250 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



will run down the sides of the hive, and 

 finally escape at the entrance. It was t\)r 

 this reason that any obstruction at the en- 

 trance was decidedly injurious. A year or 

 so ago, you will remember, I told how we 

 were covering the entrances with loose hay, 

 thinking thereby to shut off the chilling 

 blast. Theoretically the plan was all right; 

 but Doolittle early predicted disaster to all 

 colonies so treated, and he was right; so we 

 now recommend leaving the entrance unob- 

 structed, but contracting to the size already 

 given. In this connection it is proper to 

 state that it is very important to keep them 

 clear by raking out the dead bees from time 

 to time. 



In the upper right-hand corner will be seen 

 a view of some colonies in single-walled hives 

 packed in paper cases. These are made of 

 rubberoid roofing, folded up in the form of 

 a cap, but of sufficient size to leave folds of 

 newspaper between the top and sides of the 

 hive and the cap. Under the newspaper is a 

 super-cover which the bees are permitted to 

 seal down early in the season. I see no I'ea- 

 son why this arrangement shall not give good 

 results. But the making of these cases — what 

 a job! Our men aver that the cutting, fold- 

 ing, and riveting the folds of the stiff roofing, 

 make such cases as expensive as those of 

 wood, with the disadvantage that, when 

 made, they are so flimsy that they would 

 hardly answer for more than one season's 

 use. 



THE HEXAGONAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE 

 HIVES. 



While I am showing the views of the bee- 

 yard in winter, perhaps I should stop to give 

 the reader the general scheme of the arrange- 

 ment of the hives. Our older readers will 

 remember that A. I. Root, when he original- 

 ly laid out this home yard, conceived the 

 idea of making separate apiaries with drive- 

 ways all around them. Each apiary he plot- 

 ted out in the form of a hexagon, in imita- 

 tion of the comb of the bee. All of these 

 hexagons with driveways around them were 

 arranged in the form of one large circle, 

 making up one large bee-yard comprising 

 several smaller ones, making a total aggre- 

 gate of 500 colonies. In front of each hive, 

 on the south side, he placed a trellis and a 

 grapevine, to give the I'equisite shade in sum- 

 mer. We have never been able to show this 

 hexagonal effect clearly, since it was carried 

 out; for when one is on the ground the fox'm 

 of the separate apiaries does not appear. 

 But during the last summer the big smoke- 

 stack of our plant required some enlai'ging. 

 The inner lining was taken out, and the 

 stack was raised some 35 feet, making a to- 

 tal height above the ground of 125 feet. Just 

 as the work was completed I had the men 

 haul me up to the top of the stack, where I 

 took a number of snap-shots looking down 

 over the bee-yard. A few of these pictures 

 are given in the next two pages. The lower 

 view is one that shows the nexagonal form 

 very distinctly; the smoker-house, and the 

 old house-apiary that was built by A. I. Root 

 just about 30 years ago; but I shall refer to 



ihis later. The upper view shows how the 

 bee-yard joins on to the lumber-yard and 

 buildings with the barn in the background. 

 The two other views look down on our lum- 

 ber-shed, where there are sometimes stored 

 or piled up solid something like $75,000 worth 

 of lumber. One can foi'm some idea of the 

 size of these sheds by noting the flat car and 

 the men piling lumber. These sheds are not 

 all shown here, as the range of the camera 

 was not sufficient to take them in. 



THE FIRST BUILDING BUILT BY A. I. ROOT 

 IN THE INTEREST OF BEES. 



There is one very interesting building, 

 however, and it is situated just in range of 

 the top of the small smoke- stack, shown in 

 the two views — not the one from which the 

 picture was taken. This is a plain frame 

 structure with gable roof, and is the first 

 building that A. I. Root ever erected for bees. 

 It is double-walled, the lining being packed 

 with sawdust. It was in this building in the 

 late 60's and eai'ly70's that he conducted his 

 experiments in indoor wintering. The re- 

 sults of all this were given in a very interest- 

 ing series of articles in Gleanings along 

 about 1873. The enthusiasm that he put in 

 this work was not unlike the enthusiasm he 

 evinces in his chicken-raising, given in Our 

 Homes in last issue. Well do I remember 

 those eai'ly experiments. I can see this build- 

 ing, and the bees in it, as though it were 

 yesterday. 



The Root Co., consequently, considers this 

 a rather interesting exhibit, because it was 

 the nucleus of what now covers many acres 

 of ground, and in a way shows the progress 

 of the bee-keeping industry from the time of 

 fathers Langstroth and Quinby. During 

 those days a single carload of honey dumped 

 in New York broke the market completely; 

 but nowadays a trainload of honey with an 

 aggregate length of 75 miles in length, with- 

 out a break, said aggregate distributed over 

 the selling season, does not appreciably af- 

 fect the honey market. 



BASSWOOD LUMBER FOR SECTION-MAKING. 



But I have digressed. Let us go back to 

 the pictures again. We soon found that, 

 in order to make perfect sections, the bass- 

 wood lumber, when it reached the right age 

 of cure, should be piled up under sheds whei*e 

 the sunshine and the rain and the snow would 

 not affect it. When basswood lumber reach- 

 es the right dryness, it begins to deteriorate 

 very rapidly unless protected, hence the sheds. 

 The boards are now loaded on to cars, clean 

 and dry, no matter what the weather, rainy or 

 snowy, and run directly inside of the factory 

 building, and worked up into sections. 



I omitted to state that the upper picture, 

 showing a corner of the bee-yard, was a lit- 

 tle dim, owing to the fact that a slight breeze 

 was blowing at the time; yet this was suffi- 

 cient to make that stack, 125 feet tall, with 

 an internal diameter of about 5 feet, sway 

 back and forth. There was a sort of sensa- 

 tion that the thing was going to topple over. 

 It would have been too bad to spoil these 

 pictures; but my own judgment, not my feel- 



