470 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



which we liave read so nmoh. I must 

 own I have rather fallen in love with 

 then). They are of large size, unsur- 

 passed in industry, and by no means 

 cross. Mr. Heddon does not breed 

 for color but for business. His bees 

 have three and sometimes four bands, 

 but they are of a light brown, dusky 

 hue. For years he has been cultivat- 

 ing strains that proved themselves 

 the best workers, and is confident 

 that he now has bees which gatlier 

 largely from tlie red clover. He 

 frankly calls them liybrids, and be- 

 lieves that there are strains of the 

 German bee as good as any Italian, 

 while the cross is better tlian either. 

 He distinguishes between the brown 

 and the black bee, a distinction that 

 was new to me. His advice is to 

 avoid the blacks altogether, as puny, 

 irascible, and inferior workers. He 

 kindly presented me witli one of his 

 average leather-colored queens, and 

 she is now putting in her best licks 

 beside my Italians and Syrians. I 

 have no Cyi)riaiis. A colony of tliem 

 that I had last year made my little 

 apiary too hot for me. 



Toward evening we took a drive 

 into the country around Dowagiac. I 

 was not favorably impressed with the 

 bee keeping resources of the region 

 as L saw it from the village. But 1 

 got a different idea of it during our 

 drive. The soil is a light, sandy 

 loam. AVhite clover luxuriates in it. 

 Within a short distance of the vil- 

 lage, basswood abounds. It is found 

 on botli high and low land, blooming 

 early on tlie higher slopes, and later 

 on the Hats. Tlie tulip tree, berry- 

 bloom, and nintlierwort are abundant. 

 Mr. Heddon ha.s scattered the seeds 

 of melilot here and there in waste 

 places, anil even around a large 

 snivel pit, it is making a luxuriant 

 growth where hardly anything else 

 would flourish. 



Mr. Heddon has the idea that even 

 a good locality may easily be over- 

 stocked vi'ith bees. For the best re- 

 sults he would not have more than 50 

 colonies occupying one range. After 

 that, though bees may do well, they 

 will not accomplish their utmost in 

 the way of honey* gathering. The 

 precentage of stores will be smaller. 

 This opinion surprised me and 

 awakened some incredulity, but I was 

 not prepared to contest it, in the face 

 and teeth of Mr. Heddon's large and 

 long experience. 



Mr. Heddon's success as a bee- 

 keeper has been encouraging. Those 

 will) know him do not need to be told 

 thii t. he is not an over-sanguine man. 

 Indeed he is apt to get the doldrums 

 now and then. Occasionally he has 

 been suspected of presenting the 

 sombre side of the business too con- 

 spicuously. .Still, his own career has 

 beeu such as to awaken ambition in 

 the mind of any enterprising youtii 

 wilh a short iHirse, and the world all 

 1)-, f' ne him. He is only in the prime 

 and vigor of life, yet he has about all 

 the comforts he can use to advantage. 

 A good home, a nice wife, three 

 briglit and healthy children, an eligi- 

 ble village property, an apiary yield- , 

 ing a livelihood and some proiit~how ■ 

 ni!ich I couldn't find out— a healUiv ' 



business giving any amount of intel- 

 lectual exercise, with occasional bits 

 of enji\val)le leisure, what more can a 

 man desire': It has cost a large 

 amount of hard work, and is the fruit 

 of many j'ears of steady perseverance 

 in a chosen pathway not all bestrewn 

 with flowers, but how many strive 

 and toil just as much without these 

 satisfactory results V The man him- 

 self is of course always an important 

 factor in a career of success, and in no 

 line of things is this more true than 

 in bee-keeping. Without certain 

 qualities, difficult of attainment, there 

 is pretty sure to be failure. 



Mr. Ileddon does a pretty large 

 supply business, but like others with 

 whom I have met who are in the same 

 line, thinks there is nothing in it. 

 The business is too much cut up, and 

 the competition too keen for a decent 

 profit. 



" We, us and Co." are not so formid- 

 able as I expected to find them. Mrs. 

 II. beams with kindness and good 

 nature, is a model hostess, but seems 

 to think silence golden " before 

 folks." Perhaps her spouse has the 

 richer benefit, " all by his lone !" The 

 children are too young to have opin- 

 ions of their own as yet. The ap- 

 prentices, two in number, would 

 hardly presume to do more than ask 

 information on bee lore from their 

 experienced and able instructor. Fine, 

 intelligent young fellows, they have 

 indeed a valuable opportunity of ac- 

 quiring the science and art of bee- 

 keeping. I should like to have their 

 chance myself for at least one sum- 

 mer, and would certainly try to get 

 it, were I not parson and editor as to 

 life-work, with bee-keeping as only a 

 sort of by-play, or, as the ladies woiUd 

 call it, mere " knitting-work." 



Listowel,,July 14, 1882. 



Country Gentleman. 



Aiiiarian Exhibits at Fairs. 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



Considering how little has been 

 done in the way of exhibiting apiar- 

 ies, implements, products, etc., at 

 fairs, the Michigan Stale Agricultural 

 Society offers quite liberal premiums 

 in the apiarian department. In re- 

 gard to the premiums offered in this 

 department by other State agricultu- 

 ral societies," I have no positive 

 knowledge; 1 do know, however, that 

 some bee-keepers have complained in 

 regard to the meagre premiums of- 

 fered by the agricultural societies of 

 their respective States ; but if larger 

 and better apiarian exhibits were 

 made, it is more than probable that 

 larger premiums would be offered, 

 and the list extended. The dealer in 

 apiarian implements, the bee-keeper 

 who rears for sale improved strains 

 of bees and queens, and the producer 

 of large quantities of honey, ail find 

 an excellent advertisement in a care- 

 fully prepared, tastefully arranged, 

 and appropriate exhibition of their 

 wares at a State fair. The well-known 

 apiarist, D. A. Jones, sold several 

 thousand pounds of extracted honey 

 last fall, at a. fair in Canada. The 



honey was put up in small tin pails 

 and tin cans, and neatly labeled. The 

 smallest package contained only two 

 ounces of honey, and sold for five 

 cents. 



One great difficulty in exhibiting 

 bees at fairs is that, if allowed to fly, 

 they visit candy and fruit stands, and 

 cider mills, causing so much annoy- 

 ance tliat tlieir exhibitor is soon told 

 that he must either shut them up or 

 remove them from the grounds. Per- 

 haps the majority of the bees causing 

 the trouble are from some neighbor- 

 ing apiary, but, as long as an exhibi- 

 tor's bees are flying, the whole blame 

 will be attached to them. To keep 

 them confined during the journey to 

 the fair, while it is in progress, "and 

 then on the homeward journey, is 

 pretty hard on the bees ; they become 

 uneasy and many of them die. The 

 only remedy is to carry the bees out 

 each day, after the crowd has de- 

 parted and the candy and fruit stands 

 are closed, and allovs' them to fly. 

 Here arises another difficulty ; unless 

 the bee-keeper waits until dark before 

 closing tlie hive, the bees will not all 

 have returned, while if he waits until 

 the next morning before closing the 

 hive, unless he is on hand " at the 

 break of day," the bees will be out at 

 W(nk. There are two ways out of this 

 difficulty ; one is to get some accom- 

 modating watchman to close the hive 

 after the bees have ceased flying, and 

 the other is to carry a tent, bedding 

 and provisions, pitch the tent upon 

 the fair ground, and eat and sleep in 

 it during the fair. By so doing, the 

 exhibitor is always on hand to attend 

 to his bees. 



For the convenience and economy, 

 many exhibitors whose almost con- 

 stant attendance is required by their 

 exhibits, prefer to live in a tent upon 

 the grounds during the fair. An ob- 

 servatory hive— that is, one with glass 

 sides — is necessary in exhibiting bees 

 at fairs. In order that visitors may 

 be gratified with the sight of a queen 

 bee, it is well to have a single-frame 

 observatory hive; that is, one just 

 large enough to receive a single comb 

 covered with bees. Of course, from 

 one side or the other, the queen will 

 always be visible, and sometimes may 

 be seen depositing her eggs. The 

 British Bee Journal for January con- 

 tains a description of an excellent ob- 

 servatory hive for use at fairs. The 

 hive is twice as long as an ordinary 

 hive, and as it is only half filled with 

 frames, there is space to move them 

 apart inside the hive, and show the 

 interior of the brood nest, the queen, 

 etc. The frames are moved about by 

 taking liold of narrow strips of heavy, 

 folded tin that are attached to the 

 ends of the top bars of the frames, 

 and project through long narrow slots 

 that extended the whole length of the 

 upper side-bars of the wooden frame- 

 work of the hive. 



In a late number of the American 

 JSee JouiiNAL are some excellent 

 suggestions in regard to the manipu- 

 lation of bees at fairs. Among other 

 things it shows how a small space in 

 one corner of a building or room may 

 be divided off bv iiieiuis of a mosquito 

 bar partition, ami bees handled and 



