-524 



GLEAN IJ^GS IN liEE CULTUUE. 



JUYL 



lliem lip for greens, and eat a hearty meal 

 ot them without discovering any eft'ect 

 whatever, any more than we should from 

 dandelions or spinach. 



IS BEE-KEEPING AN OCCUPATION 

 ADAPTED TO W^OMEN 'i 



SOME Ob' THE DIFFICULTIES SUGGESTED. 



'HAT do you « iint. to lift j'our bee-hives 

 lor, I should like to know?" Why, Mr. 

 Hoot, 1 lilt my bee hives and carry 

 them around .;!(,sf /or /m«. There is no 

 need of it— not a particle; but I have a 

 way ol longing' and thitsting lor exercise, so I go 

 out and carry the beehives Irom one end of the 

 vow to (lie other, then 

 back again. It's loadu 

 of fun. Then I let on 

 that I want to unite two 

 colonies, and it seems to 

 be necessary to have the 

 two Iii\es side by side, or 

 one on top of the other, 

 and I take the hive up as 

 gently as] can, and car- 

 ry it to whore 1 want it. 

 Then when the bees 

 swarm I catch the queen, 

 put her under a goblet 

 on a plate, set her in the 

 shade of the hive, turn --^^^ 



the old hive around so hfting hives for fun. 

 the entrance is in an- 

 other direction, put the now empty hive where the 

 old one used to be, cover the old one with a sheet, 

 let the new swarm come back and run in, let the 

 queen go in with them, then uncover the old hive. 

 In eight days 1 carry that old hive fifteeu or twenty 

 feet away; sometimes a man or a boy or a hired 

 hand helps me. Oftener 1 do it alone, because at 

 the time of day when most bees are flying-, our men 

 are away in the fields at vvt)rk, and they are always 

 cross when the bees sting- them, and the bees al- 

 ways sting- them, and 1 do not like to trouble them 

 about it too much. Then I 

 lift the honey and carry it 

 to the house and round the 

 house to the sitting-room 

 door, and put it in there, 

 because it is the only place 

 where the bees will not get 

 to it and carry it away. 

 I have some of your 

 racks with g-lass sides, 

 holding 27 1-lb. sections; 

 and when they are full they 

 weigh at least ;J0 lbs. I take 

 ott' the crate, at one swoop. 

 I can not bother to g-ouge 

 the sections loose, and 

 take out ten or twenty of them to carry in at once, 

 and then come back for the rest. Besides, where 

 would the robbers be? Most of my honey-boxes 

 are some that I had made to fit the Gallup hives. 

 They lack about one inch of fitting the Simplicity 

 hive, but I put some of the beecloth, covered with 

 propolis, along there, and cover with a strip of 

 oil cloth to keep out the rain, and they do very well. 

 These honey-boxes, when filled, hold 40 lbs., more 



moke LIFTING FOR 



fun. 



^^■,. 



STILL LIFTING, BUT 

 NOT SO FUNNY. 



or less, and I do not loosen the sections if I can 

 help it, till I get them to market. They have very 

 little i)ropolis on them, and need little scraping. 

 These 40-lb. boxes of honey I carry about a good 

 deal during a good honey season. If one colony 

 does not seem to be filling them up to suit me, 1 

 change them about from one hive to another. Of 

 course, they do not weigh 40 lbs. at all times. So 

 altogether 1 find there is considerable lifting to do, 

 besides carrying the hives 

 about jiist for fun. You 

 say, "If you do not like 

 hard work, lift one at a 

 time." But I tell you that 

 1 just " hone " for exercise; 

 so let me carry out a dozen 

 or so of those crates at one 

 time, won't youV 



" Set the cases on a wheel- 

 barrow, etc." Mr. Root, 

 we never had a wheelbar- 

 rovv in our family, and I 

 doubt if we ever shall. Rea- 

 son, too many wants and 

 too few dollars. " When 

 the honey is to be loaded, 

 place the plank on the 



doorstep, with the other end on the wagon, etc." 

 The wagon does not come near enough, and 1 have 

 not any plank; and after the bees are all out of the 

 honey-boxes it is no trouble to get somebody to car- 

 ry them out to the wagon, if the men are about. 



Vermont, 111. Mahala B. Chaddock. 



Very good, Mrs. C; but your logic and 

 pictures have so confused me that [almost 

 forget which is my side of the argument 

 and which is yours. And, by the way, I 

 hardly know, either, whether your excellent 

 pictures have a bearing on one side of the 

 discussion or the other— perliaps both. At 

 any rate, I think you may thank God for 

 your muscular strength and good health to 

 enable you to thus lift hives, honey, etc., 

 around as you may happen to want them. 

 Suppose, now, you are in feeble health, and 

 yet want to keei) bfes, would not the wheel- 

 barrow be a good thing? I am inclined to 

 think, that, even as it is, you will eventual- 

 ly tind it a good thing yourself, especially if 

 you happen to succeed in getting an im- 

 mense crop of honey. I sliotild not wonder. 

 too, if you found it necessary to get a plank 

 as well as a wheelbarrow. 1 am well aware 

 tliat some people think they can not take 

 care of a natural swarm without carrying 

 the parent hive to another location. I have 

 tried lifting hives about in the way you 

 menticm, and I have also tried having each 

 hive that is to contain a new swarm all in 

 readiness before the swarm came out; and I 

 am decidedly in favor of letting the hives 

 stand in their permanent abiding-place, 

 summer and winter, year after year, carry- 

 ing the sWarms to the hives, instead of car- 

 rying the hives to the swarms ; and when we 

 sell bees we liftoiitthe combs and put them in 

 a light shipping-box or in a nice new hive, 

 as our customer may desire, leaving a great 

 heavy chaff hive, that made the bees com- 

 fortable and secure both winter and sum- 

 mer, right on its permanent stand, where it 

 has always stood. 



