1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



937 



Journal his always been a standard publica- 

 tion, it now stands head and shoulders higher 

 than it ever did before. Always typographi- 

 cally neat, always punctual, a practical, up-to- 

 date weekly, it fills a niche by itself, for no 

 other bee-paper has "sand" enough to make 

 weekly visits. 



Miss Hutchinson (the whole family for that 

 matter) has contributed in no small degree to 

 her father's success, and it is also with no lit- 

 tle pleasure that I present her picture — with 

 the other two editors, I was going to say. Who 

 knows but she may some day slip into her fa- 

 ther's editorial shoes, just as another has done? 



I take pleasure, therefore, in introducing to 

 von Editor G. W. York, of the American Bee 

 Journal; Editor W. Z. Hutchinson, of the 

 Bee-keepers^ Review, and Miss Editor, or, per- 

 haps, more properly speaking, Miss Compos- 

 itor. 



THOSE PRIZE PICTURFS. 



In our last issue I promised to set before 

 you the series of prize pictures entitled " A 

 Good Catch." Well, here they are. I agreed 

 that I would not give the names of the young 

 ladies whose faces and figures grace our pages, 

 and I shall stick to agreement ; but if any 

 good-looking bachelor without gray hairs or 

 baldness (and we have lots of them in our 

 ranks) desires to know their whereabouts, he 

 might possibly get their names by writing to 

 those who took the pictures of the subjects. 



One of the pictures, the fourth of the series, 

 is what is called a wash-drawing, and is there- 

 fore an ideal picture in that it depicts a scene 

 that is photographed first on the artists' s 

 mind's eye. 



While it was " nip and tuck " between three 

 of the pictures, the photograph by Mr. W. Z. 

 Hutchinson was given the first position be- 

 cause of the " foliage background " that soar 

 tistically sets off the rest, or principal part of 

 the picture. 



The first prize picture appears as a frontis- 

 piece in our ABC book ; and the one by 

 J. O. Shearman will appear in our honey- 

 leaflet along with a series of other engrav- 

 ings showing the various stages of the art of 

 producing honey. 



LOCALITY, AND ITS BEARING ON BEE-KEEP- 

 ING IN COLORADO. 



Locality is often made to cover up a mul- 

 titude of sins — or, rather, a multitude of op- 

 posing opinions of various bee-keepers. While 

 it does, no doubt, account for many of them, 

 more of these diversities may be traced to pure 

 prejudice and preconceived notions. Yet if 

 there is any place in the United States where 

 locality does necessitate a change in methods 

 it is in Colorado. 



When a bee-keeper moves from the East to 

 that State he must unlearn some of his old 

 plans of work, and adopt new ones. The alti- 

 tudes of some portions of the State ; the ab- 

 sence of rain; irrigation; an entirely different 

 flora, all go to make up a different set of con- 

 ditions. While the average temperature in 

 winter is about the same as in Ohio, yet, on 



account of the absence of moisture in the at- 

 mosphere, colonies may be wintered in single- 

 walled hives with only a thin layer of absorb- 

 ents on top. Indeed, I was told that double- 

 walled hives and an excess of packing is worse 

 than useless. Colonies packed as we prepare 

 them in this locality would not winter as well 

 as in single-walled hives. A dry cold atmos- 

 phere is not nearly so destructive to bee life as 

 the same temperature here with moisture. If 

 I had been chilled through in Ohio as I was 

 on occasions in Colorado I should have had a 

 severe cold ; but no bad results followed in 

 that dry State. 



The matters of spreading brood, and early 

 spring preparation, have to be handled in an 

 entirely different way. 



The effect of the dry climate on the hives, 

 especially hive-covers, is simply astounding to 

 a tenderfoot. Indeed, I never could have be- 

 lieved that lumber would shrink from % to y% 

 to the foot, and that nails would actually work 

 clear out of the boards, if I had not seen just 

 these things with my own eyes. 



Moth-millers are unknown in Colorado, and, 

 as a consequence, no fear need be entertained 

 that combs and comb honey will be damaged 

 by any such sort of pest. 



Black bees are another minus quantity in the 

 State. I was surprised to find in all the yards 

 such nicely marked Italians everywhere. 



There are other queer conditions, but to 

 these I shall refer in future issues. 



THE WILD AND WOOLLY WEST ; BEE-KEEPING 

 IN COLORADO. 



Almost as if it were a delightful dream I 

 look back upon my ten-days' sojourn in Colo- 

 rado — a land of the barking prairie-dogs and 

 howling coyotes; of the awe-inspiring Rockies 

 with their lofty peaks ; of gold and silver, of 

 copper and iron, of alfalfa and sweet clover ; 

 and, not least, the land where the sweetest 

 and finest and thickest honey in the world is 

 produced. The ordinary magazine article 

 would lead one to believe that the "wild and 

 woolly West" consists of fighting "Injuns," 

 six-shooter cowboys with their bucking bron- 

 chos, desperado miners filled with poor whisky, 

 and — some other folks living in tents, prairie- 

 schooners, huts, or dugouts. The fact is, the 

 ordinary writer sees only the unusual and the 

 extraordinary; and when he attempts to en- 

 lighten the "tenderfoot" he makes it appear 

 as if the great plains and the mountains were 

 filled with this kind of folk, when, in fact, it 

 is only a very small part of the real popula- 

 tion. 



As to cowboys, I didn't see one real live 

 specimen. Miners I saw, lots of them, but 

 they appeared to be real gentlemen in soiled 

 work clothes. Of bee-keepers I saw many 

 more, but only a small portion of the actual 

 number in the State ; for I am informed by 

 Sec. Rauchfuss, of the Colorado State Bee- 

 keepers' Association, that there are 2000, by 

 count, notwithstanding that only one-tenth of 

 the State is in actual cultivation. Bee-keep- 

 ing is confined almost exclusively to the irri- 

 gated regions where alfalfa is grown. But of 

 this I shall have more to say at another time. 



