720 



GIvEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



how we came to try the small ten-frame L,. 

 hives side by side with the large hives. 



For a number of years we imported bees 

 from Italy, and we were in the habit of selling 

 colonies with breeding queens every spring. 

 This was 20 to 24 years ago, when bees were 

 scarcer than they are now. Our Quinby or 

 American hives were not so suitable for sale 

 as the Langstroth, for the great majority of 

 the bee-keepers of this country' were already 

 using the Langstroth hive, and it thus became 

 necessary for us to use these hives in order to 

 be able to furnish them to our customers. So, 

 having accidentally undertaken the care of an 

 apiary of 110 colonies in Langstroth ten-frame 

 hives, that belonged to a friend, we decided 

 to build a number of such hives for our own 

 use, and temporarily keep them in our apiary. 

 This was done, and we had occasion, in this 

 manner, to test about 60 colonies in ten-frame 

 Langstroths, which were, a little later, placed 

 side by side with a number of our eleven- 

 frame Ouinby hives. This ended in the trans- 

 fer of all the colonies into large hives, subse- 

 quently, after perhaps eight or ten years of 

 trial. Are we deceiving ourselves in the 

 results? If we are, so are the farmers on 

 whose places these out-apiaries have been lo- 

 cated ; for they universally say that they see 

 the large crops come off the large hives. 



In my next I will speak of the change that 

 has taken place in Europe in the size of hives. 



Hamilton, 111. 



[Referring to the last paragraph, in which 

 Mr. Dadant says he secures more honey with 

 the ten-frame Langstroth, and that his farmer 

 neighbors round about him secure the same 

 results, I take pleasure in stating that I have 

 talked with some of these same neighbors, 

 and their universal testimony is to that effect. 



Mr. Dadant seems doubtful about two-story 

 eight-frame Langstroth colonies being able to 

 rear as much brood as the large Ouinbys. I 

 grant that there is something in his point to 

 the effect that, with the large hives and large 

 frames, the queen-breeding capacity can be 

 extended more gradually than with the two- 

 story eight-frame Langstroth. But I have 

 usually found that, when the lower hive was 

 filled full of brood and bees, the extra 

 story given at one time would be none too big. 

 But I am frank to acknowledge that I wish 

 the eight-frame hivewere more contractible and 

 expansible than it is. I have, therefore, made 

 use of extracting-supers of half Langstroth 

 depth whenever it seemed that the whole 

 Langstroth brood-nest would be too great an 

 increase in hive capacity at one time. 



Mr. Dadant makes one point that will bear 

 a little emphasis ; namel}-, that the queen's 

 breeding capacity is regulated somewhat, at 

 least, by the brood-nest. — Ed.] 



RAMBLE 153. 

 A Visit with W. T. Richardson. 



BY RAMBLER. 



"Hello, Sail' how do the zephyrs strike 

 you in the tree-tops? " 



That is just what I felt like shouting; but I 

 put a brake upon that inner nature that is 

 sometimes liable to be unmannerly and lead 

 a fellow into trouble. I desired to shout be- 

 cause I espied a woman up a tree. 



Now, if there is any one place where a 

 woman looks as though she had mislaid her 

 sphere it is when climbing a tree ; there is 

 nothing graceful in the performance. Maud 

 Muller up a tree would never have captured 

 the judge. This woman was trying to add 

 grace by sawing off a limb ; but there was a 

 sad, scared, hesitating movement that would 

 not allow her to get beyond Kipling's char- 

 acterization of woman — " a bone, a rag, a hank 

 of hair." 



When I drew a little nearer I was glad I 

 curbed my desire to shout, for there was a big 

 man at the foot of the ladder. I silently 

 passed by on the far side of the road ; for a 

 man who will send a timid woman up a tree 

 to saw wood is fit for strategems and spoils 

 and various other unaccountable things, and I 

 did not wish to be spoiled in that lone place. 



This incident occurred while I was on my 

 way up through the San Fernando Valley. 

 This valley stretches away from the east por- 

 tion of the city of Los Angeles thirty miles to 

 the north, and it is fully twenty miles in 

 width. Large grain-ranches are located here. 

 The Lankersheim ranch contains some thirty- 

 five thousand acres; and, though this journey 

 was taken early in March, the lack of moisture 

 was beginning to make itself felt, and the 

 great grain-fields were looking sickly. 



I had a few gates to open, as we always do 

 on these big ranches, for it is cheaper to put 

 in a gate between the great fields than it is to 

 fence the road. I finally drove into the plaza 

 of the buildings of one of the ranches. In 

 front of one of the buildings two ranch hands 

 were lounging, and deriving comfort from cob 

 pipes. I felt free to say hello to these fellows, 

 and, by way of a joke, I said, as I drove 

 straight up to the building, "Well, I see I 

 have got to the end of the road." But there 

 were no jokes in those fellows. With noth- 

 ing to do upon these ranches the prospects 

 ahead were serious for them, and they viewed 

 every thing else in the same light. 



"And is it after driving through gates and 

 corrals that yer expect to find the end of the 

 road in this one? " said one of the men as he 

 jerked his pipe from his mouth. "Yer mis- 

 taken, sir ; turn to the right, and open the 

 gate ye' 11 run against, and proceed, and yer '11 

 soon be on the cotinty road, and see to't yer 

 don't git into another corral." 



As I humbly proceeded I moralized some- 

 what, and remembered that a friend had told 

 me that dry jokes were always a total failure 

 in a dry time, and that the most successful 

 jokers carried along a bottle of bonhommie 

 with which to irrigate their jokes. From his 

 manner of telling it one would suppose they 

 drank the bonhommie ; but I surmise it was 

 used on the pocket handkerchief merely as a 

 nasal stimulant. The moral I deduce is, 

 never carry a bottle of any kind, for there is 

 more bonhommie in a canteen of pure water 

 than in all of the bottled concoctions of man. 



