1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



47 



is very effective, and easy to run. That this 

 no dead-center-crank movement is the best 

 means of getting power from the legs is prov- 

 en by the fact that it has supplanted all other 

 mechanisms for bicycles, and is now the only 

 movement. 



Even if one buys most of his hive-fixtures 

 he will find this machine very handy for a 

 great variety of purposes, and it is just the 

 season of the year to build it, when the weath- 

 er outside will be too cold or bad to do any 

 thing else. 



If you enjoy this kind of work as I did 

 once, you will get "just piles of fun out of 

 it " as well as real profit. I sometimes wish I 

 were free to go back to those old days now. 

 Besides the pleasure derived, the experience 

 gained in "making things" has been worth 

 much to me in after-years ; for now I am bet- 

 ter able to understand mechanical construc- 

 tions and p )ssibilities, and I would not give 

 up what I then learned in the loft of that dear 

 old barn, where I spent many a happy hour 

 alone with my tools, for half what I got out 

 of my college days. Possibly if it had not 

 been for these attractions and my mother's 

 watchful eye I should have found pleasure on 

 the streets, and then — I dare not think. — Ed.] 



A VISIT TO A CUBAN APIARY. 



The Horse that Was Named "Coggshall" after 

 Coggshall the Bee-keeper. 



BY HARRY HOWE. 



Senor Ernesto Aguilera, The A. I. Root Co. 's 

 representative here, asked me to go with 

 him to see one of his apiaries one day. When 

 we started the party consisted of Senor 

 Agui'era, Senor Smidt, the apiarist from 

 another of Aguilera' s apiaries ; Fred Cray- 

 craft, who acted as interpreter, and myself. 

 We had a very pleasant drive of fifteen miles 

 or so over one of the splendid stone roads to a 

 small village, where we turned off on to a dirt 

 road as poor as the other was good. It was 

 two or three miles back to the apiary. At 

 one place the road was several feet below 

 the level of the fields for quite a way. This, 

 they said, was because the water which ran in 

 the road, when it rained, had cut it down. 

 The mudholes which still remained attested 

 the truth of the statement. 



One of the insane- asylums of the city of 

 Havana is out on this road, but I saw it only at 

 a distance. The apiary is located across the 

 tracks from a railroad station, in plain sight of 

 the passengers. There is a water-tank here 

 which looks like a huge iron cup with a flaring 

 rim. 



This station is Aguarda del Cura. I have 

 seen many fine apiaries in the course of 

 my rambles, but never one to equal this. 

 There are 250 colonies, all in new ten- 

 frame Dovetailed hives. These are arranged 

 in four quadrangles, with the hives all facing 

 in, or away from the broad paths from which 

 they are worked. The space inside the quad- 

 rangles is set to bananas, while many noble 

 old trees furnish the indispensable shade. 



There is also a row of bananas all the way 

 around the apiary. The apiarist, Senor Prado, 

 evidently has an eye for beauty as well as 

 Senor Aguilera, for he had a garden at one 

 side of the honey-house, in which are growing 

 not only fine vegetables, but various ornamen- 

 tal plants, while a row of sunflowers added the 

 suggestion of the North, which was needed to 

 complete the picture. The hives are placed 

 rather close together on timbers, about a foot 

 above the ground. The hives are painted in 

 about as many tints and shades of about as 

 many colors as one can imagine. I did not 

 ask how it happened, but it looked as though 

 some color-blind painter had bought a job lot 

 of small cans of paint, and then commenced 

 on the first one he came to, and used it half 

 up ; then as fast as the can got low he poured 

 in some from some other color. Or it may be 

 it was done on purpose to help the bees find 

 their way home. The general effect was rather 

 pleasing, as it was set off by the deep red of 

 the soil and the rich green of the tropical 

 foliage. 



Of course I asked questions, lots of them ; 

 in fact, I have a list which I fire at every bee- 

 keeper I meet here. 



The same old eight vs. ten-frame controversy 

 holds good here as well as in the States, so my 

 question as to why one size is used is sure to 

 set up an argument. The bees in this apiary 

 are on the average a pretty good lot of Italians. 

 At one side of this apiary is a drinking-trough 

 for the bees. It is a shallow trough, cut into 

 a big block of porous stone, into which water 

 drips from a barrel. What overflows from the 

 trough soaks down the side of the block, and 

 the bees seem to like to get it here better than 

 on top. 



The whole apiary is a garden. There was 

 scarcely a spear of grass except where it was 

 wanted. Senor A. says he expects soon to 

 have a flag-pole on which will be a string of 

 flags — the Cuban flag, the United States flag, 

 the flag of the apiary, and a streamer with 

 "The A. I. Root Co." on it. He raises con- 

 siderable comb honey, so in the honey-house 

 were stacks of Danzy sections and cases, fence 

 separators, and all the rest of it. This house 

 has a wide porch on two sides, a tile roof, a 

 good hard-wood floor, and all of the kinks to 

 delight the heart of the bee enthusiast, except 

 the arrangements for extracting. Perhaps I 

 am just a little cracked on the subject, but it 

 looks to me like a waste of valuable energy to 

 have the extractor set up on a platform four 

 feet high, and then lift all the combs of honey 

 up there. I prefer to lift the honey after it is 

 extracted if it must be lifted at all. Then the 

 capping arrangements were seven or eight feet 

 from the extractor instead of " right handy." 



It is almost impossible to get photographs 

 of the apiaries here, if they are not in sheds, 

 owing to the bananas, etc., which shut off the 

 views. 



In the case of this apiary, the day I was 

 there was cloudy and windy — not very good 

 for either snap-shots or time exposure. On 

 the way back I noticed that the horse seemed 

 to have a rather queer name ; and after I began 

 to notice it, it seemed some way familiar, so I 



