1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1237 



habit of observing the unusual, the mon- 

 strous. Our attention is attracted by spec- 

 imens of other ages and places, when, as a 

 matter of fact, we ought to be trained to 

 observe what is most ordinary and common- 

 place about us, and to see the beauty and 

 utihty of things near at hand. And it is 

 doubtless a fact that it requires a higher or- 

 der of mental operation to center the atten- 

 tion and observe correctly with reference to 

 commonplace things than it does in cases 

 where curiosity is aroused by some peculiar- 

 ity or strangeness of the object observed. 

 Perhaps this will explain why the majority 

 of people who live in a settled civilized 

 country could tell better how wild beasts are 

 kept and treated in captivity than they 

 could tell how to keep and treat a horse or 

 a cow in their neighbor's barn. It is this 

 that makes every one remember that a bee 

 stings. It has become such a fixed notion 

 in the minds of the majority of people that 

 the honey-bee stings that one would think, 

 from the way many people talk, that the 

 chief business in life for the bee is to sting; 

 whereas the one who has worked with them 

 long will tell you that, while the greater 

 number of the bees in a colony can and will 

 sting, as a matter of fact very few of them 

 ever sting at all, and those few sting only 

 under great provocation. 



The universal fear of the honey-bee has 

 come about because of an ignorance of the 

 simplest and most apparent principles of 

 bee culture. The direct cause of this fear 

 is the sting of the bee; but the sting was 

 inflicted because of the ignorance of the in- 

 truder, which brings about a reversal of the 

 time-worn saying, "ignorance is bliss." 



THE EXTENT OF THE STUDY. 



But one other thought presses for recog- 

 nition in this connection, and that is the fact 

 that the employment of bee culture as an 

 educational factor will greatly enlarge the 

 mental horizon of the student. Few of us 

 begin to realize the magnitude of the forces 

 in operation about us in the material world, 

 and fewer still know any thing about the 

 means by which the marvelous results of 

 nature's processes are accomplished. Only 

 a very few favored ones can have the means 

 of penetrating the depths of the heavens to 

 explore them, or to add to the sum of human 

 knowledge along the lines of the great ap- 

 plied sciences; but any one with an eye to 

 see, and a mind to grasp and use the results 

 of correct observation, may walk afield and 

 find the world a great hive of industry in 

 which the myriad forms of insect life are 

 working out world processes. It is coming 

 to be more and more essential to know about 

 these little creatures. Some of them are 

 enemies of the human race; but the most of 

 them, perhaps, serve some beneficial end as 

 regards man's welfare. At the head of the 

 list of the friends of man among the insects 

 stands the honey-bee. An acquaintance 

 with it vill inspire confidence, and will lead 

 to larger attainments. 



Coal City, 111. 



AMOUNT OF HONEY PER COLONY. 



What can we Reasonably Expect to Obtain 

 when we Give our Bees the Best of Care? 



BY E. W. ALEXANDER. 



This is a question which we are often ask- 

 ed by those who know but little about bees, 

 and I sometimes think it might be a good 

 question for each one of us to ask ourselves, 

 and then do a little thinking along this line. 

 For some time I have been thinking this 

 matter over, and I have come to the conclu- 

 sion that I never gave my bees what might 

 be called the best of care, neither have I 

 ever seen a man who did. Now, why is 

 this? Simply because we have got the idea 

 into our heads that we must have a great 

 number of colonies in order to make a little 

 money. Now, this is a big mistake, and the 

 sooner we realize it the better. 



Let us apply the same management to bee- 

 keeping that we see put into practice by all 

 the successful business men of the country. 

 They make the most out of every thing con- 

 nected with their business that they possibly 

 can. Is it so with us? 1 don't think it is. 

 There are but very few who give their bees 

 extra care, consequently their surplus is 

 small per colony, and they may become dis- 

 couraged. Now let us look this matter over 

 and see if we can not do much better in the 

 future with fewer colonies than many of us 

 are now doing with several hundred; and, by 

 way of explaining this matter, I will suppose 

 that, on April 15, you have 100 fairly good 

 colonies that were just taken from their win- 

 ter quarters, and that each colony contains a 

 good well-developed Italian queen not over 

 ten months old that has been reared from 

 some good honey-gathering strain of bees. 

 I shall take it for granted that your hives 

 are filled with nice worker combs. 



We will commence the season's work by 

 putting a feeder under every hive and giving 

 each colony about IJ cents' worth of ex- 

 tracted honey, or sugar syrup, which must 

 be made very thin, of about the consistency 

 of nectar, and feed them about this amount 

 every day that the weather is such they can 

 not gather any thing from flowers until about 

 the last of May. 'This will require on an av- 

 erage, one season with another, about 50 

 cents' worth of honey or sugar per colony; 

 and, if properly done, you will have. May 25, 

 every hive crowded with brood and maturing 

 bees at the rate of 2000 or more a day. 



About two weeks previous to this we 

 should start the rearing of four or five hun- 

 dred queen-cells, which are now. May 26, 

 about ready to hatch. Now we will divide 

 our 100 colonies, making two of each, and 

 fix them so that the queenless part will ma- 

 ture two or more of these ripe queen-cells or 

 virgins into nice laying queens; then about 

 the last of June we will separate these col- 

 onies that have two or more laying queens, 

 making 100 more increase, or 300 colonies 

 all together. 



The old colony, or the part that has had 



