GOG 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CtlLtUEE. 



Oca^4 



never seen a hee upon one of their hlossoms. I have 

 sown buckwheat for them, which grew and thrived 

 finely, but the bees visited it very sparingly in the 

 early morning, and never after eight or nine o'clock. 

 The honey season ceases as suddenly as it com- 

 mences. Although there is an abundance of sum- 

 mer and autumn flowers, few of them produce any 

 honey, perhaps on account of the dry hot weather. 

 I never had a pound of surplus honey made after 

 the middle of July — seldom after the first of that 

 month. The bees fly constantly, and seem to be as 

 industrious as ever, but do no more than support 

 themselves, and keep their stores good. These 

 things being so, it requires a little time to accom- 

 modate one's self to the changed condition of things 

 — or, as the boy said, " to get the hang of the school- 

 house." Four or five years ago I began to experi- 

 ment a little, with a view to work up a hive and a 

 system which should be simple enough to commend 

 itself to the people who were using " old gums," or 

 plank hives, the only kind to be found about here. 

 I have succeeded in securing their approval and ad- 

 miration, but no one, so far as I know, has used the 

 hive. My plan is to establish apiaries in the " re- 

 gions round about." There are twenty little steam- 

 boats now plying between this city and the nu- 

 merous places upon the different rivers and creeks 

 which are tributary to the Neuse. I propose to put 

 25 hives together, in places of easy access, and visit 

 them from time to time. I have seen bees in six 

 places — in some more, in others less, to be evened 

 up this Cuming winter. I have had no dilflculty in 

 getting places to put them. All I ask of the persons 

 with wfiom they are located, is to protect them 

 against depredations, and hive the swarms. I put 

 on the cases at the proper time myself, and take 

 them off. They should be put on from the middle 

 of May to the first of June. There is a little "knack" 

 in putting them on, which is easily learned. I can 

 put on a dozen before breakfast, and not have a bee 

 escape from the hive. They must be taken off dur- 

 ing the first half of July. l§inety-six sections of 

 honey and a swarm is a good yield for a hive. 



1 think I can establish 40 apiaries — a thousand 

 stocks — in two or three years. Edward Bull. 



Newbern, N. C, Sept. 17, 1883. 



Friend B., your plan is a feasible one; in 

 fact, we have quite a number amoiij? our 

 readers who are managing apiaries in dif- 

 ferent localities, as you suggest. But it 

 may require more ability than perhaps you 

 are aware of. You can no more expect to 

 manage forty apiaries without having grown 

 up gradually to the business, than you could 

 expect a schoolboy to manage algebra with- 

 out a gradual process of taking the succes- 

 sive steps through months and years until he 

 is able to grasp it. 



MORE ABOUT R. ^VILKIN. 



A DESCRIPTION OF HIS LAROK APIARY, BY FRIEND 



NORTON. 



fRlEND ROOT:— You complain that my report 

 from San Buenaventura is a brief one; but 

 — ■ you should consider that I had to think of the 

 overflow of MSS. that usually comes in upon an ed- 

 itor, as well as of the fact that 1 am a stranger to 

 you, and that better articles than mine will be the 

 general rule. I herewith add a little to my last let- 

 ter, for I found, on reading it in print, that I had 



said less about Mr. W. than I intended. You already 

 have the picture of his Sespe apiary. A good en- 

 graving of it is to be found on page 208 of the ABC. 

 More than 700 hives are at present arranged in hex- 

 agonal form with the extracting house in the cen- 

 ter. The hives face in various directions, and the 

 every-day business, flying and humming of the bees, 

 is as if many swarms were issuing at once. The 

 walks are wide and convenient, and to get to any 

 portion of the apiary from any other portion is very 

 easy. A four-wheeled cart is run by the operators 

 while extracting. On this a Langstroth hive with a 

 hinged cover is fastened for empty frames. On it, 

 also, is room for the comb-baskets that take the full 

 combs. Beneath hangs a pail with water and rags, 

 for cleaning purposes. The sides of the house are 

 composed largely of wire cloth. On one side (the 

 side toward you in the picture) are two sliding doors, 

 or, more properly, windows. The full combs are 

 handed in at one of these to the uncapper; the emp- 

 ty ones are taken out at the other from the extract- 

 or. 1 omitted to say that each is on a level with a 

 cart or wheelbarrow of average height. Within the 

 extracting-house eveiy thing is admirably arranged. 

 In the end seen in the picture are kept the various 

 small fixtures, such as rotten wood, matches, water, 

 tools, etc. 



A large tank holds the cappings. Over this are 

 cross-bars with a sharpened iron point fixed in the 

 center of each. With the balancing point of an end- 

 bar resting on this pivot, the frame turns with 

 great facility. The cappings drain into a pipe, and 

 the honey is conveyed therein to a tank. The un- 

 capped combs are placed in the eight-frame extract- 

 or. This is admirably geared. When once started 

 (and it starts quite easily) it goes with surprising 

 ease. A flfteen-j ear-old girl turned it during his 

 busiest season. The comb-holder turns on pivot 

 hinges like the leaves of a book, or, perhaps, like 

 little doors would be more expressive. Combs are 

 thus handily reversed without removing from the 

 extractor. 



In this connection I will mention the six-frame 

 extractor of Mr. Lewis, of Matilija Canyon. By an 

 ingenious device, the lifting of a rod will reverse 

 the six frames at one stroke. He winds up a weight, 

 and then the exfractor turns automatically while he 

 continues uncapping, till it has run down. At Sespe 

 apiary, with the eight-frame extractor, five of us 

 could extract a ton of honey per day without extra 

 effort. At Mr. W.'s Matilija apiary, with a four- 

 frame extractor, your old acquaintance, L. A. Best, 

 and your humble servant extracted on one occasion 

 three-fourths of a ton in a day. The honey at Sespe 

 apiary is run from the extractor through an under- 

 ground pipe to the basement of the larger house 

 seen beyond. Here it remains in a large tank 

 whose capacity I have forgotten. The drained cap- 

 pings are placed in metal trays in a sun-extractor at 

 the south end of the larger building. This has 

 sashes like a hot-bed, with tin reflectors behind it. 

 Wax cakes, and some dark, thick honey are here 

 obtained. On the upper floor of this building are 

 the tin and carpenter shops. All the tin work of 

 the apiary, including the making of one, two, and 

 twelve pound cans for the twenty - four tons 

 raised, and additional quantities bought for ship- 

 ment to England, is done there. Heretofore Mr. 

 Wilkin has extracted none but ripe honey. Next 

 season he intends to extract a thinner article, and 

 ripen it afterward, something after the method of 



