DECEMBER 1, 1914 



§^i 



courage to try it. The people at Tell City 

 took the whole demonstration as a matter of 

 fact, as if I were going from place to place 

 and doing the same thing every week. You 

 will agree with me that it was decidedly out 

 of the ordinary. It will take me some time 

 to accumulate courage enough to do it again. 

 Perhaps I shall never make another such 

 venture. I have frequently had people put 

 their hands into a mass of bees, or take 

 them up by the handful, and I have seen 



other demonstrators do similar things; but 

 never before have I seen eight young women 

 covered with bees, and the remarkable dem- 

 onstration made by totally inexperienced 

 persons. The prerequisite condition upon 

 wliich I insisted was that the fourteen vol- 

 unteers must be those who had never han- 

 dled bees, and from homes where bees are 

 not kept. 



Arcadia, Sound Beach, Ct. 



SUCCESSFUL BEEKEEPING IN TME CITY 



BY A CITY BEEKEEPER 



To the veteran beekeeper an article about 

 successful beekeeping in cities may appear 

 like another case of carrying owls to Athens 

 or coal to Newcastle. Yet Gleanings is not 

 read by the veterans alone, but by an ever 

 increasing number of novices or amateurs. 



There was a time when you could not talk 

 bees to me. Politely I listened to the en- 

 thusiastic recital of a friend concerning the 

 mysteries of an apiary; but, like some of 

 the seed in the parable, it fell by the way- 

 side. Bees sting. It must be difficult to 

 master all the details connected with their 

 care. That settled it. 



Fig. 1. 



-Bees kept in a crowded district in a city of 500,000. The building 

 marked X is a school, and the bees are kept on this side. 



But the time came, about six years ago, 

 when I was tempted to try it. Well do I 

 remember how doubtful I was of success, 

 and how I felt as though it were hoping too 

 much to expect any honey at all the first 

 season. I may say now that I have been 

 successful. During the first season I had 

 tliree colonies, one of them a swarm of my 



original two colonies. It makes me smile 

 now when I think of the feverish anxiety in 

 liiving that first swarm. There was no rea- 

 son for excitement, because the queen was 

 clipped and I found her at once in front 

 of the hive. (That, by the way, was the 

 only swarm I had in four seasons.) In that 

 first year I got 120 lbs. That wasn't much; 

 Ijut to me, who had expected nothing, it was 

 an encouraging beginning. From four colo- 

 nies I received 350 lbs. the following year. 

 The year after, six colonies yielded 740. 



In the fall of that year I found foul 

 brood in my apiary. That nearly put a 

 quietus on my enthu- 

 siasm. When I first 

 found those sunken 

 cells, so much dreaded 

 by the beekeeper, and 

 saw that ropy, foul- 

 smelling stuff, which I 

 had read so much 

 al)out, I felt as though 

 I had seen an appari- 

 tion. Because I noticed 

 it first in a colony 

 where I had introduced 

 a new queen I blamed 

 it on the candy in her 

 cage. An indignant 

 reply from the breeder 

 led me to look for an- 

 other cause. I am quite 

 sure now that my 

 strong colonies robbed 

 the infected hives of a 

 negligent beekeeper in 

 the neighborhood. At any rate he hasn't had 

 any bees since that time, which seems to 

 show that I am not far wrong in my guess. 

 Well, I had quite a fight getting rid of the 

 dread disease. It was late in the fall, and 

 no nectar coming in from the field. But 

 (l^en, a smooth sea never makes a skillful 

 mariner. I weathered that etorm, and 



