1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



589 



narrower than IJ inches would have been 

 filled out with combs. The appearance of 

 this tree would indicate that the bees had 

 been located there only about one year. 

 Some of the lower combs appear to be quite 

 white, as if little or no brood had been rear- 

 ed in them. 



The only thing lacking about this photo is 

 the fact that the hollow is located so close to 

 the ground as to remove the element of ad- 

 venture and excitement. There was no 

 climbing— nothing about it to suggest the 

 acrobatic and daring in swinging aloft per- 

 haps 50 or 75 feet from the ground, and 

 wielding an ax until the great limb in which 

 are located the bees begins to give way, 

 creaks, and tears itself loose, coming down 

 with a crash, smash, bang. Perhaps we 

 shall see this enacted in some of the other 

 photos. I do not know what is coming yet, 

 for the " committee" have been given sole 

 charge of the pictures. 



A LAWN APIARY. 



The other third- prize photo of a bee-yard 

 is unlike the one given .in our previous issue 

 in that it is more suggestive of a beautiful 

 lawn or park, of rows of hives laid out with 

 mathematical precision — in short, nature 

 modified by the handiwork of man. Our 

 friend Adam A. Clark, its proprietor, runs 

 almost exclusively for comb honey, and that 

 in plain sections, if we may judge from the 

 correspondence that has passed back and 

 forth from time to time. The small amount 

 of extracted honey he does obtain is secured 

 in connection with his comb. Sometimes in 

 baiting the bees out of the lower story he 

 uses a shallow extracting-super. When he 

 gets the bees once started above he puts on 

 a comb-honey super, and uses the bait ex- 

 tracting-super for some other hive. 



The picture was taken, evidently, right in 

 the height of the season. The stacked-up 

 supers, two and three high, and in some 

 cases three and four high, betoken a degree 

 of prosperity that ought to make the owner 

 proud. The whole picture is very attractive 

 of its kind, and, as I have already said, 

 some judges might have given this the first 

 place. 



The photo was evidently a " time " view. 

 And right here I wish to suggest to aspir- 

 ants in our prize contest that a camera 

 mounted on a tripod, with the lens stopped 

 dov;n to the smallest opening, and a time 

 exposure, will, as a rule, give far better re- 

 sults. How do I know this is a time expos- 

 ure? Just look at the tree on the left— that 

 is, I mean the foliage in the upper left-hand 

 comer. It looks as if a whirlwind was mak- 

 ing a regular hullabaloo at the moment of 

 exposure. 



HOFFMAN vs. UNSPACED FRAMES. 



On account of the heavy demand for bees 

 this year we have been buying up every 

 thing we could find, from farmers in this 

 county who had bees to sell, and then in- 

 troduce our red-clover stock. It was a sig- 

 nificant fact that we were compelled to melt 



or burn up a large percentage of the combs 

 in the loose or unspaced frames, because of 

 the fearful and irregular spacing, while those 

 in the Hoffman frames were as perfect, al- 

 most, as any thing we had in our own yards, 

 showing very clearly that the average farm- 

 er in Medina Co,, at least, needs a frame 

 that is self-spacing. In every one of the 

 hives with loose unspaced frames we had a 

 mess of it. AH we could do was to cut out 

 or tear the combs apart, and then shake 

 and brush about half or two- thirds of the 

 bees on to frames of foundation in another 

 hive. Of course, it is needless to say these 

 new frames were self-spacing. In this case 

 at least they were closed-end Danzenbaker, 

 as we needed colonies on these frames for 

 orders. The combs of brood in the old 

 frames were so very crooked that we did 

 not deem it practicable to attempt to cut 

 them out and put them into good frames; 

 so we are going to let the brood hatch out 

 without a laying queen, shake on to spaced 

 frames; then melt up the combs. 



THE VALUE OF LONG-SLEEVED FINGERLESS 



GLOVES IN PRACTICAL WORK AMONG THE 



bees; THE DUTCHMAN'S REVOLVER. 



I FIND there is a great comfort if not con- 

 venience in using a long sleeve or gauntlet 

 with a rubber cord gathering at each end, 

 one to close over the palm of the hand, leav- 

 ing the fingers exposed, and the other over 

 the elbow. Of course, there must be a 

 thumb-hole to make the sleeve complete. I 

 was quite surprised to see how many of the 

 bees would sting the sleeve up above the 

 fingers rather than to attack the exposed 

 members themselves. 

 ' I found even long-sleeved gloves with en- 

 tire fingers, when I was trying to cure a 

 bad case of robbing, spoken of elsewhere, 

 decidedly comfortable. The bees were cross 

 —awfully so— and before putting these on 

 they seemed to take particular delight in 

 darting up my sleeves, and stinging the soft 

 fleshy portions of my wrists and arms.* 

 Now, if there is any place outside of my 

 nose and eyes that I do not want to have 

 stung it is the wrists. There was a pair of 

 these long-sleeved gloves in the yard that I 

 never used, but now I quickly drew them 

 on, and— presto! what a delightful change! 

 I pulled the combs out of the old leaky 

 hives, transferred them into good tight ones, 

 receiving only now and then a slight prick 

 from a sting that had barely reached through 

 the fabric. A slight movement of the arm 

 or wrist disengaged the sting, and at the 

 same time the bee was minus that organ. 



I must say that, hereafter, I shall consid- 

 er a good pair of long-sleeved gloves some- 

 thing as the Dutchman did his revolver. He 

 said he did not want it very often; but when 

 he did want it he wanted it "mighty sud- 

 den." For persons who are timid or inexpe- 

 rienced, who are greatly affected by stings, 



• Not expecting to work the bees I was not provided 

 with my long sleeves. I went to the yard on a tour of 

 inspection to see if there was any thing doing, and 

 lucky I did. 



