1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



437 



PRESIDENT PIERCE. 



A RAMBLE. 



GETTING OUT AND KNOCKING OFF THE CORNERS. 



XT has always been something of a passion with 

 (Mp me to sec noted men. There is something 

 ^t about such men to admire and to bring- out el- 

 -^ evated thoughts. Then, again, I get sick if I 

 continue too long at the drudgery of the bee- 

 yard, and a drive of a lew miles and a visit with a 

 kindred spirit has a wonderful toning-up effect. 



I was permeated and surrounded with the above 

 feelings when It occurred to me that I had one of 

 our bee-men of some note within twenty miles of 

 my apiary; and, fixing things for an absence of a 

 few days, my black pony and I were on our way to 

 the residence of Mr. Thos. Pierce, of Gausevoort, 

 Saratoga Co., N. Y., President of the Eastern N. Y. 

 Bee-keepers' Association. He 

 is a retired merchant of 

 means, and producer of "A No. 

 1 " comb honey. Mr. Pierce's 

 portrait was in the Albany 

 Journal during the united 

 gathering of bee-keepers last 

 winter, a copy of which is re- 

 produced here. 



August 3d found me knock- 

 ing for admittance to his man- 

 sion on the main street of the 

 thriving railroad town of Gansevoort. I found 

 him busy packing a hive and fixtures to ship to 

 France. 



He has about 100 swarms of bees in as neat and 

 clean an apiary as you will find in many days' drive. 

 His hives are not of the regular Langstroth model, 

 the frames being deeper. The apiary is nearly sur- 

 rounded with buildings. A commodious shop is on 

 the west side, with steam-engine, planer, and all 

 tools for bee-hive work. A small, convenient honey- 

 house is on the north, and a horse-barn near by has 

 to receive a considerable overflow in the shape of 

 hives and frames. 



I found him a very methodical man in his work. 

 The hives were neatly arranged in rows, with wide 

 avenues between, in which a common scythe could 

 be used to keep the grass closely shaven. Each 

 hive had an ample shade-board, with wide cleats 

 nailed edgewise to the under side, and so spaced as 

 to rest on the hive, preventing the retaining of 

 moisture. The shade-boards are held down with 

 two bricks on each board. Mr. P. demonstrated to 

 my satisfaction that bricks could be handled easier, 

 and looked more useful, than an irregular boulder. 

 I tried to impress him with the fact that a boulder 

 is more in accordance with the poetical roundness 

 so much admired in nature, and that both Bros. 

 Heddon and Doolittle used a little pile of them on 

 every one of their hives. But my friend has got 

 beyond the poetical age, and is firmly wedded to 

 his bricks. 



Mr. P. raises comb honey, and indulges in that 

 old-time luxury of natural swarming; and I will 

 here venture to say, that his swarming-tools are 

 more complete and serviceable than you will find in 

 any other apiary in the country. Several swarm- 

 ing-boxes are attached to poles of various lengths. 

 If a swarm commences to alight in an elevated po- 

 sition, the long-pok' box is brought out. A strong 

 iron hook, with a prong to it, is driven into the 

 ground where the lower end of the pole will come. 

 A forked rod about three feet long is also stuck 



into the ground at such a distance from the base as 

 to hold the swarming-box up to the cluster. The 

 apiarist can sit composedly under the tree, with 

 folded hands and complacent smile, and view the 

 speedy harvesting of the swarm. 





PIERCE'S METHOD OF HIVING SWARMS. 



Mr. P. is a warm advocate of the Bingham smo- 

 ker; and to start it up quick he uses alcohol for a 

 stimulant internally (in the smoker, not in himself). 

 I strenuously advocated kerosene, but Mr. P.'s ol- 

 factory organ has a distaste for kerosene, and he 

 has a pocket-book that can pay for the extra cost. 

 But the great mass of us poor bee-men find a little 

 kerosene in a common oil-can answers all purposes. 



I also noticed several buckets of water near the 

 apiary, in which were cork stools for the bees to 

 alight on for water. As the apiary was a consider- 

 able distance from a stream, these buckets were 

 well patronized, and had to be filled often. 



The bees in this apiary are wintered in a deep 

 and roomy cellar under a store. The soil is sand, 

 and the cellar is dry. Outside the bee-room is a 

 small anteroom in which is a coal-stove. This stove 

 is provided with a sheet-iron hood, communicating 

 with the bee-cellar. In very cold weather a stream 

 of hot air is thrown into this cellar. Ventilators 

 also connect with the chimney, and a complete 

 change of air is thus effected. This cellar is about 

 five rods from the R. & S. R. R., where a great 

 amount of traffic passes at all hours of the day and 

 night. In the winter the ground shakes so as to 

 rattle windows; still the bees in this cellar always 

 come out in excellent condition, with but slight 

 loss. 



In his house I found his qiveen presiding with 

 as much neatness and precision as good queens of 

 the house always exercise. Mr. and Mrs. P. have 

 traveled much, and attended various conventions 

 of bee-keepers, and have some fine groups of the 

 assembled wisdom of the conventions. According 

 to previous arrangement, I put up for the night 

 with my friend, and in company with him made a 

 very instructive tour thi-ough Saratoga County, 

 which I will describe in my next. A Rambler. 



Look here, old friend, if you can ramble 

 to such a purpose as you have this time, we 

 liope you will keep on. The sight of Presi- 

 dent Pierce's face, even before I got hold of 

 your article, revived a host of pleasant rec- 

 ollections at that bee-convention, and made 

 me in just exactly the mood to want to 

 know where he lives, how he fixes his bee- 

 hives, and all about his surroundings. Tell 

 friend P. that I think I should be with him 



