, of course, would 

 better be covered with coarse wire cloth. It 

 should be in such a place that it can not be 

 stopped up by snow or ice. Forest-leaves 

 have been suggested in place of chaff, be- 

 cause they are still more porous, and may be 

 we shall have to use some such thing in 

 place of chaff, especially where we have long 

 protracted cold spells. It seems a little 

 queer, does it not, friend Cora, that the bees 

 need more openings during severe cold 

 weather than they do when it is only a little 

 cold, and cold for only a little while V 



\\'H\ BEES LEAVE THEIR HIVES IN 

 AVINTER. 



-ANSWERED BY A JUVENILE. 



^j^Sjr-Y uncle has had bees two summers, but last 

 M'/M. summer they swarmed so much he did not 



' get much honey. The first swarm made 50 



lbs. of surplus of comb honey, and made enough to 

 winter on. Last winter so many bees flew out of 

 the hive during cold weather, my uncle could not 

 think what was the cause ; so he searched in the A 

 B Cbook, but that didn't tell him, so he had to find 

 out by experience. At last he found out that they 

 were too warmly packed in chaff; so he gave them 

 more upward ventilation. I think you ought to 

 mention this in your A B C book. It may save many 

 a bee, and much hard study. After that they stayed 

 very quiet. I attend school, and in summer I at- 

 tend Subbath-school. My uncle, A. H. Baum, is su- 

 perintendent of the school. If this is worth a book, 

 please send me Rescued from Egypt 



Cora Baum, age U. 

 Ashland, Ohio. Dec. 24, 1883. 



To be sure, your article is worth a book, 

 Cora ; in fact, it touches upon a point that 

 has been almost overlooked ; and while I am 

 not prepared just now to say you are right, 

 the idea certainly seems quite probable. \Ve 

 have had abundant proof that bees often die 

 because the hives were made too close, and 

 do not allow sutficient air. Now, when they 

 begin to feel they are suffering from want of 

 air, it. would be nothing strange if they 

 should leave the cluster and crawl out or fly 

 out. even when the weather is such as to 

 make it certain death for them to do so. We 

 know that sick bees often take themselves 

 out of the way to die alone, where they may 

 not communicate the disease to the rest of 



HOW THEV MANAGE BEES ON MOUNT 

 HYMETTLS. 



A COMMUNICiTION TAKEN BY ONE OF OUR .lUVE-' 

 NILES FROM A BOOK PUBLISHED IN 1838. 



E have 34 hives of bees. We have a book in 

 wjj which there is an article on bees. It was 

 -' printed in 1838, in England — "Management 

 of Bees on Mount Hymettus, in Greece, by G. Weel- 

 er, Esq." The hives in which they keep their bees 

 are made of willow or osiers, fastened like our com- 

 mon dust-baskets, wide at the top and nari-ow at the 

 bottom, or plastered with clay or loam within and 

 without. They are set the wide end upward, the 

 tops being covered with board; flat sticks are also 

 covered with clay at top, and to secure them from 

 the weather they cover them with a tuft of straw as 

 we do. 



Along each of these sticks the bees fasten their 

 combs, so that a comb may be taken out whole with- 

 out the least bruising, and with the greatest ease 

 imaginable. To increase them in spring time — that 

 is, in March or April, until the beginning of May, 

 they divide them, just separating the sticks on 

 which the combs and bees ai-e fastened from one an- 

 other, with a knife, so taking them into another bas- 

 ket in the same order that they were taken out until 

 they have equally divided them. After this, when 

 they are both again accommodated with sticks and 

 plaster, they set in the new basket in the place of 

 the odd one, and the odd rne in a new place, and all 

 this they do in the middle of the day, at such a time 

 as the greatest part of the bees are abroad, who, at 

 their coming home, without much dilliculty divide 

 themselves equally. This device hinders them from 

 swarming and flying away. 



In August they take out their honey.which they do 

 in the daytime also, while they are abroad, the bees 

 being thereby, they say, disturbed least, at which 

 time they take out the comb laden with honey as 

 before; that is, beginning at each outside, and so 

 taking away until they have lifted out such a quan- 

 tity of comb in the middle as they judge will be sufli- 



