364 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



exiiacled so as to leave but very little honey 

 in them — barely enough to carry the bees 

 through to Medina. 



To keep the bees cool there is nothing like 

 having plenty of water at hand. There will 

 be a barrel of water in each car, and these 

 barrels will be replenished as often as they 

 become empty. Past experience has shown 

 that a carload of bees will use up a large 

 amount of water — four or five barrels, per- 

 haps, to the trip. If we can keep the bees 

 cool by spraying or " wet blanketing " 

 them, and if w^e can make good connections 

 all along the route, it is safe to conclude 

 the bees will get thi'ough in good order. In 

 the mean time we are getting in connection 

 with all the railroad people along the route 

 to see that there is no delay. While the cars 

 are moving there is no trouble to keep the 

 bees cool; but when they stop for a few 

 hours in midday the man in charge is kept 

 busy in watering the bees. 



The cars are to be hooked on as close to 

 the locomotive as possible so as to avoid 

 some of the bumping and to keep the bees 

 out of the sulphurous smoke as much as 

 possible when going through tunnels. 



It is not expected that the men en roule 

 with the bees will have a Pullman-car trip. 

 They will have to be up with the bees almost 

 night and day to repair staging when an oc- 

 casional bump jars it loose, and to fix the 

 screens and give the bees water Avhenever 

 they get hot. All kinds of weather, cinders, 

 locomotive smoke, rain and shine, hot and 

 chilly weather, cold lunches — all this is hard 

 on the men, and of course it means extra 

 time allowances. Taking it all in all, there 

 are some heavy expenses in connection with 

 a proposition of this kind; and the average 

 beekeeper should go slow about making- 

 such a venture unless he can, from a finan- 

 cial point of view, stand a loss. If he moves 

 all his bees south and then loses 50 per cent 

 of them in moving back, even though he 

 does make a good increase, he would lose 

 out. 



In our ease we have one more bridge to 

 cross, and that is to get the bees north in 

 good condition. We shall be wiser and per- 

 haps sadder by our next issue. 



It is proper to say in this connection that 

 the average northern man, even thougli he 

 has had a large amount of experience in 

 keeping bees will probably fail the first year 

 after going south, for the reason that con- 

 ditions are so very different. In our case we 

 ]nit a man in charge, Mr. J. E. Marehant, 

 who was born and had been reared in Apa- 

 lachicola, and who, under his father, A. B., 

 had a very large experience in managing 

 beeyards on th? Apalachicola River before 

 he went north. It takes a man of exiieri- 



ence, both in the North and South, to make 

 a scheme of this kind woik out. 



If we make a success of the plan this 

 year, we ought to be able to do as well or 

 better another year, because conditions this 

 winter have been unfavorable. The cool 

 months of February and March gave Mr. 

 Marehant the blues. He had set his stakes 

 for three carloads of bees and twenty bar- 

 rels of honey; but when the whole of Feb- 

 ruary' turned out to be so cold, and the fore 

 part of March being but little better, he be- 

 gan to be discouraged. But he made up his 

 mind that the plan would have to succeed. 

 So he has been crowding the queens by 

 every means possible during the good 

 weather we did have.* Had it not been for 

 the unfavorable February and March we 

 should iDrobably have had all the bees up 

 here in time to catch the apple-bloom. As 

 it was, Mr. Marehant thought it best to 

 catch the two tupelo flows and then move 

 north. 



The boys have been busy during the bad 

 weather in making up hives and frames, 

 and putting in foundation. No one knows, 

 except the one who has tried it, that the 

 nailing together and i^utting sheets of 

 foundation in some 6000 metal-spaced Hoff- 

 man frames is no small job. No one man 

 can do it in a month. In fact, it took an 

 average of three men to do all the nailing 

 and painting when they could not work the 

 bees, between tAvo and three months. They 

 nailed and painted 500 hives with covers and 

 bottoms, and 500 tln-ee-frame nuclei. Each 

 colonv' and nucleus will be supplied with a 

 queen — not of our own rearing, but of the 

 rearing of Mr. A. B. Marehant, the father 

 of the junior Marehant managing our bees. 

 It will be seen, then, that we must charge 

 up against the Apalachicola proposition 

 queens, sugar for feeding, gasoline, launch 

 rental, and a considerable amount of labor 

 as well as freight ; but as it would have cost 

 us nearly as much to put the stuff together 

 and paint it at our Medina factory ,_we will 

 credit up this cost when the bees arrive in 

 Medina. 



There is one more item of expense, and 

 that is platforms to hold the hives, and 

 buildings to house the men during tlie bad 

 weather; interest and depreciation. No one 

 should get the idea that there is big money 

 in mo\dng bees south for increase and 

 honey. There are some big risks as well as 

 expenses, 



* He has been crowdiiiE; his queens so hard in 

 brood-rearina: that many of them are failing, and the 

 bees are supcrs^edin'^. When we con'iider the fact 

 that the bees have increased fro'ii 275 folonies, not 

 overly strong, to 800 fair '•olonies. and 500 three- 

 frame nuclei, we can readily riidei'sfand why the 

 queens are beginning to fail and the bees to super- 

 sede them. 



