December, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



731 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



the bees do. Upon several occasions we saw 

 the queen for as long as a half hour at a 

 time going about from cell to cell laying 

 eggs. She would first thrust her head into 

 the cell, thou back into it, and deposit the 

 egg. It was interesting, too, to see the bees 

 groom one another and to watch the baby 

 bees turning round and round in the cells 

 until they could break the eappings suf- 

 ficiently to struggle out and be born into the 

 world of work about them. 



Our children friends were particularly in- 

 terested in the bees and would gaze at them 

 for long periods at a time and ask innum- 

 erable questions. The remarks of some of the 

 children concerning our bees were amusing. 

 One little lame neighbor girl said confiden- 

 tially over the fence one day, "People think 

 it is very queer to have bees right in the 

 house." Another little girl had heard her 

 brother tell about our bees, but hadn 't seen 

 them herself. She said, "You don't have 

 bees right in your house, do you?" When I 

 replied in the affirmative, she said, * ' They 

 don't make honey for you, do they?" 

 * ' Yes, ' ' I answered, ' ' they make us a great 

 deal of fine sweet honey." "You haven't 

 any of it now, have you?" she asked. 

 "Yes," I said, "we have over a hundred 

 pounds of it left." She looked wistful, 

 sighed, and said, "I wish I were you! " 



Last year our inside colony yielded us 

 125 pounds of as nice white honey as one 

 would wish to see. The back-yard hive, in as 

 equally good condition at the beginning of 

 the season, yielded 75 pounds. This year 

 with the same queen we have had a yield 

 of 92 pounds from the inside colony and a 

 73-pound yield from the outside hive. It is 

 our feeling that the more even temperature 

 of the house made a more favorable condi- 

 tion and was the cause of the larger yield 

 of the inside hive. Here in Rogers Park with 

 real city all about us our bees must gather 

 and make honey from the fruit bloom of 

 back yards and from white clover and sweet 

 clover of vacant lots and street and railroad 

 sides. The white clover was killed out last 

 winter, which cut down our yield this sea- 

 son. 



The bees have required very little care, 

 and we think we have been well repaid for 

 our effort. A half hour 's time each week 

 during the midsummer, putting on supers 

 and looking over the brood-chamber to pre- 

 vent building of queen-cells and subsequent 

 swarming, was the limit of time required. 

 We should be quite lost without our observa- 

 tion hive and plan to have bees in it each 

 season. Stella L. Gill. 



Chicago, 111. 



Picture of a beehive with natural combs built beneath. In sending this picture to Gleanings, J. E. 

 Eckert, president of the North Carolina State Beekeepers' Association, says: "There are eight combs 

 built under the hive shown in the picture, and, a* the hive is one of eight frames, it is a mute evidence 

 of the bee that the present l%inch spacing is correct according to the notion of the honeybee. 



