, OLDEST BEE PAPER 

 INAiyiERICA 



ESTABLISHED ^j 

 IN 1861 



3 BEE-CULTURE AND THE I 



VOL. XVII. 



CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 6, 1881. 



No. 27. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



My Management of Bees. 



P. LOUCKS. 



I have handled bees some 18 or 20 

 years on a small scale, but have not 

 made bee-keeping my entire business 

 until tins year. I have read 3 editions 

 of Quinby's bee book, several of the 



ing here I wanted either blacks or 

 pure Italians (no hybrids for me), and 

 as the country was stocked with the 

 black or brown bee. I concluded they 

 were good enough for me, considered 

 in the light of former experience. 



For a hive, I wanted something 

 cheap, simple, and practical, so con- 

 cluded to adopt the following : inside 

 measure 14^2x18x10 inches, holding 10 

 frames, a little shorter than theQuinby 

 frame (because I did not have the ex- 

 act dimensions), bottom-board nailed 

 on, and projecting 2 inches in front ; 

 the honey-board is made of J^-inch 

 lumber, with six l 1 ., inch holes. I put 

 a moulding all around % inch below 

 the top of the hive for the cap to rest 



crawl from the ground to the entrance 

 without difficulty. The upper story is 

 made the same as the lower story, ex- 

 cept minus the bottom-board and the 

 entrances. 



The main part of my stock, to start 

 with, I transferred from bee-trees. In 

 1879 and 1880 1 transferred and worked 

 some bees on shares ; but now I have 

 all the bees of my own that I want to 

 handle. I had my leg broken the 12th 

 of March, so cannot give my bees the 

 attention necessary to get the most 

 out of them. I have my brother-in- 

 law doing the best he can, but he is a 

 raw hand at the business. Swarming 

 season is at hand. The doctor says he 

 will have me out on crutches the last 



confine them to the hive 24 hours. I 

 rear as good queens in this way as I 

 can wish for. When I remove the 

 queen to a new colony I replace her 

 with a sealed queen cell, if such are at 

 hand. I thus keep them occupied 

 rearing queens and building comb, 

 and in the fall or latter part of the 

 honey season they generally furnish 

 some surplus honey. At the end of 

 the season after taking out all the 

 queens but one, I remove the parti- 

 tion boards and let them unite, mak- 

 ing a good colony. Last fall I left 2 

 queens in one such nucleus hive, af- 

 ter taking out one queen and remov- 

 ing one division-board ; in January I 

 took away the queen from the double 



smn-snos niu 



A Picturesque Apiary, Designed by Mr. A. I. Root, of Medina, Ohio. 



bee periodicals, etc., sol have had the- 

 ory and practical experience. 



I first made box hives as recom- 

 mended by Quinby ; after a few years 

 I transferred to the Langstroth frame, 

 using hives of different patterns — 

 Novice's simplicity, A. II. Hart's 

 complicated patent hive, and a hive of 

 my own make, with loose bottom- 

 board, honey-board, and cap to cover 

 boxes, but no portico. 



I also caught the Italian bee fever, 

 which lasted for several years. 



On selling out to move to California 

 I had one pure Italian coloiiy out of 

 23; the rest were hybrids. This ex- 

 perience was in Outagamie County, 

 Wis. When I commenced bee-keep- 



on; cap 8 inches high. For entrances 

 I cut out of the front end 2 places at 

 the bottom, %x 3 inches, and bore a ; 

 i>8-inch hole near the top. For a j 

 stand, I take 6-inch fencing, cut two 

 pieces 16 and two 20 inches long, nail- 1 

 ing the short pieces against the ends 

 of the long ones. I slip the front end ' 

 up enough to correspond with the 

 thickness of the bottom-board of the 

 hive, the back end I raise one inch or 

 more to give the required pitch for- 

 ward when the hive is placed on the 

 stand, so the bottom of the hive rests 

 on the side pieces. The front end of 

 the stand serves to keep the hive from 

 sliding forward, also to enable the 

 bees that fall short of the entrance to 



of this week or the first of next ; then 

 I can spread the brood and start the 

 nuclei hives, which I do as follows : I 

 take a standard hive, put 2 partition 

 boards in it, make entrances on each 

 end and one side, to accommodate 

 each department, one dying east, one 

 south, and one west, each apartment 

 holding 3 frames. I now go to one of 

 my best colonies, take a comb of brood 

 and bees, selecting one with a large 

 amount of sealed brood, and a few 

 eggs, from another colony I take a 

 comb of honey and bees, also shake 

 the bees from one or two more combs, 

 being careful not to get the old queen, 

 and put in one empty frame. I fill 

 each apartment the same way, then 



nucleus to supply a queenless colony, 

 intending to remove the other divis- 

 ion-board, but did not get around to 

 do it for about 2 weeks, when I found 

 they had reared a good-looking queen. 

 So I left her, to see what she would 

 amount to. I examined them once a 

 week. Feb. 27 I failed to discover any 

 eggs, but she must have commenced 

 to lay within a day or so, for March 6 

 I found a comb with a circle of 5 

 inches filled with eggs, and hatched 

 brood well supplied with food. 1 have 

 not had a chance to look at them since, 

 but I had Mrs. L. and her brother ex- 

 amine them ; they report worker bees 

 hatching out in fine style. When I 

 get around, I will give her a chance 



