THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



151 



Louses) one is able to keep colo- 

 nies for sevent^'-five dollars. 



Athough there are bad years, 

 when one can reap little or noth- 

 ing, yet we must not lose courage. 

 By clever managing of the bees, 

 we may not onl}^ keep our capital 

 and get some wax, but there 

 are always more good bee seasons 

 than the reverse. For thirty-eight 

 years we have not had more than 

 seven bad seasons. Those were the 

 years 1740, 1751, 1756, 1763, 1768, 

 1770, 1771. In one place they have 

 more rain than in another ; in one 

 part of the country the honey-dew is 

 more abundant than in another ; 

 and in an}^ case, a good bee-year re- 

 trieves much. Every region is not 

 good for the keeping of bees ; as, for 

 example, the part of Hanau is es- 

 pecially good for beaver ground ; 

 but as the bees have spread a large 

 table, and know how to gather food 

 out of thousands of flowers and 

 herbs, there is seldom a tract 

 where you could not keep bees 

 without profit. The surrounding- 

 country, for example, is not very 

 profitable, although it has mead- 

 ows and much foliage and many 

 vetches grow here ; but the woods 

 are an hour's distance away, the 

 bees find no haide and there is no 

 poppy-seed, no hemp, no spring 

 corn or rape-seed, very little win- 

 ter crop or sweet naphew planted. 

 Still the bees give a splendid profit 

 most of the years. The less food 

 the bees find in certain localities, 

 the more people have to plan how 

 to make beekeeping most profit- 

 able. Keeping them in common 

 straw baskets would not amount to 



much in these parts, and in one 

 bad year one would lose all his bees. 

 The improved bee- hives are so 

 much in favor by those who under- 

 stand beekeeping that they would 

 not exchange one of them for four 

 made of straw. I found, too, 

 that the storehouses made of straw 

 were very inconvenient sometimes, 

 and besides they deprived me of 

 the pleasure of seeing their inhab- 

 itants and their operations. 



I, therefore, several years ago 

 invented wooden bee-hives,'* in 

 which each section does not hold 

 more than four pounds. They are 

 supplied with a glass window, and 

 besides being pretty they are cheap- 

 er than the straw ones and last 

 ten times longer. These pleasant 

 hives have not only taught me how 

 to manipulate the bees with more 

 freedom, but are practicable in 

 many other ways ; and all my 

 friends, who are interested in bees, 

 and had adopted this plan, found 

 them so profitable that they did 

 not want any other. I have shown 

 their use and preference for all 

 other kinds and they have proved 

 to be acceptable. My management 

 of the bees to get the most profit 



■* It was an original and practical invention 

 as I never had seen or read of such a hive be- 

 fore. Several years afterwards, I read some- 

 thing of similar beehives, the same as Mr. 

 Paltean's in France and the Vicatische, which 

 Schirach describes in his universal " Bee 

 Father, " with a cover or box, wliich mine do 

 not need, and which are arranged far more 

 conveniently for the bees and the beekeeper. 

 It is possible, that one or tlie other has thought 

 of the same kind of beehives, and have tried 

 them in distant parts of the country; but the 

 great usefulness and the improved arrange- 

 ment of those have never been known fully, 

 and have never been ascertained by experi- 

 ment. 



