1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



841 



mine. I at least tliink I know how it ought to 

 be done. Had I received your letter a little 

 sooner I should have modified my mieries some- 

 what on page 4(53, American Bee Journnl. In 

 the first query my idea was more to poke a lit- 

 tle fun at yon than any thing else. 



If I am not laboring under a false impression 

 you have been using the "Shane apiary " for 

 queen-rearing; consequently your colonies are 

 not full of bees. Say I I really have got " bush- 

 els and bushels" of bees in my hives; and I 

 borrowed the expression, " bushels and bushels," 

 from Gleanings. I think it was in an article 

 (and in the note under it) by Mr. Oliver Foster; 

 any way, it was in an article from some one in 

 Iowa. However, if you have any doubts about 

 it, next summer, when I am ready to move my 

 bees, bring your own measure and come and 

 measure them. If I don't have the '" bushels 

 and bushels'" of bees in my hives I will pay all 

 of your expenses and *100 per day for your time 

 coming and going. I don't even claim that I 

 have a bushel in the best hive that I have, but 

 that all of my hives collectively contain bushels 

 and bushels. 



Why. my Christian friend, I am not disgusted 

 with fixed frames. Were I to begin again I 

 would have no other kind. Still, I would have 

 them much larger than the Simplicity. One of 

 the greatest advantages of the closed-end 

 frames you don't seem to appreciate; and that 

 isin wintering and in breeding up in the spring, 

 as the closed-end frames prevent all circulation 

 around the edges of the frames. 



I always look for the editorials over E. R., 

 and Notes from the Home of the Honey-bees, 

 the first thing I do when I receive Gleanings. 

 I find that horses are frequently overloaded 

 and abused all over the country. I sometimes 

 overload them myself. I have suffocated more 

 than one lot of bees by not giving air enough. 

 Think what a faithful old horse receives for all 

 of his hard work! See what kind of old musty 

 hay lots of them receive 1 Lots of horses receive 

 feed so badly spoiled that it actually gives 

 them disease from which they never recover. 

 I think your article would have a tendency to 

 encourage some of your readers not only to 

 overload their hoi'ses, but to smother some of 

 their strong colonies of hees. 



I'll admit at once that 1 nave a very vivid 

 imagination, and I really enjoy it at times very 

 much. To convince you of the fact, I can im- 

 agine just how you looked and felt when it 

 began to i-ain before you had your bees fastened 

 in the hives. I can imagine how you felt after 

 you had carried about a dozen hives around 

 that house and ducked your head down to keep 

 from knocking your hat off. Perhaps a limb 

 caught in your veil ~and tore a hole in it. A 

 bee might have stung you on the back of the 

 neck, or your eye-glasses have got so much rain 

 on them that you would have to stop frequent- 

 ly to wipe them. I can imagine how you look- 

 ed while you were "crawling" over that fence 

 with a hive of bees in your arms. But really I 

 can't imagine why you did not lay the fence 

 down out of your way. I can imagine how 

 tired you were when you got home. I can im- 

 agine how a nice little woman sat up and wait- 

 ed for you. and had a nice warm supper ready 

 for you when you got home. I might go on nd 

 inflnituin. I really don't know what erroneous 

 statements I have made. I know that roads 

 through a gravelly i-egion do not get muddy. 

 My imagination did not take this fact into con- 

 sideration. I have now three teams hauling 

 straw to the glass-works. We have hauled 120 

 loads since Sept. 1. Every load is weighed, and 

 every wagon is weighed after it is unloaded. 

 One who has had no experience has no idea how 

 the weight of a wagon 'varies, especially in wet 



weather. I intend to begin to move my Dees 

 out of the bottom Saturday night. Then I shall 

 have some more experience. I want to say 

 right here before I close, that the very best 

 strains of bees that I have in mv apiaries are 

 from stock received from Mr. A. I. Root. I like 

 Gleanings, and evei'y number is read through 

 from beginning to end. and looked forward to 

 eagerly. A. N. Dkapek. 



Upper Alton, 111., Oct. 8. 



[I would say to our readers, that, although 

 this may seem like a hard-set-to controversy, 

 friend Draper and I are on the best of terms: 

 and I am heartily glad that he has picked me 

 up on a number of points, because it gives me 

 opportunity to explain things that might possi- 

 bly have been misunderstood by othei'S. For 

 instance, I spoke about loading 57 hives on one 

 wagon, and having one team pull the same. 

 Friend Draper has drawn out the fact that we 

 used a heavy Clydesdale team, and that the 

 roads were not muddy, but more of a gravelly 

 nature. It was easy work for them. If some 

 of our readers should try to imitate our example 

 with ordinary farm horses, in muddy roads, 

 with hives overloaded with bees, they might 

 come to grief; but with all the facts before us, 

 there can be no confusion. Another thing: We 

 learn that, instead of being disgusted with fixed 

 frames, he is an admirer of them. 



Why, bless you. friend Draper, we did let the 

 fence down to about two rails high. As there 

 was an overspreading tree right close to the 

 fence, we had to do some crawling over said 

 fence. See? The second time, your imagina- 

 tion very nearly hit the case. You have been 

 just there yourself. I see. I did have a nice 

 warm supper awaiting me; and, best of all, 

 that queen of the household did not worry her- 

 self sick for fear I had been kicked or stung to 

 death. You see, she loves those two big horses, 

 and had confidence that they would pull the 

 load and bring us home safe.] E. R.D 



FEEDING IN FALL. 



winter stores. 



For the last two weeks I have had the very 

 unpleasant task of feeding for winter stores for 

 the bees. For four or five years I have been 

 able to avoid this entirely: but this fall we 

 have had to feed between twelve and fifteen 

 pounds of sugar syrup, with a small proportion 

 of honey in it. I do not know that I am about 

 to give any thing new on this question; but as 

 far as I can remember it is new to me, and it 

 may be to othtu's. 



I thought I would try to make strong colonies, 

 and those best able to defend their stores, do 

 the storing in the combs. My object in this 

 was. first, to not excite all the bees— something 

 which I think they are especially apt to do 

 when we commence feeding. Next I thought 

 there would be a lesser liability to waste when 

 ten colonies were fed 100 lbs. than if twenty 

 were fed the same quantity. Again, the stronger 

 colonies could do the ripening better and more 

 quickly. Again, Italians would best defend 

 tlieir stores. So I put or left upper stories on 

 some of the colonies, and fed them sufficiently 

 to whiten out the cells in the upper-story 

 combs; and when they ceased to take down the 

 syrup readily I removed the feeder; and after a 

 few days, given to ripen the syrup, I put these 

 full combs into the upper story in hives that 

 had no honey. I found this work very satis- 

 factory indeed, and I would recommend it to 

 any one from present experience. I preferred 

 colonies having no honey to those having some, 



