732 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



terlocking joint. The eaves, both end and 

 side, project beyond the walls three to six 

 feet,' sometimes more, with supporting brack- 

 ets. ' Usually the upper stories project beyond 

 the lower. Wood and other necessaries are 

 often stored under cover of the eaves at each 

 side of the house. 



Wherever there is a rich garden plot in the 

 valley it seems to be a community affair, like 

 the farms in Belgium, judging from the many 

 small plots of vegetables of various kinds, 

 and many of the same kind growing in regu- 

 lar patches. There seems to be more commu- 

 nity of interests, and a greater brotherhood, 

 than we often see in American neighborhoods, 

 and yet I believe that the same brotherly feel- 

 ing and interest exists in many of the frontier 

 settlements, as well as in other places in our 

 own land. After all, human nature is much 

 the same the world over ; and under the up- 

 lifting influence of the gospel of the blessed 

 God, as manifested in Jesus Christ, man's 

 greatest needs are met. And the manifesta- 

 tion of this gospel in the lives of men consists 

 in sharing our blessings with others, especial- 

 ly with those who are in need. " By this shall 

 all men know that ye are my disciples, if 

 ye have love one to another." 



I will try to tell you in my next installment 

 of notes of some of the interesting sights in 

 art and nature that I have seen in these days 

 of wonderful privileges. 



"K^" 



HOW I.ARGE YIELDS OF HONEY ARE SE- 

 CURED. 



" Good evening, Mr. Doolittle. It was such 

 a bright moonlight night that I thought I 

 would run over a little while and have a talk 

 with you about large yields of honey. Do 

 you believe some of the yarns got off in the 

 bee-papers? I have some old papers lent me 

 by neighbor Smith, and in one of them I see 

 a report of over 600 pounds of honey from a 

 single colony during one year. Can there be 

 any truth in such a statement? " 



"Well, friend Church, I think there is truth 

 in the statement ; for in 1877 I secured 566 

 pounds of honey from one colony of bees, and 

 so reported to several of the bee-papers of that 



time." . 



"Whew! But wasn't that a big thing? 



"This was considered as a large yield at 

 that time, and is still so considered by begin- 

 ners and those who are not familiar with the 

 records of the eighties, during which there 

 were several yields made of from 600 to near- 

 y or quite 1000 pounds from single colonies, 

 the truth of which could not well be doubt- 

 ed." 



" Bat how is such a thing possible ? " 



"To have you best understand I will tell 



oa s omething about that colony which gave 



6 pounds in 1877. That spring I select 



ed an average colony of bees and set it apart 

 for extracted honey, intending, of course, to 

 do the best I could with it. This colony was 

 no better than half of the apiary would aver- 

 age, and was not helped in the least from any 

 other colony. I built them up as fast as pos- 

 sible by the means usually emplo) ed, that of 

 spreading the brood and keeping as warm as 

 possible without artificial heat, as is frequently 

 given in our bee papers and books. By the 

 time apple-trees were in bloom the queen had 

 brood in twelve frames, and from that source 

 I extracted, according to my diary of that 

 year, 16^ pounds, besides leaving them 

 enough to tide over the time of scarcity be- 

 tween apple-bloom and white clover." 



"You speak of 12 frames. Is not that a 

 large hive? " 



" Well, yes. But a few days after, these 12 

 frames, bees and all, we set into a hive four 

 feet long, and a division-board placed at the 

 rear of the combs. Once a week two more 

 combs were inserted in the center of the brood- 

 nest until the hive contained twenty combs 

 quite well filled with brood." 



" Say, Doolittle, aren't you yarning it ? My 

 best colonies do not have over seven or eight 

 frames of brood." 



"If you will allow me to go on with my 

 story I think you will see through the whole 

 thing soon." 



"Excuse me. I'll try not to interrupt 

 again." 



"As white clover was now yielding honey, 

 the hive was filled out with frames of empty 

 comb, the whole number in the hive now be- 

 ing 32. I did not expect that the queen would 

 occupy any of these last 12 combs, but in this 

 I was mistaken ; for before white clover was 

 through yielding honey I found brood in every 

 one of the 32 combs, which, if placed com- 

 pactly together, was fully equal to 15 frames 

 solid full of brood. Each frame gave fully 

 100 square inches, and each square inch gives 

 50 worker bees If exact, it would be about 

 5d, but we will call it 50 as that figures a little 

 more easily. Hence there were 5000 to hatch 

 out of each of these frames every 21 days, or 

 75,000 from the 15 frames." 



" My ! but what a lot of them ! " 



"Yes; but you were to keep still The 

 average life of the bee, in the working season, 

 is 45 days ; so j ou will see that the queen 

 could place two and one-seventh generations 

 of bees on the stage of action to where one 

 generation dies off. Two and one-seventh 

 times 75,000 equals 160,700 as the number of 

 bees in that hive during the basswood yield." 



"O Doolittle !" 



"If I had not been there myself I could 

 have hardly believed it. It was a sight worth 

 beholding when the bees were just starting 

 out for the fields in the morning, for they 

 would rush out like an army, and then, later, 

 the entrance would be one living mass going 

 to and fro. From clover they gave 1 86 pounds; 

 from basswood, 287 >^ pounds ; and from buck- 

 wheat, 76 pounds, making the 566 in all. 

 Here are the figures in my diary of that 

 year." 



" Well, I should think you did do the best 



