588 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



A " skeppist " of the Cotswold Hills of England. 



cheapest and best; and if further helloed by 

 a good flow the shaken bees quickly bui)d 

 up, and are rarely infeete'd afterward. 



The sugar bill for autumn was almost nil, 

 no feeding of any thing but nuclei being 

 necessary. This ought to insure good win- 

 tering, for -nothing beats well-ripened natu- 

 ral stores, and the colonies that have the 

 most are always the strongest in the spring. 



There are evident signs that the public is 

 gradually waking up to the great value of 

 honey as an article of food. The interest 

 that beekeeping has awakened, and the 

 prominence gfven to it by the press, helps 

 wonderfully with the sales; but there is still 

 plenty of scope for the energetic apiarist. 

 Every village and town has its annual flow- 

 er show, withkits classes for honey, wax, and 

 products of the hive. This has been found 

 one of the best means of creating a demand, 

 and there is nothing more attractive than a 

 well-arranged honey-show, while the keen 

 competition has raised the standard of the 

 honey so high that it drives the rough prod- 

 uce of careless beekeepers and straw-skep- 

 pists completely out of the market. 



There are some who claim that the pro- 

 duction of extracted honey calls for but 

 little skill in comparison to the comb. In 

 my experience it is exactly the reverse. 



No no^nce in this country thinks of pro- 



ducing extracted honey until he has worked 

 for sections a few years; and every hive 

 sold by manufacturers is fitted with a sec- 

 tion-rack unless otherwise ordered. When 

 your hive is strong you place on the 21 

 sections with foundation, and the bees do 

 the rest. To remove them is easy by means 

 of the " escape " board, and the labor is 

 practically nothing by the side of producing 

 extracted honey. 



With the latter, every comb must be clean 

 and perfectly sealed before extraction, while 

 the honey needs great care in the straining, 

 especially if it is to be sold in bottles. 



Bits of wax, scum, or froth on the surface 

 is no advertisement, and such honey has a 

 bad effect on the market in general. Tor the 

 most part, any thing easy is badly done; 

 and if you teach that extracted-honey pro- 

 duction is child's play, then can you wonder 

 that often an unmarketable product results? 



RUSTIC BEEKEEPING. 



Every one likes our Cotswold skeppist, 

 even if he is fifty years behind the times. 

 His quaint manner and methods are so de- 

 lightfully old-world that we shall be sorry 

 indeed when our hamlets know him no long- 

 er. To see him at his best you must enter 

 the bee-garden and watch him weaving skeps 

 under the damson tree, with a glistening 



