206 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



is accessible, but the young bees will uot 

 readily pass out of a bee escape. 



Wore it not for the wintering problem, I 

 might reconsider a partially developed plan 

 for a large house apiary, with four or live 

 tiers of hives extending all around the side 

 walls, one tier tliree or four feet above the 

 other. An elevator, communicating from 

 cellar to the upper tier, with a platform 

 large enough to extend to all the hives in a 

 tier would be needed. Any hive could be 

 shoved back ui)on tlie platform to be opened 

 and manipulated, which would give ample 

 room all around it. The colonies could be 

 carried to and from the cellar l)elo\v on the 

 elevator if wintering in that way were de- 

 sired. I fear the bees would often get too 

 warm in winter if kept above, and in my ex- 

 perience, a great many bees in one reposi- 

 tory will often do so below ground. 



Mt. Veknon, Iowa. 



July 20, 1W>1. 



A House Apiary that is a Regular Bee 

 Killer — Some of Its Other Disadvantages. 



,1. 15. UAINS. 



|HE subject of house ai)iaries is just 

 now attracting conaideral)le attention. 

 Articles have recently appeared in the 

 columns of journals devoted to apiculture, 

 many commending the use of the house 

 apiary in such a manner as to be likely to in- 

 duce apiarists who have abandoned its use to 

 again stock it with bees and endeavor to 

 make it practical and profitable. A writer 

 very recently recommended them for (lueen 

 rearing. Now ivs silence on the sul)joctby 

 one who has had experience along that line, 

 might be regarded in a degree an approval 

 of its use, I may be permitted to give my 

 opinion and back it up with a statement of 

 my experience. 



In tlie outset I desire to say that I regard 

 the house apiary worse than useless and a 

 very expensive establishment to keep up, 

 even though the house had been furnished 

 ready made and stocked with bees free of 

 cost to the apiarist. 



In the year of ]S7!> T erected a house apiary, 

 fitted it up in the most modern style, i)ut in 

 forty-eight colonies of bees whic.li winteied 

 fairly well but dwindled so in the spring, 

 especially on the north side, that I was com- 

 pelled to draw on the yard ai)iary to make 



them good. I secured about half as much 

 honey from the house ai)iary that season as I 

 did from the hives outside, but was unwill- 

 ing to abandon the experiment. The second 

 spring was a repetition of the first, the bees 

 on the north side dwindled as l>efore, some 

 were lost in the winter and I removed them 

 from the nortli side and doubled them up 

 with the weak ones on the south side of the 

 building, drew from the outside hives to keep 

 up the strength of the co'iistantly failing 

 colonies, cousecpient on the loss of bees 

 through falling to the ground outside, and 

 being crushed on the floor inside of the 

 house. 



From that time to the present I have been 

 compelled to add bees and brood each year, 

 and I have no doubt that had I placed the 

 original forty-eight colonies outside in suit- 

 able hives, and added to them as 1 have to 

 the house apiary, they would to-day number 

 more tlian one liundred, whereas they are 

 now less than one dozen, and should they 

 survive the next winter I shall surely remove 

 them to the yard. 



My house apiary is well provided with bee 

 escapes as I have a wire screen in tlie upper 

 I)art of the doors fastened at the center of 

 both top and bottom with wooden pins, so 

 that it will whirl and tlius get the bees which 

 are inside of the door on the outside so they 

 can fly away. In addition to this 1 have a 

 row of cone l)ee escapes, made of perforated 

 tin which are placed in openings made in the 

 vipper part of the screen and fastened along 

 the top to the frame of the screen. These 

 are very satisfactory so far as getting the 

 bees out is concerned. 



Tlie loss of bees is a small matter com- 

 pared to the loss of labor in caring for them, 

 and the injury to the eyes and lungs resulting 

 from smoke confined in a comparatively 

 close room. I have tried it for the produc- 

 tion of extracted honey, for comb honey and 

 also for rearing (lueens, while for the two 

 former it is a failure, for the latter it is 

 simply intolerable as it is dillicultto find the 

 tjueen, andimpossiljletolook into the combs 

 and see eggs without running to the door 

 witli eacli frame of comb. If you have no 

 " house apiary, " my advice is, build none. 

 If you have one, turn it into a honey 

 liouse, a storeliouse for implements, a corn 

 house, a ciiicken house, in fact anything ex- 

 cei)ting a bee house. 



Eedi'oku, Ohio. 



July 29, 1891. 



