480 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



more I thought there must be some providence 

 in it. 



As my bicycle had been left behind, I 

 engaged a livery rig to take me out to Mr. 

 West's home. Unfortunately, both Mr. and 

 Mrs. West were out on a tour of selling honey, 

 and would not be back for a week ; but one 

 son and daughter were at home, and the man 

 who helped to take care of the bees. 



A beautiful hill (for which New York is 

 famed) stands back of the homestead and 

 home apiary. I snapped my Kodak on it 

 twice, taking in the apiary in the foreground; 

 but, unfortunately, the film was poor. But I 

 later secured a picture of Mr. West himself — 

 a very familiar face at bee-conventions. 



At the time of my former trip, 1890, Mr. 

 West was using nail-spaced or staple-spaced 

 frames. He was still using them last summer, 

 but was slowly introducing into his apiaries 

 the Hetherington - Ouinby closed-end frame. 

 I do not remember distinctly now, but I be- 

 lieve, all things considered, he preferred this 

 frame, both for winter and for general han- 

 dling. His son pulled apart one of these 

 hives, while I with Kodak stood ready to take 

 in the whole method of manipulation ; but 

 owing to aforesaid poor film, and to the fact 

 that the bees were " fighting mad," my shots 

 did not amount to any thing. I managed to 

 press the button three or four times, in spite 

 of the bees. The buckwheat flow had only 

 just about closed; and as the morning air was 

 a little cool, the West bees did not seem to 

 take kindly to having me prying into their 

 affairs. 



Mr. West, like all inventors, has an inter- 

 esting workshop ; and during the odd days 

 w'hen he can not do much else, he evidentl}^ 

 enjoys himself "making things." I should 

 judge so from the numerous ingenious con- 

 trivances of various construction here and 

 there, among which was the West queen-cell 

 protector, queen-cage for virgin queens, and 

 the West bee-escape. 



WORK AT OUR OUT- YARD; SMOKER FUEI,. 



I AM having lots of fun now at our out- 

 yard; and the more I handle bees the more I 

 am convinced there is something new to learn, 

 or, rather, some old new thing that has been 

 overlooked. For instance, did you never dis- 

 cover that, when using excelsior or shaving- 

 fuel (planer-shavings), you get far better re- 

 sults by using a little rotten wood with them ? 

 The last named serves to hold the fire, and 

 prevents the smoker from going out at a crit- 

 ical moment when the shavings are about 

 burned out. About as nice a thing as I have 

 found yet is to take an old dry limb of a tree, 

 bone-dry, and snap it up into right lengths. 

 Four or five of these, about as large as one's 

 finger, are to be mixed in with the shaving 

 fuel; then, my, oh my ! I am ready to bom- 

 bard the worst bees or hornets in regular 

 Dewey fashion. 



BEE-SUIT. 



Oh, yes ! I have gotten a great deal of com- 

 fort out of a pair of overalls with apron front 

 — that is, just about such overalls as machin- 



ists, firemen, and engineers use. Mrs. R. 

 says I have a great fashion of soiling my 

 clothes with honey, wax, and propolis — more 

 often the last named. It has been such a 

 bother to change my clothes that I have been 

 in the habit of going to the oiit-yard with my 

 nice "how-do-you-do?" every-day business 

 suit. Well, now the program is all changed. 

 With a pair of overalls, with bib (or apron) 

 front, the bib coming almost to my chin, and 

 being held up by shoulder-straps hitched to 

 the rear elevation of pants (sometimes when 

 I get tired of standing), it is a real comfort to 

 get down on my knees in the dirt, and feel 

 that I am not spoiling good clothes by the op- 

 eration. By the way, these overall suits can 

 be procured with handy pockets so that small 

 tools like a scraping-knife, screwdriver, etc., 

 can be within convenient reach. 



AN AUTOMATIC CONTRIVANCE FOR CATCHING 

 OUEENS. 



After 3^ou had hunted through a powerful 

 colony for the queen to clip her and could 

 not find her, and hunted again, with the same 

 result, did you never wish you had a sort of 

 machine that would do the work something 

 after the fashion of a trap to catch a mouse, 

 except that the mouse in this case would be 

 the queen ? Suppose, for instance, you could 

 raise the cover and slip a — well, a rigamajig 

 between the frames, put the cover down, and 

 let it stand till the next day. S'pos'n you 

 could go to this hive, and a lot more like it 

 similarly rigged out, lift out your rigamajig 

 with the queen in it; clip her wings, and let 

 her loose in the hive again. 



Perhaps this speculation is rather wnld. I 

 am inclined to think so myself, for I really do 

 not see how a trap could be devised that 

 would do the work — unless a Porter bee-escape 

 in connection with a cage of some sort. But 

 here is the rub: What shall we do for a bait to 

 get the queen to the trap ? I do not know of 

 any thing unless it be a queen-cell containing 

 a virgin qneen, of which the reigning mother 

 might be so jealous as to crawl into the bee- 

 escape in order to destroy the cell. 



Well, I shall have to stop speculating. If 

 some one else has discovered something that 

 will catch the queen and save this everlasting 

 job of hunting when we go through the apia- 

 ry every year to clip queens, well, I shall rise 

 up and call him blessed. 



But, say ! look here. Is not the best solu- 

 tion of the problem, after all, an Alley trap? 

 That saves mutilating the queen's wings, is 

 ever ready to catch the queen, and, besides, 

 will trap the drones upstairs, where they die, 

 no longer loafers and idle consumers of the 

 treasure of the hive. The old-style Alley 

 traps had too small an amount of perforated- 

 zinc surface. The new style has more surface, 

 and more holes to the square inch. 



A PRY FOR SEPARATING HIVE-BODIES. 



For the last few days I have been trying va- 

 rious sorts of pries in lieu of a screwdriver — 

 putty-knives, scrapers, and all sorts of tools; 

 and so far the best one I have seen or tried, 

 rather, is the one made by E. P. Churchill. 

 Here is what he says about it : 



