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THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



May, 



Cincinnati, 2; Lexington, 1; Toronto, 

 2; Rochester, Detroit, Columbus, 

 Brantford, Keokuk, Albany, Washing- 

 ton, St. Joseph and Lincoln, 1 each; 

 Buffalo, 2; Omaha, Denver and Los 

 Angeles, 1 each. 



U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C, January, 1904. 



AN OBSERVATION HIVE. 



By D. D. Alley. 



I AM a beginner in bee-keeping. I 

 have two eight-"L" frame hives in 

 my back garden and an observa- 

 tion hive in my dining room vrindow. 

 I keep them more for the pleasure af- 

 forded in studying their habits than 

 for the amount of honey produced. 



Yonkers is a city of over 50,000 in- 

 habitants and is practically an over- 

 flow from the gi-eat city of New York, 

 south of it. The lawns are kept mow- 

 ed as close as the beard on a monk's 

 face. White clover blossoms are as 

 scarce as snowflakes are in Florida. 

 In spite of the lack of pasturage, my 

 bees managed fo fill the sections with 

 some of the finest honey I have ever 

 eaten. 



My observation hive has been a 

 source of great pleasure and profit- 

 able study to myself and friends, one 

 of whom has facetiously referred to 

 it as "Alley's Bug House!" It was 

 constructed to hold two fninics "' 

 size. On the 1st of July, I placed in it 

 one frame of bees witli a queen and 

 one frame with a starter only. In a 

 short time this frame was filled with 

 comb and brood. In the meantime, 

 brood from the old frame had hatched 

 out and by the first of August the 

 littlf' hive was packed with bees. I 

 wrote to the editor of a prominent bee 

 journal, explaining the conditions and 

 asking for advice to relieve the crowd- 

 ing, as I did not want to lose the bees. 

 He sugtrested that I "remove a frame 

 of brood and replace it with one emp- 

 ty conili." adding, "We snpnose. of 

 course, that you are keeping this hive 

 for pleasure and pronalily do not in- 

 tend to winter them. "This advice 

 would be all right if 1 luid a large ap- 

 iary; l)ut. i)ractieally. it meant in my 

 case to throw away the V)ees, and I did 

 intend to try aiid winter them over. 



I immediately set to work .-imi co' - 

 structed a new hive, the walls of 



which were in the for mof two L's, 

 the front and right side being station 

 ary. The left side witn the back can 

 be shoved in and out on the bottom 

 board, and it is held in place by two 

 iron 14 inch rods passing through the 

 upper edge of the sides. These rods 

 also act as supports for the frames. 

 This hive may be contracted to one 

 frame or expanded to hold a dozen or 

 more. I have successfully prevented 

 the propolizing of the movable side, by 

 rubbing over the edges with sculptor's 

 "plasteriue," a substance used by 

 sculptors for modeling, in place of 

 clay. It never gets hard, it is water- 

 proof and seems to be a combination 

 of beeswax and powdered sulphur. 

 Perhaps the bees do not like the sul- 

 phur and so leave it alone. I trans- 

 ferred the bees to this new hive, ex- 

 panding it and adding a new frame 

 with starter from time to time. It 

 now contains six frames and the bees 

 have every prospect of wintering suc- 

 cessfully. I inclose a photograph 

 showing the hive in position. 

 Yonkers, New York, Nov. 11, 1903. 



OUR CALIFORNIA LETTER. 



Things Apiarian on the Pacific Coast. 



By Heni*y E. Horn. 



AFTER basking and roasting in al- 

 most uninterrupted sunshine for 

 over six months. Southern Cali- 

 fornia has once more experienced the 

 blessings of rain. True, we did not get 

 much, yet we are thankful now 

 for anything, and there is some pros- 

 pect for more later on. The farmers 

 say it is too late now to raise grain and 

 they expect to cut the stuff for hay. 

 Of coiirse, bee-keeping is looking up 

 some. It would not take much rain, 

 now, to give us some kind of a crop. 

 One good soaking of two or three 

 inches would gladden the heart of 

 many an apiculturist. Bee-keeping 

 here has not been the unintermittent 

 success people at distant places seem 

 to think. Indeed, to be honest about it, 

 it has rather been an intermittent 

 failure for the last six years — intermit- 

 tant to the extent of just one middling 

 good success, and one lesser one. Last 

 year was the most tantalizing season 

 I have ever gone through. Not want 

 of rain; drv winds and burning sun 



