300 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 15. 



of the Dadant-Blatt system, and about 300 of 

 the Langstroth Simplicity style. These 700 

 hives are divided into five apiaries about two 

 miles apart. So far as harvests are concerned, 

 110 lbs. per hive is the most that has been ex- 

 tracted. This was an apiary of 100 Dadant- 

 Ouinby hives. Deep frames are inconvenient 

 in a climate like that of Chili. 



m 



L'APICULTEUR. 



In our highly esteemed French cotemporary, 

 Z.' Apiculteur, Mr. C. M. Weber comes out 

 vigorously against the practice of clipping the 

 wings of queens as taught by E. R. Root. He 

 says, "This mutilation is contrary to nature. 



. . . Let the Yankees find their profit in 

 these stubby clipped wings ; but as for me, I 

 prefer to let my queens remain winged, just as 

 God created them in order that they might be 

 fertilized." But after they are fertilized, what 

 need have they of wings ? If they serve man's 

 purpose better when clipped, is it not his right 

 to clip them ? Mr. Weber's logic would keep 

 him from clipping lambs' tails ; but the lamb 

 is happier without the tail, even if God did 

 give him one to start life with. Again, if Mr. 

 Weber is right it would be wrong to dehorn 

 cattle ; but if cattle are more useful to man 

 when they are dehorned, surely it can be no 

 more displeasing to God than it would be to 

 cut down a hill to make a railroad, or to cut 

 our hair and finger nails to improve our ap- 

 pearance and enhance our comfort. If clip- 

 ping is condemned it must be done on other 

 grounds ; and in practice Mr. Weber's " other 

 grounds " for not clipping are found to be of 

 no weight. 



<^"^> 



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CUBA. 



Not a Land Flowing with Milk and Honey; Some 



of the Drawbacks ; Fleas; Price of Honey ; 



Cost of Living, etc. 



BY AN AMERICAN TRAMP. 



Gentlemen: — In your letter of the 7th you 

 ask me to send you a few lines about bee- 

 keeping in Cuba as I find it. This I will do, 

 hoping it may be the means of saving some 

 money to my brother bee-keepers who come 

 here, and more to those who stay away. I 

 have just returned from a short trip through 

 the country, and there is no doubt about Cuba 

 being a fair " honey country." Extra large 

 yields like some they have in California and 

 some we had in Florida are not known here. 

 The honey crop here will generally pay a bee- 

 keeper fair wages ; but I find in collecting 

 data that some years are bad here too, so that, 

 in an apiary of 375 hives in the hands of an 

 expert bee-keeper, the crop did not pay him 

 $300 for his year's work. I have seen but one 

 location so far where I should care to risk 



over 300 hives in one place. Along the good 

 roads here one can find an apiary every few 

 miles, and more springing up every day. 

 This, in connection with the farming popula- 

 tion going back to work cultivating the fields, 

 thus destroying the aguinaldo, which is the 

 main stay of the honey crop, is going to re- 

 duce materially the honey-yield yearly. 



The surplus honey-flow is from November 

 till the first of March — some years longer and 

 some years shorter. Most of the honey here 

 is sold in Havana and shipped to Europe in 

 barrels of 90 gallons. The cost of hauling 

 these barrels on the best of roads a distance of 

 eight miles is $2 00 each. One apiary on a 

 railroad pays §2.35 per barrel a distance of 

 about forty miles, and pays 80 cents freight 

 for empty barrels the same distance. On this 

 railroad they charge 13 cents per mile on a 

 third-class passenger ticket. What a first- 

 class ticket was I was afraid to ask. It costs 

 a good deal to get around in Cuba. 



The price of honey this year here is higher 

 than it generally is. The present price is 48 

 cents per gallon. This is because so many 

 apiaries were destroyed during the war. Some 

 years the price has been as low as 24 cents per 

 gallon. In one apiary I visited, the ground 

 between the hives was just carpeted with dead 

 bees, so thick you could not see the ground. 

 The owner did not know what caused it. It 

 was not from robbing or fighting, as it was all 

 over the apiary. Can it be from some poison- 

 ous bloom ? Can any reader tell ? I looked 

 into the hives, but found the bees in the hives 

 in good condition. From what I have been 

 informed by several bee-keepers there is con- 

 siderable foul brood on the island ; but from 

 what I have seen, bees seem to thrive in al- 

 most any condition here. 



You will probably get plenty of matter on 

 the bright side of bee-keeping, so I will give 

 the offset to it. A single man coming here to 

 work in an apiary need not look for big wages. 

 The wages paid bee-keepers is from $15 to $25 

 per month, and board. A man with a family 

 intending to come to live here had better come 

 alone first and see for himself. In the coun- 

 try there are no houses, almost all having 

 been burned by the insurgents, and very few 

 women from their homes in the United States 

 would content themselves to live in these Cu- 

 ban towns or cities, they being very filthy and 

 dirty ; besides, the houses are just alive with 

 fleas. I have had to wash myself with kero- 

 sene oil on going to bed, so as to get some 

 rest ; otherwise the island is quite free from 

 insects, the fleas being the worst. 



The cost of living is also very high, but it is 

 becoming cheaper daily. Flour is $8 00 per 

 barrel ; beef, 30 cents per pound, and all other 

 things in proportion. But kerosene oil caps 

 the climax, selling at retail all the way from 

 50 cents to $1.00 per gallon, and this in a 

 country where you have to burn alcohol, oil, 

 or charcoal (there being no wood), is quite an 

 item. Why ! sixty cents' worth of postage- 

 stamps would cost a dollar here. The only 

 things I have come across here that are cheap 

 are cigars and alcoholic beverages. Just think 

 of it, friend A. I. R. — good cigars two and 



