142 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Mar. 1 



Fig. VI.— A view in the apiary of Mr. Shoemaker, Cuerna Vaca, Max., incidentally showing one of his 

 Mexican helpers with a swarm he had just brought down from the tree-tops. 



BEE-KEEPING IN THE HIGHLANDS OF 

 MEXICO. 



BY O. B. METCALFE. 

 Continued from last issue, page 105. 



In our last article we had reached Mexico 

 City. Now we drop down further south to 

 the Cuerna Vaca region and take up the 

 consideration of a most interesting apiary 

 owned by a Mr. Shoemaker, who has had it 

 for some six years. He once intended to 

 make a big business of it, and might have 

 done so except for lack of skilled labor. He 

 complains that he has much trouble to get 

 good help for the business. This apiary is 

 the old original Carl Ludloff & Co. apiary 

 which was moved over from Mexico City, 

 and Fig. VII. shows a hive which was a 

 transitional hive between the old hive he 

 made at the city and the one he is now us- 

 ing at Irapuato, and which will be shown 

 in a later article. This Cuerna Vaca apiary 

 has been the scene of many trials and many 



Fig. 1.— Smith's foundation-cutter, with movable guides that may be set 

 for any size of starter desired. 



experiments. In some way Mr. Ludloff 

 finally dropped out of the company, and 

 another member took the wheel and tried to 

 make a go of the business. At last he sold 

 to Mr. Shoemaker, who increased the yard 

 to some 500 colonies, and decreased the size 

 of most of the old Ludloff hives to about 

 half the length. Among other experiments, 

 Mr. Shoemaker bought twenty standard 

 ten-frame American hives with shallow- 

 frame extracting-supers. He says that, so 

 far as he can see, bees do as well in the 

 American hive as in any other; but he rais- 

 ed two objections to them. First, duty, 

 freight, and all, they cost too much; second, 

 the bees glue them up so badly with propo- 

 lis that they are harder to work. However, 

 I could not see that they gathered more 

 propolis than they do in New Mexico; and 

 I think that, if he had been well versed on 

 the use of the standard American hive in 

 his locality of Mexico he would have found 

 it ahead of the Ludlofif type to which he 

 has gone back. 



During the swarming 

 season Mr. Shoemaker 

 keeps two men to hive 

 swarms. This is usually 

 during June, and the 

 bees swarm fast and fu- 

 riously then. He claims 

 that he could make a 

 lot more honey if he 

 could con trol?swarming, 

 for some of the strong 

 colonies that do not 

 swarm produce as much 

 asJ285 lbs., while his av- 



