164 



GLEANINGS IK BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



" been there," and could tell all about how it turned 

 out. During the past two seasons he has had with 

 him a small class of students learning bee-keeping, 

 and he is making arrangements to accommodate a 

 still larger class the coming season. Fortunate in- 

 deed will be the young man who wishes to make a 

 profession of apiculture, if he can pass one season 

 in the apiary under the instructions of friend H. 



THE L. FRAME, AGAIN. 



Friend H. uses the Langstroth frame, and gives 

 the following reasons for his preference: The shal- 

 lowness of the brood-nest induces the bees to enter 

 the boxes more readily; there is more room for 

 boxes over the frames, and they are used by the ma- 

 jority of bee-keepers. Were I starting an apiary, I 

 should certainly adopt the L. frame; and as it is, I 

 am thinking quite seriously of laying aside my 

 American frames for the L. I shall certainly give 

 the L. frame a trial the coming season. 



A STRONG ITEM IN FAVOR OF '/i-LB. SECTIONS. 



Friend H. will use the half-pound section quite ex- 

 tensively the coming season. He says there is cer- 

 tainly one good point in their favor; and that is, 

 they can be shipped almost anywhere by freight, 

 with but little danger of injury. 



From Dowagiac I went back to Lansing, where 1 

 not only found Prof. Cook at home, but confined to 

 the house by a rheumatic attack. Prof. C. was busy 

 reading the "proof "of the revised edition of his 

 "Manual of the Apiary," which he has entirely re- 

 written during the past winter, adding much new 

 matter, many new engravings, and somewhat en- 

 larging the work. The first edition will be out some 

 time in March, and will be impatiently waited for 

 and eagerly read by the professor's numerous bee- 

 keeping friends. Prof. Cook uses and advocates the 

 Gallup frame, as he considers it the best shape for 

 rapid handling, and for allowing the bees to cluster 

 in a compact form. 



Through the kindness of Mr. Babcock, a young 

 man who came over from England to learn bee- 

 keeping, but finally decided to take a full course at 

 the college, I was shown the college apiary, or, 

 rather, the evergreens that shade the hives in sum- 

 mer, for the bees were in the cellar. He also went 

 with me to Prof. Cook's study, where a fine micro- 

 scope, and some mounted objects showing different 

 parts of a bee, so charmed me that it was with diffi- 

 culty that I tore myself away long enough to visit 

 the museum of stuffed birds, beasts, and reptiles, of 

 bugs and butterflies, of skeletons, and of the thou- 

 sands of interesting objects that lack of space forbids 

 mention. After spending one night and one day un- 

 der the roof that shelters the happy Cook family, I 

 took the evening train for Flint. 



Early the next morning I called upon August 

 Koeppen, a German who keeps a small apiary. Not 

 only the walla of the hives, but the bottom-boards, 

 are made double, and filled with tow. I was inter- 

 ested in examining a large home-made extractor, 

 capable of receiving six combs; an automatic ar- 

 rangement can be used for turning the combs in- 

 side the can. 



From Mr. Koeppen's I went to Mr. M. S. West's, 

 Like some other very successful bee-keepers, friend 

 W. never writes for the bee-papers, and does but lit- 

 tle talking; but, as friend Heddon expresses it, he is 

 one of those who " get there." He uses both L. and 

 Gallup frames, and raises comb honey. 



BEE-KEEPING FOR WOMEN. 



Last June Mr. West was taken sick with typhoid 



fever; but so conversant was his daughter with his 

 business that she not only cared for the bees, some- 

 thing toward 100 colonies, all through the swarming 

 season, but she successfully carried on his local 

 supply trade. Tally one more for the ladies. 



A PROFITABLE KIND OF CONVENTION. 



Brother bee-keepers, if you can, go and visit the 

 most successful bee-keepers that you know, and you 

 will never regret it. For the purpose of gaining 

 practical information, these "conventions of two," 

 if the right persons are chosen, are better than the 

 hurly-burly of a convention 100 strong. 



W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Rogersville. Genesee Co., Mich., Feb. 17, 1883. 



SWARMING IN liARGE APIARIES. 



The Easiest and Most Expeditious Way of 

 Caring; for the Swarms. 



OUR FRIEND CYULA TELLS US OF SOME OF THE 

 TROUBLES THAT BESET BEE-KEEPEIt-"ESSE8." 



RS. HARRISON will please accept thanks for 

 her kind and explicit answer to the question 

 I took the liberty of putting in Feb. Glean- 

 ings. I am sure that more than one of our bee- 

 keeping sisterhood will be helped, and that all will 

 have shared my own keen interest in this glimpse of 

 Mrs. Harrison's management. 



Mrs. Harrison's dish-pan may not bo quite as con- 

 venient as the light willow baskets, lined with bur- 

 lap, and provided with a cover of the same, which 

 are used by Mr. Heddon ; but the former article has 

 the advantage of being already within the reach of 

 every bee-keeping woman. I would suggest, how- 

 ever, that Mrs. H. probably used her pan with the 

 addition of a cloth lining; as otherwise, on a bright 

 hot day, it would become so heated by a few moments' 

 exposure to the sun that her bees —if like our bees 

 — would boil over and out of the pan too quickly to 

 be easily carried many steps. 



For swarms so considerate as to cluster where they 

 can be easily shaken down and into some convenient 

 receptacle, Mrs. Harrison's plan will work admira- 

 bly; but for a swarm spread over the shaded side of 

 a stump, or a swarm weighing down asparagus- 

 stalks or pea - vines until, before the cluster is 

 formed, a goodly portion of the bees are spread up- 

 on the ground, and inextricably mixed up at the 

 base of the stems which one is forbidden to pull up, 

 for such a swarm I think I should prefer a light 

 hive, with shaded entrance invitingly wide, and the 

 use of a little strategy to induce the bees to go in 

 and take possession, of their own free will. I think 

 I should prefer this, even If I were obliged to carry 

 the hive to the bees alone. 



In the early days of our bee-keeping, Nellie and I 

 supposed that the well-informed bee-keeper -"ess" 

 always divided her colonies instead of allowing them 

 to swarm ; and for three summers our practice con- 

 formed to this theory, with exceptions when the 

 bees did not happen to agree with us. By the fourth 

 summer we had decided to make natural swarming 

 the rule, and dividing the exception; a decision to 

 which we have since adhered. From the first we 

 have practiced clipping our queens' wings, although 

 each season there has been, for one reason and 

 another, a few exceptions. For some time we caught 

 our returning swarms in a new hive on the old 



