1S81 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



4U7 



low shoes, as I went up .and down the hills ; 

 but for all that, I was happj\ I was about 

 the Master's business, i did not know 

 Avhere. or what was to 1)6 done; but he did. 

 so why did it matter V I picked wild rasp- 

 berries, listened to the cowbells, and thought 

 of the sister I could not see until to-morrow, 

 and away back in years gone by, when we 

 used to have ;• cow that wore a bell too. 

 How the sound of those bells awoke old 

 memories I The houses were all passed, and 

 1 was following a crooked road out in and 

 through the woods. Was it possible I 

 should find a real progressive bee-man, away 

 off in these wilds? \\'heu I did find houses, 

 it hardly looked as if their owners could be 

 bee-men. 



Is it possible I shall, in this wilderness, 

 find a man with an apiary of from fifty to a 

 hundred colonies, as tlie man at the grocery 

 store said? I certainly must be pretty near 

 there now. Over another hill, and, as sure 

 as you live, I came on a buckwheat field. 

 The plants stood all around among the 

 stumps, but I think I never saw a thriftier 

 growth, or a brighter green to the leaves. I 

 wonder if buckwheat don't do better on a 

 sandy soil. It was already beginning to 

 blossom a little. Over the hill again. Sure- 

 ly this must be the man, for there was a gar- 

 den, an orchard, and many evidences of just 

 about such homes as bee-men generally have. 



'' Does yiv. Ueed, the bee-man, live'hereV" 



'• Yes : he is out among the bees ; will you 

 not step inV 



'•No: I think I will go out among the 

 bees and see him." 



Did you ever! Here in the wilderness 

 was an ai)iary. sure enough. On a beautiful 

 grassy lawn, sloping to the south and east, 

 60 or bo hives, all jiaiuted red. To prevent 

 the sun making them too hot, each hive had 

 a light co^'er, or sun-shiide. made, if I am 

 correct, of split shingles. The gable ends 

 were open, so as to gi\e a free circulation of 

 air; but the roof boards projected so as to 

 make a very effectual screen from the sun. 

 His hives are of the Mitchell pattern. He 

 has a division- board at each end, and the 

 combs in the center. As all the hives we 

 opened had an empty space at each end, it 

 was very easy work lifting out the frames. 

 Basswood seemed just in its prime here, and 

 the bees were going across the valley to a 

 basswood forest beyond, in a way that, to 

 me at least, was entrancing. We opened 

 some of the hives, and found snowy-white 

 combs everywhere. 



"I declare," said friend Reed, '• although 

 this is a new swarm that I lun e extracted 

 from twice, they seem to be entirely full 

 again, and ought to be extracted this very 

 day again.'' 



•'Let us do it,"" s;iid I ; '• I would like 

 above all things to help you extract.'' 



He got his comb-bucket, which was made 

 of wood instead of tin, and. turning back 

 the mat, he lifted out three combs, sealed al- 

 most from top to bottom ; and as the next 

 was a brood comb, he let the mat down, and, 

 moving the division-board at the opposite 

 end, he took two capped combs from that 

 side. Thus you see the brood combs were 

 not moved at all, nor were thev even uncov- 



ered. The bees kept right on at work, for 

 they were not interrupted or hindered at all, 

 the entrance being in the middle of the side 

 of the hive, instead of at the end, as in our 

 old Standard liive. We took the five combs 

 into the extracting-rcou), which, by the way, 

 is a room built in the side of one of these 

 sand hills, and is a very nice, cool, and com- 

 fortable place to work in during a hot day. 

 Sure enough, there was the veritable Novice 

 honey-extractor, but it was not our make, 

 and had no honey-gate. I took the Bing- 

 ham honey-kuife, and went to uncapping. 

 It was the first time I ever used a Bingham 

 knife, and it certainlv is a very fine thing 

 for the purpose. Friend II. set a two-gallon 

 stone crock, with a piece of strainer cloth 

 tied over the top, under the tiuspout of the 

 extractor, l^efore all the combs had been 

 whirled, friend li. spoke,— 



" Wtiy. I declare, if that crock isn't full 

 from just these five combs 1 '' 



'• It is hardly possible, is it ':* '' said I. 



But it was. After looking for a little 

 while at the thick crystal honev running on 

 the rtoor, our friend bethought him of an ex- 

 pedient as a substitute for honey-gates, and 

 he tipped the extractor back with a jerk, and 

 propped up the front edge. As we did our 

 uncapping on the top of a barrel, the honey 

 soon threatened to run from that on the floor 

 also. To save it. I very thoughtfully scraped 

 it up and put it into my mouth. 



•• \Miy, friend Reed, this honey isn't bass- 

 wood, nor does it quite seem to be clover 

 either. ^VhatisitV" 



•' Why," said he, •' I will tell you. You 

 see. after they clear off the pine woods, the 

 wild red raspberries spring up until there are 

 hundreds of acres of them, and this year our 

 bees have just brought in any amount of this 

 red-raspberry honey. Why. I have had honey 

 this whole spring and summer just as it is 

 coming now, and I don't rememljer a time 

 when I could not extract without ha\'ing a 

 bit of robbing."' 



'■Then this is really rasi)berry honey!"' 

 And to make sure, I dipped and tasted the 

 honey from several of the stone crocks that 

 were full, like the one under the extractor- 

 spout. "How much do you get for honey 

 like this down at the grocery store where "l 

 saw it V" 



" Fifteen cents for extracted honey, and 

 16 for comb." 



The honey is very white and clear, and the 

 flavor is nearest to that of clover, with a 

 slight flavor that one can easily imagine is 

 like the raspberry fruit. Friend Reed win- 

 ters his bees on their summer stands, with 

 large boxes placed over them, and packed 

 with chaff in the usual way. He says he 

 has tried wintering them in that dry sandy 

 cellar, but it don't work well. He thinks 

 that it may be too dry. And this reminds 

 me that they have a stream of water rumiing 

 through the cellar they winter their bees in 

 at the college apiary. 



The women folks then announced sup]jer 

 as being ready. I always like to go to sup- 

 per when I am visiting bee-keepers, and this . 

 afternoon the call had an especially pleasant 

 sound. Perhaps it was because of the miles 

 over the sandy hills I had come, and maybe 



