THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



103 



Consumption of Honey by bees when in 

 their winter quarters, the amount and pro- 

 portion according to the season, may be de- 

 termined by keeping colonies on the scales 

 while in the cellar. Last fall, Nov. 20, I put 

 my bees in the cellar, and set three colonies, 

 in 8-frame-Langstroth hives, on a pair of 

 scales. The gross weight was l.'xJ pounds. 

 They were weighed frequently, and there 

 was an average loss of two pounds per col- 

 ony, each month, but I could not detect that 

 there was any difference between one month 

 and another in regard to the amount con- 

 sumed. They were placed on their summer 

 stands April 5, having lost, on an average, 

 nine pounds per colony during their four 

 and one-half month's confinement. 



THE PBOGEESSIVE BEE-KEEPEB, ITS NEW EDI- 

 TOK AND SOMETHING ABOUT HIS BUSINESS. 



"(jreat oaks from little acorns grow." 



Of the newer bee journals there were none 

 showing greater promise than the Progres- 

 sive Bee-Keeper. Bro. Quigley was a practi- 

 cal bee-keeper and had the " knack " of get- 

 ting up a good paper. But his office was de- 

 stroyed by fire, and there was a lack of 

 means to put in a new outfit, and the result 

 is that the paper has been sold to the Leahy 

 Manufacturing Co., of Higginsville, Mis- 

 souri. As most of our readers know, Mr. R. 

 B. Leahy is at the head of the firm, and, as 

 he has now become editor, it will be inter- 

 esting to know something of his past life. 



Mr. Leahy was 

 born 3C years ago, 

 at Port Richmond, 

 N. Y. At the age 

 of two years his 

 mother died and 

 the family moved 

 to a farm on Long 

 Island. Here he 

 knew what it is to 

 have a mother not 

 his own, and he 

 spent much of the 

 a. B. LEAHY. time on the beach 



watching the ships pass to and fro and see- 

 ing the breakers roll in and dash upon the 

 sand-lined coast. His father was a sea cap- 

 tain, and was drowned when the boy was ten. 

 Then he felt that he was nobody's child and 

 wandered away to the nearest seaport town 

 where he was found in tears by some big 



hearted fellow who took him aboard his 

 ship ; and this was the beginning of a sea- 

 faring life that lasted until he was 21 ; three 

 years being spent in the U. S. navy. 



When between 21 and 22 he took Horace 

 Greeley's advice and finally settled down to 

 work on a farm in Illinois, where in two or 

 three years he married Miss Henrietta 

 Braeutigam. They have had one child only 

 and that died in its infancy. They had much 

 sickness to contend with. Finally drifted 

 into bee-keeping. Ten years ago he went to 

 Higginsville, Mo., to secure an unoccupied 

 field. Here a partner was taken in and the 

 supply business added to bee-keeping. It 

 was started in small way with a Barnes saw 

 in a one story building 14x24. The business 

 has grown with wonderful rapidity until it 

 has developed into a stock company with a 

 capital of .f 19,000. Perhaps one secret of 

 this success has been the liberal use of prin- 

 ters' ink. $1,000 were spent last year in ad- 

 vertising and as much more will be spent 

 this year. The addition of a journal will un- 

 doubtedly help the supply trade and the sup- 

 ply trade will probably not injure the 

 journal. 



It is very pleasant to know that, notwith- 

 standing Mr. Leahy's success he still wears 

 the same size hat that he did several years 

 ago. 



SELF-HIVEBS. 



There are self-hivers that will hive all of 

 the swarm. There is question about this 

 point. One objection to their use is the cost, 

 not only of the hiver, bat an empty hive 

 must be furnished for each colony that may 

 swarm, while one-half of the colonies may 

 not swarm. Another objection is the labor 

 and annoyance necessary to learn if a colo- 

 ny has swarmed. With a few colonies this 

 fault does not appear, but in a large apiary 

 it would be quite a task to loosen up and 

 even turn around "cat-a-cornered," as E. 

 R. Root says he does, all the hives. By the 

 way, in the last Review the types made Mr. 

 R. L. Taylor say " lift 250 hives with their 

 supers " in an out-apiary of 1,50 colonies. Of 

 course it should have read '' lift 150 hives." 

 I have seen the time when half of my col- 

 onies would have three supers each nearly 

 filled with honey. To lift these alone is no 

 light task. Then add to this the weight of the 

 colony itself. It is evident that those who 

 find in this lifting of hives but a slight objec- 



