54 



GrLEANrNGS IN BEE CaLTURE. 



Jan. 



ly at the commencement; but who is there 

 who could not bear losses for a little time, 

 for the sake of seeing all mankind helped V 

 T confess that I am comparatively ignorant 

 in regard to this matter of dnties and cus- 

 toms; but T am sun^ tin- world would be 

 benefited in the end by giving all an equal 

 chance; that is, so far as buying and selling 

 are concerned. In other words, it always 

 gives me a thrill of pleasure to have an op- 

 portunity of calling every human being 

 brother, no matter whether he is black or 

 white, rich or poor, just over the garden 

 fence, or clear over on the other side of tlie 

 world. God meant us to be brothers ; and 

 the sooner we accede to his wishes and in- 

 tentions, the quicker will heaven come here 

 on earth. Many thanks for your kind let- 

 ter, giving us so many glimpses of human 

 life away off in Australia. 



SELLING OUT AN APIARY. 



yillTTINO THE BUSINESS ; HOW WE UID IT AT A 

 SACRIFICE. 



Tf^ AST spring- 1 removed to a new charge, 400 

 ^j miles from my former one. While I desire 

 rT *^l^^ys to keep a few bees, for various rea- 

 '*™ sons it seemed best not to remove my apiary 

 here. It consisted of about 100 colonies with 

 empty hives, combs.and apparatus necessary to man- 

 age Buch an apiary. My location was good for hon- 

 ey, but almost every year I lost many colonies dur- 

 ing the winter. I have no doubt there were per- 

 sons desiring to engage in bee-keeping who would 

 have bought me out if I could have found them; 

 but they could not be found. I found one person 

 who wished to engage in the. business, but he had 

 had no experience with bees. To him I sold 47 colo- 

 nies at 1^.00 each, also some supplies. The rest I 

 sold at retail io farmers and others, receiving for 

 none over $2.o() a colony. I considered my apiary 

 worth to me $1000, and would have considered it 

 cheap at ^^600; but I recei\ed only a little over $200 

 for it, therefore bees do not prove very valuable 

 property when you come to sell out. 



To any person wishing to sell an apiary, I would 

 say: If possible, sell out your entire outfit to some 

 person desiring to engage in the business. If you 

 have to retail your bees to farmers you will not 

 realize more for them than for black bees in box 

 ^ives. If you can not find such a purchaser, per- 

 haps you can secure some person -.vho has some 

 knowledge of bee.s to take charge ot yn\n- apiary, 

 and you may be able to give some little a;tfntion 

 to it yourself; and by receiving a share of the 

 honey, you may, in a few years, realize more than if 

 you sold all for a mere tritle. Perhaps the easiest 

 method to quit the business would be to wait until 

 the end of the season, then brimstone the bees, ex- 

 tract the honey, reduce the combs to wax, and 

 make kindling-wood of the hives, i am certain, if 

 I had taken that method I should have received 

 more money than I did, but it seemed too cruel. I 

 never thought of adopting it. W. D. Kalston. 



Morea, 111. 



Triend R., your statement of facts seems 

 a little sad, but I know there is a good deal 

 of truth in it, in a good many localities. 

 Now, would it not have paid you better to 

 offer, the bees at a very low price, either in 



your local papers or in the bee-journals r* 

 Surely, it must pay you better than to brim- 

 stone them. 



REDEEMING FEATURES OF A POOR 

 SEASON. 



DOES REMOVING THE QUEEN IN THE HEIGHT OF 

 THE SEASON STOP THE HONEV ? 



T^ FRANCE, on page 896, Dec. No., closes his 

 lii) interesting communication with " When 

 l^ > you have a big working force, take away the 

 ■^^ ' queen." How many tyros, even in bee cul- 

 ture, would not see 1 he consequences at a 

 glance— not only a cure for swarming, but a cessa- 

 tion from honey-making. Why does a man of his 

 experience put clay on our eyes, when at best we 

 can not see clearly? 



I notice the great mass of writers give one testi- 

 mony in regard to yield of honey and scarcity of 

 swarms for the past bee season. This so perfectly 

 agreed with our experience that we accepted the 

 situation to call last year a failure, and to prepare 

 more vigorously for the new year, on the princi- 

 ple that " lightning never strikes twice in the same 

 place." If we have had, through a combination of 

 circumstances, a season of almost perfect failure, 

 we may hope and expect the combination to be dif- 

 ferent the coming year; and generally, as one ex- 

 treme follows another, we may look for an unusu- 

 ally prosperous bee-year, not only in bees and hon- 

 ey, but in price, caused by the drainage of the 

 market by this year's failure. 



During July our bees had managed slowly to fill 

 and cap a few boxes, and nearly fill several more. 

 By the last of August and early in September much 

 of this surplus had been consumed by the makers, 

 and we began to consider ways and means to carry 

 through a few colonies to build a new business on 

 the old capital. Having settled down to this faith 

 we gave little heed to their workings, only now and 

 then lifting the hives, and thereby judging nothing- 

 was doing. 



Early in December, having occasion to change 

 location of hives we found most of them greatly 

 improved in weight; and on removing the surplus 

 boxes we found about .^O lbs. of late-made honey, 

 perhaps mostly gathered in October, and from a 

 buckwheat patch I sowed very late. It was also 

 flavored with the late fall flowers with which our 

 town abounds. 



Our 17 colonies, we had estimated, would con- 

 sume ~00 lbs. of sugar to carry them through. We 

 now find them self-sustaining, only 2 or 3 requiring 

 assistance, and that abundantly furnished by the 

 surplus of other hives. 



We are in the southeast corner of Virginia, with 

 a climate requiring no protection for bees other 

 than their good summer quarters. I would sug- 

 gest no change here, except an absorbent to cover 

 the frames and prevent too much moisture, which 

 we sometimes find in the hives. My practice is to 

 place three hives on a stand 6 feet long and one 

 foot high, and leave 6 to 8 feet between the stands. 

 One grape-arbor, or other shade, will cover the 3 

 hives as well as one; and there is no fear of con- 

 fusion in the bees finding their own home. 



Suttolk, Va., Dec. 29. 1S87. J. C. Frisbee. 



Friend F., I used to think strange that 

 some writers should recommend removing 



