38 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



CAPT. ROBINSON'S APIARY IN 

 CUBA. 



Elsewhere in this number of The 

 Bee-Keeper we have the pleasure of 

 presenting a splendid picture of the 

 apiary and "la casa" of Capt. H. H. 

 Robinson, of Cuba. 



Just now, when the greater portion 

 of our great country is clad in a man- 

 tle of snow and the hum of the bee 

 has been hushed by the menacing 

 blasts of winter, it is interesting to 

 have a glimpse of summer life as it 

 exists in our "cute little sister" re- 

 public — Cuba, with its fleecy, tropical 

 clouds, its picturesque mountain peaks 

 and placid inland waters softly tinted 

 by a summer sun. 



Capt. Robinson is an American boy, 

 with whom the writer of this sketch 

 has spent many weeks indulging in 

 bee work bee chats, cruising; and 

 photography. He is an excellent pho- 

 tographer as well as an expert apiar- 

 ist; and is an amateur navigator of th? 

 first class. The little apiary and palm- 

 thatched home, nestled among the 

 great banana stalks, surrounded by his 

 family, represents the realization of 

 "life's dream," to the genial captain, 

 without a doubt, for a home and an 

 apiary in Cuba's delightful climate 

 was always a favorite picture in his 

 mind's eye, as evidenced by his par- 

 tiality to this theme. 



That he may feel enjoyment as keen 

 in its participation as he did in its an- 

 ticipation, is the wish of The Bee- 

 Keeper. 



WIRING BROOD FRAMES. 



The practice of wiring frames to 

 support the foundation, it appears, is 

 becoming more popular than former- 

 \y. Following the introduction of the 

 practice, wires were used vertical, hor- 

 izontal and diagonal. In fact, the 

 idea seemed to prevail that if a few 

 wires were a good thing, a lot of wires 

 were a correspondingly better thing; 

 and the frames that were wired at all 

 were usually made a network of wires. 



The next advance step, perhaps, 

 was that of abolishing all but the ver- 

 tical wires, of which three or four 

 were used. Now the thing has sim- 

 mered down to about two to four hor- 

 izontal wires, as a general thing; and 

 this, indeed, seems sufficient — much 

 better, in fact, than the vertical style, 



February,. 



for there is no possibility of the foun- 

 dation sliding down a horizontal wire, 

 as was sometimes the case when 

 none but the vertical wire was used. 

 The credit for the introduction of hor- 

 izontal wiring, we believe, belongs to 

 Mr. Geo. E. Hilton, of Fremont, Mich.,^ 

 who was using this system in the ear*- 

 ly eighties. 



RESULTS IN WINTERING. 



Functional Conditions May Have a 

 Bearing Upon the Matter. 



Mr. A. C. Miller, of our staff, who 

 is unquestionably one of the most 

 studious apiarian investigators of our 

 day, submits the following: 



Apropos of early and thorough 

 preparation of bees for winter, the 

 value of a full larder early stocked, 

 the following from Newport may be 

 added. Probably it will be new to 

 most bee-keepers: 



He says: "It is well known to tlie 

 cottager, that when the flowers have 

 not yielded an abundance of honey in 

 the latter part of the summer, the 

 bees in his hives will have less chance 

 of existing through the winter than 

 when the production of honey has 

 been plentiful. This latter circum- 

 stance may, perhaps, be said to arise 

 from a deficiency in the quantity of 

 honey stored up by the bees, but I 

 have strong reason for believing that 

 it arises chiefly from the bees being 

 in a worse bodily condition, and hav- 

 ing but a small quantity of nutriment 

 stored up within their own systems, 

 which alone enables them to pass 

 some portion of the winter in a state 

 of repose. If the female of the com- 

 mon bumble bee, Bombus lerrestris, 

 which sleeps through the winter and 

 appears early in the following spring, 

 be examined about the end of Sep- 

 tember, its abdomen is found to be 

 supplied with large bags of fat. At 

 that period the insect is less active 

 and evolves a smaller quantity of heat 

 than in the spring, when there is a 

 much lower temperature of the atmos- 

 phere. And if at that period the in- 

 sect be deprived of food, it will con- 

 tinue to live very much longer than 

 it would have lived, under similar cir- 

 cumstances, and exactly at the same 

 temperature of the atmosphere, in the 

 month of April." 



