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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For tlie American Bee JonrnaL 



A Visit to a School of Apiculture. 



WM. r. CLARKE. 



After ii residence of over teu months 

 in a country destitute of bees, it was a 

 pleasure wliicli only a bee-keeper can 

 understand to find myself in a large 

 apiary once more, like Mr. Heddon's, 

 listening to the old familiar hum. and 

 watching the varied movements of the 

 busy little honey-gatherers. At this 

 time (Aug. 13), there is a cessation of 

 the liquid flow, the fall flowers not 

 having yet come into bloom. Here 

 and there a few heads of late white 

 clover could be seen, which the bees 

 were eager to rifle. The asters too, 

 showed some blossoms ; the boneset 

 looked white, and the goldenrod yel- 

 low with promise^ while the melilot 

 was plainly on the wane. Bee pasture 

 was indeed scant, so thirt it was a 

 good opportunity for judging the dis- 

 position of the "cross hybrids." I 

 must give them the credit of being as 

 pp;ieeablv-inclined as any bees I ever 

 saw in like circumstances. Here, in 

 an apiary of about 300 hives, with 

 honey scarce, and queen-rearing oper- 

 ations going on extensively, I saw no 

 signs of robbery or fighting, and did 

 not detect a single angry buzz. The 

 most exemplary order and quietness 

 reigned supreme. There seemed to 

 be no Satan on the scene, to " find 

 some mischief still, for idle " bees " to 

 do." 



My chief interest in visiting Mr. 

 Heddon at this time was to investi- 

 gate the condition and prospects of 

 Ills school of apiculture. As the 

 fHther of this scheme, I felt naturally 

 anxious to know how it was working. 

 It has not been carried out as ex- 

 tensively as I had anticipated and 

 hoped, owing mainly to a practical 

 difficulty not fully foreseen at the 

 outset. To run an apiary for profit 

 requires constant supervision, and 

 enough help to do the work efliciently 

 —no more, no less. This is hardly 

 compatible with having an infinite 

 number of pupils to instruct in the 

 principles and manipulations of bee- 

 keeping. When applications began 

 to pour in upon Mr. Heddon, in re- 

 sponse to his advertised readiness to 

 take a limited number of students, 

 this ditticulty loomed up, and he saw 

 no solution of it for the present sea- 

 son, but in taking only so many as he 

 could use to advantage in carrying on 

 his own apiary. Hence he selected 

 from about 20 applicants, 4 young 

 men, whose replies to a string of 

 questions appeared to single them out 

 as especially promising. Some in- 

 stinct, unerring as that of the bee in 

 its choice of flowers, must have 

 uided the selection of these pupils, 

 'or a likelier quartette could hardly 

 have been formed. They are, Fred 

 S. Carrier, Benzie Co., Mich. ; Wm. 

 Stolley, Grand Island, Neb.; F. S. 



I 



Williams, Susquehanna, Penn. ; and 

 W. Hickox, Cleveland, O. Three of 

 the four are bee-keepers of two or 

 three years' standing, and the fourth, 

 though less experienced in bee-keep- 

 ing, is specially helpful to Mr. Heddon, 

 and his companions, in consequence 

 of being a skillful short-hand writer. 



We had a session of the school, 

 which was more like a miniature bee 

 convention, in the evening of the day 

 I spent with Mr. Heddon, at which I 

 obtained ample evidence of the 

 thoroughness with which these young 

 men are being instructed, and the 

 usefulness of such a plan of teaching. 

 The students were unanimous and 

 warm in their testimony to the good 

 they are deriving, and the ready part 

 they took in the discussion of various 

 intricate bee matters, bore out their 

 testimony, and proved that these 

 young men are being trained to un- 

 derstand practical apiculture most 

 thoroughly. The best feature in the 

 case, to my mind, is the fact that they 

 are " enthused " with their business. 

 A man must have the enthusiasm of 

 his calling, to achieve the best success 

 in it, and the teacher who cannot 

 create this, is a failure. 



The practical difliculty I have in- 

 dicated is precisely that which besets 

 agricultural colleges. Many farmers 

 demand that these institutions should 

 be self-supporting, which they cannot 

 be, even though a portion of the time 

 is given to manual labor. Principles 

 must be taught, and what work is 

 done will be more or less unskilled. 

 A school of agriculture or apiculture 

 must be subject to these two draw- 

 backs. You cannot take raw youths, 

 instruct them in the theory and prac- 

 tice of farming or bee-keeping, and 

 run a farm or an apiary as a source of 

 profit at one and the same time. It 

 would be a poor factory that was 

 manned wholly by apprentices. 



There are, and I suppose always 

 will be, two classes of bee-keepers, 

 the amateurs and professionals ; those 

 who keep bees for pleasure from 

 scientific interest, and those who keep 

 them as a source of profit, and a 

 means of livelihood. I am but an 

 amateur, and doubt my ability to take 

 an apiary and manage it so as to 

 make it very profitable, though I 

 know the theory and manipulations 

 pretty well. Before going into api- 

 culture as a business, I should want 

 to spend a season with a practical 

 bee-keeper like Mr. Heddon. The 

 honey market of the world must be 

 supplied by those who keep bees for 

 profit, and know how to make money 

 at it. How are the practical bee- 

 keepers to be raised up V Shall we 

 leave the thing to chance, and let 

 men grope their way through laby- 

 rinths of failure, into the paradise of 

 success, or find ways and means to 

 train them for the business V If bee- 

 keeping is to take its proper place 

 among the industries of the world, it 

 would seem to be necessary to provide 

 an education for it. 



Such an education must comprise, 

 first, a knowledge of the principles of 

 bee-culture ; and second, the business 

 management of an apiary. The first 

 could be given in a school of apicul- 



ture with a few bee hives to experi- 

 ment with. I do not see how the sec- 

 ond could be so easily and quickly 

 imparted as by a season's work under 

 an accomplished bee-keeper. It is 

 one thing to be able to handle bees, 

 it is another and a vastly different 

 thing to manage them so as to make 

 them pay. Mr. Heddon says that if 

 he could have spent a season early in 

 his career with such apiarist as the 

 late Adam Grimm, it would have 

 saved him years of blundering and 

 discouragement. No doubt many 

 have blundered along until they have 

 become despairing, who might have 

 been put on the highroad to success 

 at once by an experienced teacher. 

 Those who are only anxious to make 

 money by selling apiarian fixtures, 

 will not care how many blunder into 

 hopeless discouragement, but all who 

 wish to see bee-keeping exalted into a 

 regular profession or business, wilt 

 desiderate some plan by which api- 

 cultural capacity can be developed 

 into success. 



Mr. Heddon's pupils are of the 

 opinion that it would pay any young 

 man who intends to make bee-keep- 

 ing a life-work, to attend a school of 

 apiculture where only a few hives are 

 kept for experiment, but they con- 

 sider themselves highly fortunate in 

 being drilled into the management of 

 a large apiary, conducted with a view 

 to dollars and cents. Any number of 

 young men could be taught elemen- 

 tary principles and manipulations in 

 a school. Only so many as are re- 

 quired to do the work well, can be 

 drilled in a practical apiary. Mr. 

 Heddon has restricted himself, the 

 present season, to that number. The 

 results are, that the apiary is well 

 " tended," everything about it is in 

 " apple-pie order," the students are 

 well satisfied, and so is their teacher. 

 The only regret is that, apparently 

 all this cannot be accomplished on a 

 larger scale. 



Chicago, 111., Aug. 15, 1883. 



Pralrte Farmer. 



Eees Clustering Outside. 



MES. L. HARRISON. 



A lady asks why her bees swarmed 

 seven times and returned to the same 

 hive 'f She says : " I saw the queen 

 fly away with the swarm and return 

 twice, so I know she can fly. The 

 bees cluster on the outside of the 

 hive and do not appear to work much. 

 What makes them act so ?" 



We do not know wliy they did so, 

 but if a little discipline had been 

 applied at the right time, it would 

 have remedied the evil. Had the old 

 hive been removed and a new one 

 substituted, the colony would have 

 entered it on their return, and then it 

 could have been placed on a new 

 stand and the old one replaced. Yet 

 queens are sometimes contrary, and 

 this one might have left the new hive 

 and returned again to the old one 

 followed by her subjects. We have 

 sometimes lifted off the surplus boxes 

 from a colony acting in this manner, 

 and removed all the brood frames. 



