1436 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15 



honey. The effect on the bees is marvelous. 

 Thev have to work, or starve their brood. 

 It has the same effect that it has on a mother 

 cat that has to hunt for half a dozen kittens. 

 Strangers who visit my apiary in July call 

 to me and say, "Mitchell, hurry up; every 

 one of your big hives is swarming. ' ' I laugh, 

 and say, "Those hives are swarming all the 

 time."' By the time white clover is well in 

 bloom (about the last week in June with us) 

 the thirty frames should be full of brood and 

 have about two bushels of bees. The queen 

 having worked so hard will, of necessity, lay 

 but few eggs for three or four weeks, so that 

 the energy of the bees is devoted mostly to 

 honey-gathering during the cream of the har- 

 vest, and there will be no poor watery hon- 

 ey, either in the body of the hive or in the 

 sections. Now cover all the surface at the 

 top with sections, leaving | space between 

 the frames and the bottom of the sections. 

 It will hold 100 or more. Never put on 

 queen-excluders, as, under the conditions de- 

 scribed, queens never go up among the sec- 

 tions, neither do the bees store pollen in them. 

 The queen will now be resting to a great ex- 

 tent, and also will have plenty of room below. 



Mark the place where the bees commence 

 in the sections, then you will know just where 

 to find finished sections, and can remove 

 them and put empty ones on as often as nec- 

 essary. By the above management I have 

 secured, the past three seasons, an average 

 of 125 pounds of pure white comb honey from 

 each colony; and the thirty frames in the 

 body of the hive will contain 120 to 150 lbs. 

 more. 



St. Mary's, Ont. 



[The plan here described is simply the 

 old "Long-idea" hive that was exploited 

 something over thirty years ago. At that 

 time great enthusiasm was evinced, but of 

 late years it has been pretty generally aban- 

 doned, even by those who were once sponsors 

 for it. Horizontal expansion, for several 

 reasons, is not as satisfactory as the perpen- 

 dicular. But the worst objection to a hive 

 embodying the principle was its great size, 

 its unwieldiness, and the weight of the su- 

 pers. This was overcome in part by making 

 the supers in pairs, placing the pairs side by 

 side. But even this has its objections. Just 

 as powerlul colonies can be obtained by tier- 

 ing one colony on top of another, thus en- 

 abling the owner of the bees to handle his 

 hives in comparatively small units There 

 may, however, be some localities where the 

 Long-idea principle may give better results 

 than those now in vogue. Our con espondent 

 may have the very best outfit for his locality. 



The only bee-keeper I know of now, who 

 uses the hive, is O. O. Poppleton, of Stuart, 

 Florida, and he is a good bee-keeper — one of 

 the best we have in the country. But his 

 locality is different from most others. We 

 shouki also recognize there aie "many men 

 of many minds;" and if any bee-keeper 

 thinks he would prefer to handle bees that 

 way instead of lilting off top stories, let him 

 try a hive or two "spaced out." — Ed.] 



THE TRADE IN BEES AND QUEENS. 



Unprecedented Demand for Both: JMaking 

 Increase bv Feeding Sugar. 



BY E. K. ROOT. 



While there are plenty of queen-breeders 

 in the country, men of known reputation for 

 supplying first-class stock, there are compar- 

 atively few bee-keepers who make it a busi- 

 ness to supply, in addition to queens, nuclei 

 and full colonies. So great has been the 

 call for the last two items that the publishers 

 of this journal have located several apiaries 

 in the East, besides one in the West and one 

 in the extreme South. The one shown in 

 the subjoined illustration, of the Root Co.'s 

 Salem yard, is a fair example. 



This apiary is located in Salem, N. J., on 

 the east side, near the Delaware River, and 

 along Salem Creek. The water tempers the 

 west and north winds, so that early spi'ing 

 brood-rearing is favored. The soil is sandy, 

 very dry, and the temperature of all this 

 country is very mild. It is a great agricul- 

 tural and fruit country, with a great abun- 

 dance of clover and other honey-bearing 

 flora. 



This yard was made up by starting in July, 

 dividing single colonies up into three and 

 four frame nuclei, introducing an Italian 

 queen to each, and feeding sugar syrup till 

 each nucleus became a fair- sized colony at 

 the time this picture was taken. The Alex- 

 ander method and bottom-board feeder was 

 adopted, giving most excellent results. 



We find it is cheaper and certainly more 

 satisfactory to make bees out of sugar syrup 

 than to iDuy a mixed lot in all kinds of crook- 

 ed combs in poor or odd-shaped hives of the 

 so-called farmer bee-keeper. I speak of this 

 in this connection because I do not believe 

 it ordinarily pays one to invest four or five 

 dollars apiece for ten or twenty colonies, in 

 all kintis of hives and frames, because the 

 same money invested in sugar, with the 

 right kind of management, will insure a 

 larger force of bees viniformly marked, of 

 the desired strain, on comljs built from 

 foundation that will be as straight as a board, 

 with the further advantage that every thing 

 will be new, uniform, and first-class. 



We have often wondered why there were 

 not more who Avould be willing to furnish 

 bees. A good manj^ have tried it and given 

 up in disgust. Why? When a customer 

 sends off' a distance for a colony of bees or a 

 nucleus, he expects, first of all, well-marked 

 bees, perfect combs, new frames, and a clean 

 new modern hive or a nucleus-l)ox. Too 

 many who have essayed to go into this busi- 

 ness have sent out colonies in the hives in 

 which they were — frames old, combs imper- 

 fect, aud bees poorly marked. The I'esult is 

 a confab ])et\veen ttie purchaser and seller. 

 The remedy is obvious. 



But, more than all else, it is very impor- 

 tdfit that an}" one who attempts to sell l)ees 

 be familiar with bee-diseases— enough so, so 

 that he can detect any infectious trouble at 



