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39th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL, NOVEMBER 23, 1899, 



No, 47, 



An Apiary and Bee-Keeping in South Dakota. 



BY JAMES M. HOBBS. 



BEE-KEEPING in our new State is also a new industrj-. 

 The illustration herewith represents my summer and 

 winter home-apiary atid this is the eighth year I have 

 wintered my bees as shown in the picture, and with good 

 results. 



I work for comb honey only, and use IJi-story, 8- frame 

 Langstroth hives. 



The honey-flow this year was not as good as in pre- 

 vious years, as I got only about 45 pounds per colony on an 

 average, fall count. Some colonies produced as high as 

 130 pounds of comb honey. We usually get SO to 75 pounds 

 on the average. Our principal flow is from sweet clover, 

 which is abundant here ; also alfalfa. 



My method of increase of colonies is natural swarming. 

 I have no dipt queens. I have practiced this method for 20 

 years, and I will say that I have had only o/if swarm to ab- 

 scond in all that time, and for eight years no swarm has 

 settled over four feet from the ground. I could sit in a 

 chair and hive them. At some future time I will describe 

 my method. Yankton Co., S. Dak., Oct. 17. 



Bee-Hive Ventilation During- the Winter Months. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



AS I am fixing the bee-hives these days (the forepart of 

 November), as to the matter of covering over and 

 around the frames, ray mind chanced to wander over 



the past, and trace the way in which I had been led up to 

 where I am to-day as to the subject of ventilation of bee- 

 hives, and in so thinking it came to me that it might not 

 be amiss to tell the readers of the American Bee Journal 

 something about it. 



Among many pleasant recollections, the bees are ever 

 foremost, and at 10 years of age I was an anxious watcher 

 of these little creatures, of which father had from 20 to 40 

 colonies, according as the seasons vcere good or poor. These 

 were kept in what was then known as the " Weeks patent 

 hive," a hive which had the bottom-board attacht to it with 

 wire hooks and staples, and with a button so arranged that, 

 for winter, the bottom was allowed to hang suspended an 

 inch below the hive, while in summer the button was so 

 I turned as to bring the bottom-board tight to the bottom of 

 the hive, except the entrance. With this hive father had 

 poor success wintering bees, while a neighbor wintered his 

 safely with a hive closed tight at the bottom and a two-inch 

 auger-hole at the top. This success of the neighbor, and 

 father's poor success, caused him to fasten the bottom- 

 boards of the Weeks hive in winter, or rather leave them 

 during the winter just as they were in summer, while the 

 holes in the top, thru which the bees had access to the sur- 

 plus apartment, were opened, and the surplus chamber was 

 fliled with some old garments, carpets, hay or straw, or 

 something of the kind, just what came most handy. Fixt 

 in this way we had very little trouble in wintering the bees 

 thereafter. 



The recollection of this matter caused me to believe 

 that " upward ventilation," as it is often termed, was the 

 proper kind of ventilation to give, when the bees were win- 

 tered on the summer stands. 



Soon after this, nearly all the bees in these parts died 

 of that dread disease, foul brood, and no more were kept in 

 the family until the year 1869, when I purchast two colonies, 

 thus laying the foundation of my present apiary. 



At that time (18b9) there were plenty of bees kept all 

 about here in box-hives, very many of which were raised on 

 half-inch blocks at the bottom all around, that being some- 

 thing similar to the old method of ventilation of the Weeks 



HoMc-.lpiary of Mr. James M. llobbs, of Yankton Co., South I)al;ota. 



