G4 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



i^Eli. 



be advertised in any of tlie subscription 

 lists ; or, at least, so near near it that my old 

 friends and customers will have no reason 

 to complain ; at the same time, I wish to pay 

 (and pay well) the friends who take the 

 trouble to canyass thoroughly in the vicinity 

 of their own postofflces. The first page of 

 reading matter in each No. gives the terms 

 for doing this. Friends are often made bet- 

 ter friends after having had a plain, square 

 talk in regard to differences. 



MY FIKST TEN YEARS OF BEE- 

 KEEPING. 



SHAVE been keeping bees sixteen years. Hop- 

 ing that it maybe interesting and profitable to 

 — ' some of your ABC class at least, I send you a 

 f hort account of my first ten years' experience. 



1. How I not into the husincsn. 



I often wanted to buy honey, but could get none, 

 except once; I got from a farmer, who had brim- 

 stoned a hive, a few pounds in old brood-combs, half 

 full of bee-bread. It was not very good eating, but 

 we made the best of it. In the fall of 18(51 I met a 

 clergyman from the West who told me of the new 

 methods. I bought Langstroth's book and studied 

 it. I bought a hive of bees in March, 1875. I sent to 

 Mr. Langstroth for a sample hive, and got a carpen- 

 ter to make others, for ^\ hich I paid $i.T)0 apiece. I 

 read my book, and practic.'cd what I read. In one 

 year I had gone the whole round of dividing, taking 

 honey, wintering, etc. By that time I had learned 

 pretty thoroughly the theory and practice of bee- 

 keeping, and was prepared to advance. My bees and 

 hives cost me the first year $'>\. I got 80 lbs. of box 

 honey, which I could have sold at 40 cts. per lb. I 

 had four good colonics to winter, which I could have 

 sold for $13 apiece. Had I sold out at the end of my 

 first year, I would have netted $19 on the one hive. 



i?eMiO)7c— Ifeel very confident that, as a general 

 rule, it is best for beginners to commence in a small 

 way with a few hives and as little expense as pos- 

 sible; learn the business, test their own capabilities, 

 and make the bees pay their own way. This would 

 have saved many persons I know considerable loss 

 and disappointment. 



2. Expenses, increase, and profits. 



The account I kept was a cash account. I did not 

 charge the bees with my own labor, but with cash 

 paid out for hives, queens, etc. Neither do 1 credit 

 them with the increase, nor with honey used in my 

 own family, or given to my friends and neighbors. 

 This amounted to several hundred pounds a year. 

 The cash account for ten years stands as follows:— 



Net profit in ten years, $1439.00 



Remarks.— After the prosperous year of 1871, 1 be- 

 gan to sell my bees, and to work out of the business. 

 Had I continued the next three 5'ears to increase, or 

 even if I had kept up the number of working colo- 



nies, the profits might have been much larger. I 

 began to go out of the business just when I had got- 

 ten into a position where I could make it profitable. 

 The profits for succeeding years were principally 

 for surplus honey remaining over from 1871, and 

 colonies and hives sold. 



3. TIow I got out of the business. 



1. For reasons I need not mention, I wanted to 

 keep no more bees than would raise honey enough 

 for my family and friends. I sold some colonics in 

 the spring of 1873. 



3. Until 1873 I wintered my bees successfully in a 

 good dry cellar, out of the reach of the changes of 

 cold and heat. That fall, owing mostly to careless- 

 ness, and in part to the fact that my neighbors had 

 for some years wintered their bees so successfully 

 in Langstroth hives on their summer stands, and 

 without protection, I left my bees out unprotected. 

 That was a severe winter. I lost over one-half of 

 my colonies, and the other half was so reduced that 

 it took them all summer to recover. Foul brood also 

 made its appearance, and I lost several colonies be- 

 fore I got it exterminated. My neighbors lost near- 

 ly all their bees that winter. 



FOUL BROOD. 



3. In the spring of 1873 I began feeding up the 10 

 colonics left, to make them increase to fill my emp- 

 ty hives. One day in April I found a crock of honey 

 that I had forgotten about. I divided it among the 

 10. After three weeks, when they all seemed to be 

 prospering, on examination I found foul brood In 

 every one of the hives. Then I remembered that 

 the honey in the crock had been saved from hives 

 destroyed by foul brood. I had intended to boil it 

 before feeding, but forgot about it. Here was 

 trouble— foul brood in every hive. What could I 

 do? Pre\ious experience had satisfied me that I 

 could not save them without destroying the brood, 

 and boiling the honey; and I was somewhat disgust- 

 ed with keeping foul-brood honey. Most of the 

 bees were old, and would not live long. I doubled 

 up the colonies, putting them into three empty 

 hives and removing them into the cellar to make 

 them eat what honey they had saved before I would 

 give them combs. I made a brush-heap, set it on 

 fire, and emptied the contents of the ten hives into 

 it, and set the hives away to freeze the next winter 

 before they could be used again. After two days I 

 brought out the bees, gave them clean hives and 

 combs, which had been saved after the destructive 

 work of the winter of 1873. In three weeks more, I 

 found foul brood in every hive. Ah nve ! 1 had an- 

 other fire. The three colonies were put into one 

 hive, and placed in the cellar for four days, and fed 

 a little. They did not get foul brood again, but died 

 from old age before the young bees had increased 

 enough to save the colony. Thus ended my first ten 

 years of bee-keeping. 



Remarks.— 1. A man must mind his p's and q's if 

 he does not want to make bee-keeping a failure. 



3. Some years, bees will winter well out of doors in 

 almost any hive. Most winters, when bees can fly 

 occasionally, out-of-door wintering in chaff hives, or 

 hives well protected, will probably prove the best. 

 But in winters like that of 1872-'3, when the bees 

 could not fly once from early in December until the 

 middle of March, I am disposed to think there is 

 nothing eqiial to a good dry cellar, 



3. It makes me sad yet to think of the desolatioTi 

 which reigned in my apiary in 1874. I did not find it 



