1883 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CtJLttJR:tJ. 



63 



A FEW WORDS ABOUT SOME SUCCESS- 

 FUL BUSINESS MEN. 



W. F. & JOHN BABNES, ROCKFOBD, ILL. 



O OME of our older readers may remember j 

 ^) the experiments we made with foot- 

 — power saws for making hives and sec- 

 tion boxes, something like ten years ago. 

 You will remember that I decided in favor 

 of a machine costing only Soo.OO, in prefer- 

 ence to one that cost over a hundred. The 

 cheap machine was made by the gentlemen 

 whose names appear at head of this article. 

 We have sold machines of their make, every 

 year since then, and it has been with plea- 

 sure that I have noticed the steady increase 

 of their business from year to year. At the 

 Centennial I was pleased to meet one of the 

 brothers, and shall always remember him as 

 a bright, good-natured enthusiast in his busi- 

 ness of showing and explaining what could 

 be done with foot-power saws. I»elow we 

 give an engraving of their factory as it ap- 

 pears in this present year of LSb;:i. 



The material used in this building is brick 

 and stone. The main machine-shop, shown 

 on the extreme right, is 150 ft. by 40 ; the 

 front portion of the L is also 150 ft. by 40. 

 The office in the left end of the front L, 

 where two men are seen, is 40 by 50. The 

 rear part of the building, facing the Rock 

 River, is the foundry and smith shop, 250 ft. 

 by 60. 



^^ -^ ^ 



A COUPLE OF A B r SCHOLARS IN 

 KANSAS. 



THEIK TRIALS AND SUCCESSES. 



Y wife and I are bee-keepers on a small scale. 

 I commenced last June with two colonies of 

 Italian bees. They were about as nearly 

 starved out, I presume, as bees ever are to pull 

 through all rijfht. I thought I knew a little some- 

 thing about the science of bee-keeping, but I soon 

 found out I was as green as grass; and the more I 

 worked with my pets the more mystified I became, 

 and at the same time interested. I finally subfcribcd 

 for Gleanings, and that made the fever worse. I 

 bought Cook's Manual and your ABC book, and of 

 course I learned a great deal; but it seems to me 

 the half has not been told, and that there are 

 " mountains " of information yet for me to learn. 

 I feel now, when I do not think of it, greener than I 

 did the first of last June, when I had no experience, 

 nor your ABC book, Cook's Manual, or Gleanings 

 for a guide. I had fertile workers during the sea- 



son, and robbing, and the "contrariest" and most 

 aggravating swarm of bees, I thought, on earth. It 

 was an after-swarm that would swarm out, and then 

 go back into the old hive. They kept up this fool- 

 ishness once or twice a day for five days; and after 

 they had eaten aU of their honey in the old hive, 

 they got disgusted, as I then thought, and concluded 

 to stay In a hive I had been putting them in, and 

 went to work. They were the best workers I had in 

 my little apiary, afterward working all day until 

 dark, with a rush. 



In the midst of a honey-flow the 10th of Sept., 

 three days of dry hot winds dried up all the flowers, 

 and the honey season was ended, and robbing was 

 in order. The colonies were all strong, except one. 

 This the other bees attempted to rob. I was a little 

 better posted by this time. I tried all of your plans 

 and Prof. Cook's, without success, except the last. 

 1 moved the hive two miles into the country, and it 

 was a success. I brought them back a fair colony 

 late in the fall, and put it in the cellar. I call it my 

 nucleus. I have at present 6 strong colonies and 

 the nucleus; one colony in chaflf hive, 3 packed In 

 chaff in Simplicity hives, and on their summer 

 stands: the rest I put in the cellar. My five col- 

 onies went into winter quarters with about 40 

 lbs. of honey to the hive. I got something over 

 20O lbs. of comb honey, without fdn. One colony 

 made 105 lbs. surplus, and all in a country that 

 does not furnish honey, as friend Dearbon, of 

 Silver Lake, Kan., said in the last June No. of 

 Gleanings. Silver Lake is only six miles from 

 here, and a good deal such a locality as this. 

 Perhaps he may be right, as one season would 

 not disprove it. 



smartweed. 

 Or a weed that looks like the old - fashioned 

 smartweed, grows thickly everywhere in corn- 

 fields and on wheat-stubble that has not been plowed 

 up. It furnished the honey here, and is of a very 

 superior quality. Some speak of it as being equal 

 to white clover. Will some one in Gleanings tell 

 whether it can be depended upon as a honey-plant? 

 Does it afford honey every year, and how long is its 

 season to yield honey? I couldn't find anything in 

 any of the bee literature as to its value as a honey- 

 plant. 



My wife helped me with the bees. She has the 

 bee fever also, and caught it from her husband. 

 Often in her sleep, during the time when the bees 

 were swarming out last summer, she would wake 

 me up in the night and say the bees were all over 

 the bed, clawing around and brushing imaginary 

 bees off the pillow until she would wake herself up. 

 She is reading and posting herself up this winter, 

 and says she will allow no such foolishness and cut- 

 ting-up and swarmlng-out so often next season as 

 we had last. I call her "Mrs. Harrison," as she ad- 

 mires that lady'sletter in Gleanings so much; and, 

 by the way, she thinks Gleanings is just splendid, 

 and so do I. We have no little ones, only our bees 

 for pets. The thermometer has averaged 17 degrees 

 below zero for the past three days — the coldest 

 known for years in Kansas. M. F. Tatman. 



Rossville, Kans,, Jan. 32, 18K3. 



I am very glad to know^ you succeeded so 

 well, my friend ; for over 100 lbs. of comb 

 honey to the hive might encourage almost 

 anybody, for the first season, I wonder if 

 other bee-men's wives, a few of them, have 



