THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



489 



haviug tlietn filled in the breeding- 

 season, early before the honey-flow 

 commences." 



You will probably say that the 

 above phui makes work : but for what 

 are we keeping bees if not for jn'olit V 

 and if we expect to have profit, we 

 must work for it. The man who 

 keeps bees and does not work with 

 them, and yet expects profit, will al- 

 ways be disappointed. IIow is it 

 that Mr, Miller, of Bell Canyon, al- 

 ways has a crop of surplus honey 

 every season y jLast season he had 

 eiglit tons, while some of his neigh- 

 bors had nothing V He worked with 

 his bees. His bees never starve to 

 death by the wholesale as some of his 

 neighboVs' bees do. In all ray life- 

 long experience in bee-keeping, I 

 have always found that bees are self- 

 supporting in the poorest season, if 

 properly managed ; and I have had 

 experience in bee-keeping in Canada, 

 Vermont, Wisconsin, Northern Iowa, 

 and now three years in California. 

 In some seasons "and localities I liave 

 had to stimulate my bees by feeding 

 thera in the summer, but have never 

 had to feed them in the fall or winter. 

 I always save the poor honey which is 

 unfit for market, and feed it to the 

 bees. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Overstocking a Locality. 



.1. E. POND, JR. 



The question of overstocking has 

 been more or less of a bug-bear, with 

 a few, since I first began to keep bees, 

 nearly 20 years ago. Every little 

 while some poor fellow, fearful, I 

 suppose, that all the honey yielded by 

 the flora of the countrj", would be 



fathered by others, and none left for 

 im, would raise the cry of overstock- 

 ing, and over-production. 



"What are the facts which the last 20 

 years have shown V First, bee-keep- 

 ing, as a business, has grown enor- 

 mously ; hundreds now pursue it suc- 

 cessfully where only one was engaged 

 in it when the Bee JouiiXAL flrst 

 started into life ; and not only has 

 this large increase been made in the 

 accession of members to our ranks, 

 but by means of better and more ad- 

 vanced methods, hundreds of pounds 

 of honey are now produced as a con- 

 sequence of these improved methods, 

 while under the old regime, hardly a 

 pound of surplus was obtained. 



Now, if these results have followed 

 during 20 years, and I defy any one 

 to prove the contrary, what need is 

 there to fear overstocking in the 

 future? "But," the reply comes, 

 " we do not mean overstockiiig in the 

 whole country, but certain small 

 areas that we call our feeding-ground 

 whose radius is equal to the flight- 

 range of our bees." Well, what dan- 

 ger IS there of overstocking even that 

 territory V A single acre of white 

 clover will furnish, in a good season, 

 at least 100 pounds of surplus each to 

 25 or 30 colonies. Spin this out to a 

 diameter of 8 or 10 miles from a given 

 location, and it is easy to be seen that 

 it will take more bees than by any 



possibility will ever be kept in a 

 locality, to overstock it. 



But who can determine this ques- 

 tion of overstocking? and how can 

 they determine it y In a poor season, 

 when the flowers yield no nectar (and 

 we do have sucli seasons), a very few 

 colonies might starve, not because 

 the locality is overstocked, but be- 

 cause there is no honey to be gathered, 

 lias any one ever considered for a 

 moment the state of things that must 

 necessarily exist, in order to overstock 

 a locality V Simply this: It is well 

 known tlnit the flowers are constantly 

 secreting nectar during the time they 

 are in bloom, and this nectar, in order 

 to be utilized as honey, must be 

 gathered at once, or it will evaporate. 

 If a certain flower secreted a certain 

 amount of honey, which, when gath- 

 ered, exhausted its supply, then there 

 might be some strength in the argu- 

 ment in favor of overstocking, but 

 such is not the case ; for the nectar 

 thus secreted must either be gathered 

 at once, or it evaporates and is lost, 

 and in either ease a fresh supply is at; 

 once secreted to supply its place. In 

 about five minutes after the nectar 

 has been gathered from a white clover 

 or other blossom, more is secreted, 

 and sufficient to load up any bee, even 

 if it is as large as " apis dorsaia.''^ 



Now, to overstock a locality, every 

 honey-yielding flower within that 

 locality must be visited by a honey- 

 bee oftener than once every five min- 

 utes during the duration of its bloom. 

 I, myself, do not know the number of 

 colonies of bees required to accom- 

 plish this work, but it is easy to see 

 that it will require an immensely 

 larger number of colonies than it is 

 at all presumable will ever be kept in 

 any locality, either by one or many 

 persons. 



When I flrst began keeping bees, I 

 had some fears in regard to trie mat- 

 ter; but as I have seen the business 

 increase, and the honey yield increase 

 ten times more largely in proportion, 

 than the increase of bee-keepers, and 

 that, too, without glutting the market, 

 or causing any falling in prices, I 

 have concluded that tne danger is 

 fancied, and not real ; and more par- 

 ticularly do I so conclude when I find 

 that hundreds of colonies are kept at 

 a profit in our large cities, where it 

 would naturally be supposed that no 

 honey at all could be gathered, unless 

 vielded by stones and bricks. Some 

 localities undoubtedly give larger 

 yields than others, but that is a mat- 

 ter of chance or design in the growth 

 of honey-yielding plants and trees, 

 and does not in anywise form a factor 

 in the problem under consideration. 



Foxboro, Mass. 



For tlie American B«e JournaL 



A "Visit to G. "W. Demaree's Apiary. 



W. 1'. STEWAUT. 



On July o, I made a visit to Mr. G. 

 W. Demaree"s apiary, where I re- 

 mained two days and nights. As the 

 readers of bee-papers are " well 

 aware " he is an enthusiastic writer, 

 and it you will pay him a visit, as I 



have done, you will at once see that 

 he is enthusiastic in the whole busi- 

 ness of bee culture, especially the 

 rearing of fiue queens. ]SIr. I), is a 

 lawyer and farmer, and has plenty of 

 this World's goods, and no children to 

 leave it to ; so he has almost given up 

 law and farming, and concentrated 

 his whole time and talent upon bee- 

 culture. 



His apiary consists of about ISO 

 colonies and nuclei ; very tastefully 

 arranged. lie prides himself very 

 much upon his improved Italian bees, 

 and well he may, for his Italians are 

 indeed beautiful. He and the Cyp- 

 rians have had so many '•ups-and- 

 downs " and disputes as to who should 

 "boss "the apiary, that he has dis- 

 carded the breeding of them, and 

 breeds only Italians. 



He uses the Jones' perforated zinc 

 or drone excluder, and says that it is 

 a perfect success, and I agree with 

 him in this. He took me out to his 

 sweet clover field, which is so thick 

 and tall that it is nearly impossible to 

 go through it, and the bees were mak- 

 ing it fairly hum. He uses a half- 

 story (that is a story half the depth of 

 the Langstroth) for extracting pur- 

 poses. Tlie combs are shallo'w and 

 straight, and the bees fill and seal 

 them very quickly. When full he 

 lifts the whole set off and puts them 

 into his extracting-room, in which 

 there is a bee-escape, and in a short 

 time the bees leave it and go home, 

 when it is ready for the extractor ; 

 thus he saves the labor and time of 

 brushing bees from the combs in the 

 hot sun. The plan is a good one, and 

 in the future I shall use it largely in. 

 my own apiary. 



He has horse-power and also foot- 

 power machinery for hive making. 



In passing through his queen-rear- 

 ing department, I stopped to read on 

 the slates, which hung on each hive, 

 but they were embellislied with hiero- 

 glyphics only, such as none could read, 

 but he understood them. 



I expected to see many things at 

 Mr. D."s apiary that were new to me, 

 he being a sort of natural genius, and ■ 

 in this I was not disappointed. Many 

 a little idea I caught and stored up in 

 my memory for future use. Mr. D. is 

 an incessant talker, and talks about 

 bees from the beginning to the end. 

 He despises meanness in any form 

 among bee-keepers, and lives up to 

 the old adage, that " Honesty is the 

 best policy." 



Mr. D. is president of the Kentucky 

 State Bee-Keepers' Society, and we 

 may naturally expect tliat he will 

 spare no pains' in getting up a good 

 programme for the fall meetings. We 

 hope that he and Dr. Allen, the sec- 

 retary, will arrange to have a bee and 

 honey show at the beginning of the 

 Exposition at Louisville, and also at 

 our regular fall meeting at Eminence, 

 Ky. Right here let me say to Ken- 

 tucky bee-keepers : Let us each 

 donate any amount that is necessary, 

 to raise money enough to offer large 

 premiums on the best display of 

 lioney, bees, etc., such as is customary 

 to give premiums on ; and then let us 

 get up a rousing show. All try to get 

 the premium by an energetic effort 



