1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



293 



NOTES or TRAVEL 



f BY A.r.ROOT . 



!^^^^^2?^^*s^5;^5rf 



CUBAN APIARIKS AND THE MEN WHO RUN 

 THEM. 



Resuming' mj' story on pa^-e 251 of last 

 issue, it is not only turkeys, chickens, ducks, 

 etc., that friend Hnchstein has around his 

 home, but they have some of the prettiest 

 white doves in boxes up under the eaves of 

 the house I ever saw. A pair of young;- 

 doves, almost large enough to try their 

 wings, were tliere, and the^^ were looking 

 out of their domicil verv curiously at the 

 (to them) new world. Some of the folks, 

 just for fun, lifted out one of them and put 

 it on the doorstep outside. The "papa" 

 dove was off hunting food for his younesters. 

 When he came back and found one of them 

 had gone outside, as he supposed, without 

 parental permission he was "mad as could 

 be," boxed their ears (figuratively speak- 

 ing), and gave them a srood sound scolding, 

 and then pushe-^ them bade inside, and just 

 laid down the law, commanding them never 

 to think of even putting a head outside until 

 /le, with his mature wisdom, decided they 

 were old enough to go outside and look out 

 for themselves. There are lots of intei-est- 

 ing things around that Hochstein home at 

 the foot of the mountain. A beautiful spring 

 bursts forth from the rocks just above, and 

 friend Hochstein is planning to use it for 

 irrigation. 



It wns very windy at the time of rny visit; 

 notvrithstanding, the bees were just "pouring 

 in with loads of sweetness. I think I never 

 saw so many bees coming in with loads in 

 all my life before. When the wind would 

 let up a little the}' came in from one partic- 

 ular direction through the canyon, down 

 the mountain-side, until the air was almost 

 black with them. And, by the WRy, bois- 

 Iprous wind, or something else, made the 

 bees remarkably "ugly" that day. I do 

 not know but they blamed us for the fact 

 that the wind hindered them in their work 

 — a great deal like complaining human be- 

 ings, aren't they? Well, I saw bj' the looks 

 of things that friend Hochstein was getting 

 a tremendous crop of honey from the nearly 

 .'■00 hives, all in one spot, most of them two- 

 story, and many of them three. 



"Friend Hochstein. how much honey 

 have you taken already this season from 

 this apiary? " 



"I am not going to tell j'ou, Mr. Root." 



" Well, I should like to know zv/iy you 

 are not SToing to tell me," said I laughingl3^ 



" Well," replied he, " Rambler asked me 

 that same question last year, and I told him 

 just as I have told j'ou; but, notwithstand- 

 ing, it got out, and now there is quite an 

 apiary started over here in thi» south, anoth- 

 er on' the west, another on the east, and 

 now I am expecting every day somebody 

 will locate just above me on the side of the 



mountain. Every time they see me take a 

 carload of honey over to the station, they 

 say to themselves, ' Whv, that fellow is mak- 

 in? money hand over hand,' and then go 

 right straight and start another apiary. I 

 am going to take my honey to the station 

 after dark after this, and I will not tell a 

 soul how much I am getting. I was think- 

 ing of starting some out-apiaries myself 

 after a while; but just look at it." 



Now, I presume the above is not friend 

 Hochstein's exact words, but something to 

 that effect; and I, for one, protest against 

 this fashion of dropping down with a lot of 

 hives close to a successful bee-keeper. In 

 drilling for oil it may be all right; but 

 where there are miles and miles of good ter- 

 ritory for honey unoccupied, what sense or 

 courtesy is there in crowding up toward 

 somebodj' who is already doing fairly 

 well? 



With the tremendous job it is to get honey 

 and supplies to and from the station, one 

 would suppose friend Hochstein would have 

 comparatively full swing, and I think he 

 went away out there just on purpose to be 

 free from bee-keeping neighbors. 



F^riend H. has several convenient inven- 

 tions in and about his apiary. One is that 

 he has a door to his honey-house so it opens 

 automatically when you come up to it with 

 a wheelbarrow full of combs of honey. The 

 moment the weight of the barrow gets on a 

 plank that leads up to the door, the door 

 swings open. Then the man who is operat- 

 ing the extractor, by pulling a cord over 

 his head, shuts it up. This arrangement 

 alone saves lots of time and hard work in 

 opening and shutting doors. His son, also, 

 has invented an arrangement to clasp the 

 lower end of the frame while slicing off the 

 cappings. We expect to get illustrations of 

 this later. He also uses very successfully 

 a solar wax-extractor just like the one we 

 have at Paso Real; but in order to have it 

 turn easily so as to face the sun, he has it 

 on a platform that turns on a bolt. I be- 

 lieve somebody suggested, some years ago, 

 taking an old wagon- wheel and fixing it on 

 a post for an axle so it would turn easily, 

 then attach your extractor to this wheel. 

 This makes the whole apparatus swing so 

 easily that you can turn it by just a touch 

 of a finger. Well, friend Hochstein found 

 it was a bother to lift out the square tins 

 whenever thej^ got full of wax; so he has an 

 opening with a piece of gaspipe attached to 

 it that lets the wax run into a suitable re- 

 ceptacle down below the bottom of the solar 

 extractor. 



Last, but not least, the broom he uses to 

 brush off the bees is made on a 40-penny 

 spike, the head being inside of the handle 

 of the brush, the sharp end of the spike 

 protruding from the end of the handle. 

 This gives one a good solid tool for prying 

 the frames loose, and a brush for brushing 

 off the bees with the other end of it. I do 

 not know who makes these brooms or brush- 

 es; but I think there would be a big sale 

 for them if advertised in the right way. 



