1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



blocks even then. Did you ever use an er- 

 tran>.e Ji inch deep through the season ? We 

 expect to change all our bottom-boards next 

 season by nailing on a rim )'2 inch thick. — Ed.] 



Hasty doesn't relish honey as keenly as 20 

 years ago, but has a growing appetite for half 

 a pound at a sitting. Thinks it a " pestilent 

 idea " that it isn't good form to eat any more 

 honey at table than one would politely eat of 

 butter, and that honey ought to be regarded 

 "as a thing to be sailed into for all one's 

 appetite calls for, like bread or potatoes." 

 He says bee-keepers bolster up the homeo- 

 pathic style of eating by selling very small 

 packages, and by the inflated prices put upon 

 these little morsels. [I am selfish enough to 

 hope friend Hasty is right ; but 1 am almost 

 positive I could not eat half a pound of honey 

 at a meal day after day. I might do it, per- 

 haps, two or three times running. If any one 

 can beat friend Hasty in eating honey, I hope 

 he will hold up his hands. — Ed.] 



I'm puzzled to know why there should be 

 so much difference about large entrances in- 

 ducing robbing. Some say raising hives on 

 blocks is too great a temptation to robbers. 

 Lots of my hives are hoisted ^4 to an inch, 

 and never a case of robbing. In the fall, just 

 when robbers are worst, entrances are all 12x2. 

 Never a hive is robbed if it's all right inside ; 

 and if it isn't, contracting the entrance won't 

 save it. [Yes, indeed. If a colony is strong 

 enough to be of any service it is strong enough 

 to defend itself against robbers, even with a 

 wide entrance. But assuming that bees have 

 a better chance to rob with large entrances, 

 there is no law to prevent reducing the size of 

 such an entrance to a point where robbers 

 would not stand much of a show ; but if, on 

 the other hand, the hive has a small entrance, 

 and the colony is overpopulous ( or, perhaps I 

 had better say, just in the right trim for work- 

 ing in the sections), there is no power on earth 

 that can enlarge the entrance without prying 

 the bottom-board off or mutilating the hive. 

 —Ed.] 



The Trip Back Home ; Foul Brood a Slow-working 

 Disease. 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



We arrived in Lincoln in time to attend the 

 convention. I took a keen interest in the 

 work of that meeting, and particularly in the 

 organizing of the United States Bee-keepers' 

 Union. I am yet very much interested in it, 

 and will later have somewhat to say in regard 

 to it. 



From Lincoln we again went eastward, 



crossing the " Big Muddy " at Nebraska City. 

 There is some fine country between Lincoln 

 and the river. We saw a few hives here and 

 there along the route, but did not come in 

 contact with any apiarists. We had an invi- 

 tation to visit with a Mr. J. H. Stephens, at 

 Riverton, Iowa. Mr. Stephens lives a few 

 miles off the Missouri bottoms, in the bluffs. 

 Just as we left Lincoln it began to rain on us, 

 so we had some mud as we drove to the home 

 of Mr. Stephens, and it was in the gumbo 

 soil on the Missouri bottom that we stuck in 

 the mud for the first time on the trip. I have 

 no doubt that we could have pulled through 

 the mud-hole, but Bill horse put a front foot 

 into a rut and then set the hind foot on top of 

 it, and so threw himself. I quickly loosed 

 him from the wagon and other horse, when 

 he scrambled to his feet, seeming none the 

 worse for the trouble. I then laid down the 

 fence by the roadside, and, with picket-ropes, 

 hitched to the end of the tongue ; but Bill 

 DuUed once to find that the wagon stuck, then 

 refused to do any more. A passing team, 

 however, pulled us out, and we went on re- 

 joicing, and were soon at the hospitable home 

 of Mr. Stephens. He has an eighty-acre farm 

 and a nice home, lying in a little valley sur- 

 rounded by timber and hills. He certainly 

 has a fine location for bees. He had less than 

 50 colonies, but said they were more profitable 

 than his farm.. He is also interested in thor- 

 oughbred swine. 



From here we passed on about a day's drive, 

 and pulled up where the Muser spent his boy- 

 hood days. I drove directly to my old home, 

 and stopped on the farm where 1 spent over 

 twenty years of the prime of my life. It was 

 there I began my bee-keeping career over 

 twenty years ago. I think it was about the 

 year 1874, probably, that I started with one 

 colony, and then, before I was yet 21 years of 

 age, I chose apiculture as my life business, 

 and began the study of it with a view to keep- 

 ing abreast if not ahead of the times. 



It was while under the parental roof that 

 some of the most bitter experiences of my life 

 came upon me. It was there that I was taught, 

 by bitter sorrow, that " whom the Lord loveth 

 he chasteneth," and from there, through finan- 

 cial reverses, my aged father and mother went 

 out homeless and penniless. To-day others 

 reap the harvest from the planting by the fin- 

 gers that pencil these words. It was on that 

 old farm where I learned some of the first and 

 best apicultural lessons of my life, and where 

 I made the greatest honey-yield of my life, 

 227 pounds surplus per colony, spring count, 

 and increased from 11 to 28. The seasons 

 have since changed, however, and for the past 

 few ye irs but little honey has been produced, 

 and many bees have perished. 



I want to relate a little foul-brood experi- 

 ence. It was on our journey that I met ■wdth 

 it. At one place we called on a bee-keeper 

 who was well read in regard to the pursuit. 

 It was his practice, however, to allow his bees 

 to swarm, and never to open the brood-cham- 

 ber. He said the bees had been robbing two 

 colonies, and it seemed as though he could not 

 stop them. As we looked through the yard 



aH^\o 



