280 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



his statement. I am not a carpenter, have 

 never shingled a square, nailed on a i^iece of 

 siding, nor hung a door. But I have been 

 a farmer. I am past 70 years of age, and 

 farming has been my occupation from boy- 

 hood. 



Fifteen years ago I started gardening, and 

 eight years later I added beekeeping to my 

 employment. I started with two colonies ; 

 had never managed or seen bees managed, 

 but subscribed for Gleanings and bought 

 an A B C of Bee Culture ; studied carefully 

 and kept bees profitably on the information 

 thus gleaned. 



Five years ago the present winter I made 

 up 30 hives and 60 supers, and you have in 

 the picture before you one of these hives 

 after five years of service on the summer 

 stand. You will observe its still prime 

 condition. The nailing was done with ce- 

 ment-coated nails, and every hive was paint- 

 ed at once. Today you can scarcely find an 

 opening at any of the joints that will admit 

 a pin to the interior. 



I am producing comb honey exclusively, 

 and my crop the past season exceeded a 

 ton and a quarter from 40 colonies, spring 

 count, and I made an increase of tliirty 

 colonies. My honey, all white, netted me 15 

 ets. per pound on the Chicago market, or 

 $375. I sold 13 colonies of bees for $45.00 

 more, making in all $420, and an addition 

 of 17 colonies for the season's work in my 

 apiary. 



The foregoing is from an amateur who 

 makes his own hives and supers, and advo- 

 cates economy, not only as a privilege but 

 as a duty. 



If what I have done as an ordinary work- 

 man proves to the unbiased mind what the 

 average beekeeper can do, does it not appeal 



Not a bad job for a ho:ii ■ irirle hive. 



to common sense that all over this country 

 may be found beemen who, during the long 

 winter months of otherwise enforced idle- 

 ness, make up their own hives and supers, 

 in which the bees find comfort and safety 

 despite the deplorable picture by Mr. Win- 

 ship, and his statement that ninety per cent 

 of the home-made hives are not fit to keejj 

 bees in? 



Manana, Wis. 



FASTING VS. SMOKE 



BY J. M. BUCHANAN 



A writer in the New York Sun gives the 

 following simple method of writing poetry : 



Webster has the words, and I 

 Pick them up from where they lie. 

 Here a word, and there a word, 

 It's so easy it's absurd. 

 Merely range them in a row — 

 Webster's done the work, you know. 



Thus it seems that anybody ought to bt, 

 able to write poetry. 



A writer in Gleanings gives the follow- 

 ing simple method of introducing queens: 

 "Close the entrance, all but an inch; blow 

 in plenty of smoke; close entirely for a 

 quarter of a minute; then run in the queen. 



and close again for ten minutes." Easy, 

 isn't it? "It's so easy it's absurd" — -until 

 you try it. Then follows a page or more of 

 " qualifying conditions," a sort of sine qua 

 non — page 108, Feb. 1. 



Let's look at some of these. First, the 

 hive must be smoke-tight. How many hives 

 in a thousand, taking the average apiary, 

 will you find perfectly tight at all joints 

 and corners? Possibly two or three. Sec- 

 ond, the smoke must be just the right kind, 

 just thick enough, but not too thick. Third, 

 there must be just enough smoke, but not 

 too much. How is the average beekeeper 

 to judge these things? Then the hive to be 



