AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



17 



bees are left to themselves, they rapidly 

 degenerate. It is only by persistently 

 breeding from pure stock that we can 

 make any headway, or even keep from 

 going backwards. Most of us have 

 plenty of empty hives and supplies, but 

 very few of us have a surplus of bee 

 knowledge. So let us read up and get 

 ready for 1S91.— Western Ploivman. 



Apiary, Maaasement, M Honey CroB, 



WM. STOLLEY. 



I send you a picture of my apiary, as 

 taken a few years ago. It is nearly a 

 correct picture as it now stands. 



The bee-shed proper is 8 feet wide, and 

 the roof laps over about 2 feet. The 



rear queens to supersede those which are 

 too old, or not satisfactory otherwise. 



Everything about the apiary is kept 

 clean and nice, and all the hives are well 

 painted with alternate white, blue, red, 

 brown and yellow colors, and numbered. 



Formerly I packed my bees in hay, 

 but I have abandoned this, and the 

 result is as satisfactory as though they 

 had been packed. I never lost any in 

 Winter in either way, so far. 



I have but 26 colonies, all told ; 5 of 

 which I have in the new Heddon hives. 

 The season of 1890 was not a good one. 

 Excessive drought being the cause of the 

 honey-crop failure. 



I extracted 865 pounds of nice sweet 

 and alfalfa clover honey, and took 84 

 one-pound sections from three of the 

 Heddon hives. 



Apiary of Wm. Stolley, Grand Islmid, Nebr. 



posts, dividing the several apartments are 

 only 6 feet apart, making the building 

 90 feet long. 



For the Heddon hives I now have an 

 extra vault, in which the hives occupied 

 by bees remain permanently. Winter and 

 Summer, and are packed with forest 

 leaves in Winter. 



I winter my bees in this shed, as you 

 see them in the picture, only, that lean- 

 ing boards, 2-4 inches wide by 6 feet 

 long, are put up in front for protecting 

 it against wind and snowdrifts. 



All of my hives in the lower tier are 

 double-walled, and besides lined between 

 with heavy wallpaper. 



The upper tier of hives are single- 

 walled and lighter, and are used for 

 nuclei in the proper season, wherein I 



My bees are in excellent condition for 

 wintering, and each colony has 27 

 pounds of Winter stores on an average. 

 I also have 300 pounds more in frames 

 for Spring feeding. They were packed 

 inside the hive on Oct. 10. 



The Sugar Beet Factory, although 

 very near my apiary, has so far not dam- 

 aged my bees. 



'They have been flying but little, even 

 on warm days, and for the last week it 

 has been 65- Fahr. every day in the 

 shade. 



Therefore I hope that this new and very 

 important enterprise of beet sugar man- 

 ufacturing will not seriously interfere 

 with the prosperity of ray bees in the 



future. -, c^f^r^ 



Grand Island, Nebr., Nov. 24, 1890, 



