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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



THE SECOND PRIZE, SWARM OF BEES. 



The winner of the second prize for a 

 swarm of bees is Mr. W. C. Naftel, of 

 Naftel, Ala. I understand from the com- 

 mittee that the feature which gave this 

 second place, or perhaps any place at all, 

 was the Manum swarming- basket. The 

 bees, it appears, have been dumped inside 

 of the basket, the cover flipped in place, 

 when the remaining bees that were not cap- 

 tured inside, but which may have taken 

 wing, later clustered on the outside. 



The Manum swarming arrangement does 

 not require that all the bees should be se- 

 cured inside of the wire- cloth cage. A half 

 or two-thirds will be sufficient. If the cov- 

 er is folded over in place, and the basket be 

 poised in midair on its tripod, the remaining 

 bees in the air will soon find the main clus- 

 ter and cling to the outside. When all are 

 in place the tripod is hfted, the two legs 



THE HOUSE-APIARY IN CUBA. 



Some of its Advantages and Disadvantages in 

 that Climate. 



BY F. H. DE BECHE. 



I send you herewith four pictures. They 

 are not intended to compete for the Glean- 

 ings prize pictures, but I am sui-e you will 

 be interested in looking at them. 



The largest picture shows my home yard 

 at Taco-Taco. It is located at the top of a 

 small hill on the edge of the village, and you 

 can see the roofs of its houses and the 

 mountains in the background. The village 

 of Taco-Taco is built in the lowest center 

 part of that valley, on both sides of the 

 Western Railway tracks which cross it. 

 This general view of the apiary was taken 

 about two and a half years ago. Some sticks 



SWARM — BY W. C. NAFTEL, NAFTEL, ALA. 



are pulled up against the main pole, the 

 whole then balanced for easy carrying. On 

 arriving at the hive the basket is slowly in- 

 verted by grasping the ring in the bottom 

 of the cone of wire cloth. A quick jerk dis- 

 lodges the bees on the ground in front of the 

 hive, or better, perhaps, directly into the 

 hive. 



The view at the right shows how this 

 particular swarm was finally dumped in 

 front. The hive was pried up, and a board 

 leaned up against the bottom-board. At the 

 time the photo was taken the bees were in 

 the act of crawling into the hive. 



When a swarm is just dumped, the en- 

 trance should be as large as possible. If 

 practicable, the hive-body should be tilted 

 off from the bottom- board to give a large 

 amount of ventilation, and should be left up 

 until the bees cool off and begin house- 

 keeping. 



of "guasimas" trees were then planted scat- 

 tered amongst the hives to provide for shade 

 later on. You can form an idea of the 

 growth of this tree by looking at the two 

 pictures of the house-apiary built on the 

 same ground of this home yard. The smaller 

 picture of this house-apiary was taken when 

 it was just finished. You will notice that 

 there is no tree planted on its side, and I 

 planted at that time a small stick of "gua- 

 sima" that was lying on the ground. It 

 looks in this picture as if the boys thought 

 that what I wanted to take was their pic- 

 ture instead of the house-apiary. The other 

 picture of this house-apiary was taken a 

 year later, and you will notice that the tree 

 is rather taller than the house itself. 



You may be interested in knowing some- 

 thing about this house-apiary, which perhaps 

 will seem to you a strange thing here in this 

 hot climate. It was built for experiment 



