iM 



gl1"]ai<i1v:gs lii bee cUltuke. 



Pe^. 



veloped home market? The same that is true of 

 friend Muth is also true of commission men. The 

 honey they handle is sold in a developed home 

 market. Now, if you prefer to pay freig'ht, and 

 friend Muth, or the commission men, and those to 

 whom they wholesale, instead of selling' it your- 

 selves, please don't complain about low prices. 



Are any of you farmers, and did you ever sell any 

 apples, butter, eggs, corn, or potatoes? How did 

 you do It? Did you sit down in the shade, or by a 

 warm fire, with a great nasty quid of tobacco in 

 your mouth, and literally befoul every thing with- 

 in reach with your filthy expectorations, or with a 

 i<^ell-fllled old stump of a pipe flU the air with your 

 (to you) beautiful, and, to others, offensive wreaths 

 of smoke, disgusting, n(U "the girl you left be- 

 hind you," but the one you once thought was the 

 brightest, best, and sweetest being on earth, or did 

 you load up the wagon and start out to find a mar- 

 ket for what you had produced by earnest thought 

 and hard and persistent labor? Were you ever 

 ashamed to ask the lawyer, doctor, minister, busi- 

 ness man, or any one else, to buy what you had so 

 honestly produced? If you were, and had a flrst- 

 class article to sell, you belittled your vocation and 

 disgraced your manhood, and ought to fail. 



Just try the same course with your lioney, you do 

 with your other products, ottering only a first class 

 article in first-class shape, and don't try to shingle it. 

 Let the specialists "go and do likewise;" and if 

 they have more than they can dispose of in this 

 way, then sell to friend Muth, or send to the com- 

 mission men, and they and you, I doubt not, will 

 realize better prices. A. B. M.ason. 



Auburndale, O., Jan., 1888. 



Friend M., I fully indorse yonr closing 

 paragraph ; and whether you use an eight- 

 frame hive or a ten-frame hive, remeniber 

 that it is always better to have your honey 

 ripened a little too much than not quite 

 enough. In working for extracted honey, I 

 think I should rather prefer the ten-frame 

 hive, on account of this matter of ripening 

 particularly. I am sure we get more honey 

 by tiering up on the plan you recommend, 

 than by extracting every time the upper story 

 is full. As extracted honey is never injured 

 in appearance by being left on the hive, we 

 have nothing to fear from bees running over 

 it with muddy feet, as they do where we 

 aim to produce very white comb honey. 



LIGHT IN THE CELLAR. 



FRIEND BINGHAM ASKS US TO PROVE Tn.\T IT IS 

 HURTFUL TO THE BEES. 



"Wp MONG the sanitary writings in Gleanings I 

 5|\kI ^'^ "°'' ^'^^^ remember having seen light 

 ^w mentioned as an essential to the safe and 

 healthy wintering of bees. No doubt all 

 there is of the subject under consideration 

 is old as applied to dwelling-houses. The effect of 

 light on vegetation, no one has failed to note. It 

 has been much written about bj' sanitary writers, 

 and has been claimed as an important factor in 

 houses as a means of maintaining the health of 

 their occupants. 



It is with a view to calling attention to the sub- 

 ject rather than giving my experience that this 

 article is written. 



Many years ago I had occasion to winter a few 



colonies of bees in a light cellar— as I now call to 

 mind (I write this last sentence, that every bee- 

 keeper may agree with me that the fact is not new 

 —not patentable, even). The result was favora- 

 ble; viz., the bees wintered finely, and did not 

 spring dwindle. Since then I have had no experi- 

 ence practically in wintering bees in light cellars, 

 though I have had some in dark ones for several 

 winters past. 



This subject has so long and persistently clung to 

 me, that, last season, I determined to test it fairly 

 this winter and note the results. Just here, bear in 

 mind that next June will show the result. This 

 experiment I have undertakeli on all the bees I 

 have in the cellar— a pile six hives long and three 

 high (eighteen colonies in all). Thej' face the east, 

 and are perhaps ten feet from the window— an or- 

 dinary cellar-window, threepaned, and of two 

 thicknesses of glass. This window the hives all 

 face, and each hive has an entrance 33 inches long. 

 The cellar is light enough to read in all day, and 

 early on sunny mornings the sun shines directly in- 

 to the room, and the light is strong. 



The bees could fly if they pleased; but only now 

 and then one starts from the hives, turns round, 

 head to the hive, locates it, and files to the window, 

 where, of course, it dies. 



I have made some inquiry of bee-keepers who 

 winter bees in dark cellars and caves— why they al- 

 ways use dark ones, and, strange to say, the only 

 reason so far given has been this: "To keep the 

 bees quiet." Now, is there any evidence that the 

 bees are kept (juiet by the absence of light in the 

 cellar? In this article I shall assume that there is 

 no solid proof that the absence of light does so act 

 upon bees in confinement. 1 have maintained, that 

 the cause of quiet and repose of bees was due to 

 the simple fact that, at the close of the honey sea- 

 son, as vegetation failed to blossom and yield hon- 

 ey and pollen, the objects inciting to activity gradu- 

 ally disappeared; and the bees, with an instinct 

 peculiar to themselves, find no incentive to activi- 

 ty, and repose is the normal result. It is not dark- 

 er when plants do not bloom, neither do bees show 

 a disposition to fly because the light exists, neither 

 because the sun shines even. When I had my bees 

 in Tennessee, nothing so pleased and delighted me 

 as to see the bees loll in the warm sun at the en- 

 trance to the hives on sunny noons. We have all 

 seen bees lounge on the fronts of the hives in 

 autumn when the air was warm and the sun bright, 

 with apparently no disposition on the part of the 

 bees to fly. I cite these common cases as evidence, 

 not proof, that light does not produce disquiet 

 when bees are in the open air. That daylight, or 

 even sunlight, does not disturb bees in the cellar, 

 my experiments tend to show. 



Other than the perhaps theoretic value of light 

 in maintaining the health of bees, and their conse- 

 quent quiet and repose, there is one other consid- 

 eration not to be entirely lost sight of; viz., the 

 ease with which they may be casually seen from 

 day to day. They do not seem to notice one's pres- 

 ence unless jarred. 



No doubt it will be said, that " your bees are quiet 

 because they are cold." Very well, that ma.y be 

 true; still, 45 to .50° so far has been my cellar tem- 

 perature. 



While I do not at present take positive grounds 

 that light is absolutely essential to the healthful 

 wintering of bees, I will assume, as I have ever 



