166 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



The Qualities of the Caucasian Bees 



The best feature of the Caucas- 

 ians is, that they are so nearly 

 non-swarming. in fact, their 

 swarming has never given me any 

 great trouble. Occasionally a colony 

 will cast a swarm, especially if 

 storing room becomes scant, but 

 when it does so, only about a 

 double handful of bees go out. 



which does not greatly hinder pro- 

 gress in storing. Sometimes whole 

 apiaries will go season after season 

 and not a colony in them show any 

 inclination to swarm. This fact 

 alone has greatly aided me in 

 spreading my out-yards, and in re- 

 ducing the amount of labor re- 

 quired. 



My success I attribute largely to 

 (Concluded on page 190) 



Getting Our Honey Supply with Only two Trips a Year 



BY J. A. PEARCE 



Author of Pearce Method of Bee Keeping 



Are bees destined to give man 

 his greatest and most easily obtain- 

 ed sweet supply? It really looks as 

 if th( y are, If there is a honey 

 supply coming down to us each year 

 that is greater in value than all 

 our farm crops and cattle, that is 

 allowed to go to waste which 

 might be gathered up so easily. 



Bees have spread themselves or 

 have been spread by man, until 

 now there is scarcely a place where 

 man is where bees are not. They 

 have as it were been running par- 

 allel with man, sometimes getting 

 a little too near to him, especially 

 if they happened to light on the 

 end of his nose back end first. 

 But always as it were saying to 

 man "Take me and use me,'' but 

 man has not been intelligent enough 

 to do it. He now seems to be wak- 

 ing up to the great possibilities of 

 the honey bee, so let us canvass 

 the situation a little to see where 

 we are at. 



As we have said, Man is on the 

 job, the bees are with man and 

 this enormous honey supply comes 

 down to us each year unsolicited 

 and unlike our mineral wealth when 

 we use it once it is gone forever, 

 for the honey supply is renewed 

 for us each year. Then all that 

 seems to be needed is for man to 

 put this great combination together 

 and use it for his benefit. Hereto- 

 fore he has not had the proper 

 understanding of the bee nor the 

 proper np]iliances to work with but 

 now I feel sure that both the 

 knowledge of the bees and the ap- 

 pliances to handle them with have 



been so improved, that there should' 

 be a great advance on the double 

 quick to gather up this great store 

 of the purest of all sweets and 

 most valuable commercial product 

 for man's benefit. So at this point 

 it seems very fitting that we have 

 emblazed on the front cover of 

 our national magazine this advice, 

 "KEEP MORE BEES." In the past 

 the farmers and others have had 

 no knowledge of the bees other 

 than to have them increase by 

 natural swarming and in the lit- 

 tle hives that they have been kept 

 in they are sure to swarm just at 

 haying time when the farmer was 

 so pestered with other jobs all com- 

 ing at once that he voted bee- 

 keeping a failure and quit. Now 

 with the modern appliances in 

 which his bees do not swarm nat- 

 urally and give him this annoyance, 

 ho should take this matter up with 

 vigor and secure for himself and 

 family all of this sweet supply 

 which is all about him, and the 

 bees will go out and bring it in for 

 him, so if he desires he need not 

 even go out doors for it. It is along 

 this lino that I will now write. 



I will suppose then that you 

 have one or more swarms of bees. 

 Instead of letting them swarm 

 naturally as they have been doing 

 or will do if you have them as 

 they are. But about the first of 

 May or just before the fruit 

 blooms wherever you are just put 

 on another hive body filled with 

 good straight foundations or combs 

 and grive access to this that is, do 

 not have anything between the two 



