478 



GLEANINGS IN I3EE CULTUEE. 



Oct. 



the pain, wouldn't there be a "row in the 

 camp"? Well, it seems the poor fellow- 

 sufferer above found it just the thing ; but T 

 have, in spite of myself, been wondering if 

 lie would not have got well any way, or if it 

 did not so work on his imagination, that he 

 stirred around more and thus got wliere na- 

 ture could work to better advantage. You 

 see, I have great faith in getting people to 

 wake up and stir aroiuid, even if they m-c 

 sick some ; and the sight of the doctor, visi- 

 tors, or even a light shock of electricity, of- 

 ten does wonders in that way. Never mind; 

 let us get at the truth, liee-sting medicine 

 could be put up cheap where they are going 

 to brimstone their bees this fall, like the 

 friend mentioned in our editorials. 



OUR OWN APIARY AND HONEY FARM. 



IT is now the 2Sth of September, and the 

 severe drought has stopped the How of 

 — ' honey from almost every plant, not 

 even excepting the Simpson. The Spider 

 plant still blossoms, yet but few of the 

 Jjlossoms produce honey. During the past 

 few days, however, we have had long soak- 

 ing rains ; and if frost keeps off, we shall 

 have some honey yet, perhaps. 



NEIGHBOR II. "S EXPERIMENT. 



Do you remember what Neighbor II. said 

 last month about feeding with a tin pan V By 

 the way, I guess I will tell you of an experi- 

 ment of his. It was, I think, about the 15th 

 of May that he brought a pound of bees and 

 queen, to be shipped to a customer. It had 

 been jolted in the buggy, or something, and 

 as the day was very siiltry, it was evident, 

 from the dampness of the bees, and from the 

 way in which they tumbled helplessly from 

 one end of the cage to the other, they would 

 not live many minutes, unless speedily tak- 

 en care of. 1 offered to look after them, but 

 he said he was going to take them for an ex- 

 periment, to see what a pound of bees 

 would do, with a good queen, started the 

 middle of May. Accordingly they were let 

 out on a few empty combs, and one of 

 Neighbor II. 's long, black, IIoly-Land 

 queens introduced to them. They soon re- 

 vived, and the queen went right to laying. 

 As soon as honey failed, they were treated to 

 pans full of the sugar syrup he told you 

 about. They are now live fair colonies, and 

 there is little doubt but that he will winter 

 them successfully. When you come to see 

 us, ask to see Neighbor II. 's department. 

 Besides the five hives, he has the Albino col- 

 ony that I spoke of a short time ago. The 

 Albinos are, to tell the truth, rather pretty 

 bees. If our bees should winter well this 

 season, I have been thinking of offering 

 some gentle bees in small hives for sale, for 

 the " Juvenile Department." Of course, 

 they would want some pretty bees that are 

 •nice to handle and nice to look at. I have 

 thought the Albinos might be just the thing. 

 If they should happen to produce great 

 crops of honey, too, it would be quite a joke 

 in favor of our friends Valentine and f ike. 



HOAV AVE ARE DOING OUR FEEDING THIS 

 FALL. 



Neighbor H. has all chaff hives, and it is a 

 very easy matter to set a common tin pan on 



the frames, in the upper story. In our 

 queen-rearing, however, we have about 200 

 Simplicity hives. Many of these have only 

 three or four combs, so that if we had a pan 

 that would set in beside them, it would save 

 the expense and bother of an extra upper 

 story, while we are feeding to keep the 

 queens at work. Selling bees and queens as 

 we do, you know it is quite important to 

 keep the queens laying every minute possi- 

 ble. Well, we tried using SimpUcity feed- 

 ers, but it was too much work to fill them up 

 so often. A tin pan will hold more sugar 

 than a dozen Simplicities; but a tin pan 

 won't go into the hive at one side of the 

 frames, especially if we have a division- 

 board in, beside the four combs. On the 

 five-cent counter we have, as you may have 

 noticed, a two-quart bread-pan. 



THE BREAD-PAN FEEDER. 



These pans are 6 in. wide, 10^ long, and 2i 

 deep. They have flaring sides, so that they 

 nest into each other, and a hundred or more 

 of them occupy but little room. They cost, 

 as you see, but 45c for 10, or $4.00 for 100— 

 the same price as the Simplicity feeders, and 

 yet, as they nest, occupy much less space for 

 shipping or stowing away. Each pan will 

 hold 3 lbs. of granulated sugar and 1 lb. of 

 water. A Simplicity feeder will scarcely 

 hold 8 oz. of sugar. Now, the bees would 

 drown in these pans, as you know, were it 

 not for the piece of cheese cloth ; and we 

 have been a little surprised to lind that 

 spreading the cloth in the pan, with the 

 sugar on top of it, answers every purpose, 

 in warm weather. The cloth should be suf- 

 ficiently large so it will not get pulled over 

 into the pan, and the pan should have one 

 edge nearly touch the combs, or division- 

 board. If you do not have a division-board, 

 be careful the bees do not build a comb on 

 the mat above, after they have been fed a 

 few days. We just set tlie pans with their 

 cloths over them in the hives, and then with 

 a 5-cent dust-pan fill each one heaping full of 

 granulated sugar. Another hand, with a 

 can of pure water (like the one shown be- 

 side the chaff hive, under " Feeders," in our 

 price list), pours in water slowly, as much as 

 he can, without running the tins over. Of 

 course, the bees will have the liquid portion 

 out in perhaps a couple of hours ; but the 

 moist sugar they will work on and dig in for 

 several days, and may be a week. Be sure 

 that the bees find it, and it may be well to 

 sprinkle a little over them, until they get a 

 taste. One very pleasant feature of this 

 way of feeding is that you have no trouble 

 -with robbers, for they can do nothing with 

 the dry, sand-like sugar, neither can they 

 with the pure water. You can, if you 

 choose, roll your barrel of sugar right out in 

 the apiary, and leave it uncovered until you 

 get through, providing no rain or dew gets 

 into it. With chaff hives, just set the pan 

 right on the frames and turn back the mat 

 slightly. f 



