ih;6 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Ill 



mmimM® 



[In this department I beg to be allowed to lay aside the 

 ■editorial "we," and have a f lieiull.v chat and feel "at home."] 



OlIAPTEK XVIII. 



Ke then <uilJiitiit to know (he state of thy Hooks, and 

 JooJv well to th>- heids.— Proverbs xxvii, 23. 



(Cl'EVEN colonics arc dead in the house apia- 

 ^P ry ; five on the north, and two on the 

 south side. None of them were strong in bees 

 I xcept those that starved, btaired! yes, that 

 is the name of the "disease"' that has affected 

 <iuit<; a nuuiher of our colonies this spring It 

 is true ; after all I have taught, and after all I 

 Jiave said, they were allowed to die just for the 

 want of a few lumps of sugar. 1 might ii^ake 

 out a very plausible .excuse, by saving that 

 • luring this warm winter bees have consumed 

 \n uuh-eard of amount of stores, or that busi- 

 jiess cares have made it well nigh impossible 

 to attend toeverything, or that the experiments 

 with the comb foundation machine took my 

 -ttttntion; that no one expected such weather 

 In March, and ever so much more; but do you 

 not know that such talk is all — "boshV" it'is 

 with n:ie anyway. 1 did know, and have 

 '.aught over and over again that tour or five 

 lbs. too much would do no harm, and that we 

 should base our calculations on something un- 

 expected in tlie shape of weather, eter?/ season, 

 -•ir.d then if it don't come we are safe anyway. 

 hi the house apiary, it seemed such an? easy 

 iiiattei' to feed with candj' or sugar at any 

 time, that we were careless about the amount 

 "if stores thinking we could give them more at 

 :iuy time iii a few minutes. We coidd it is.true, 

 but after feeding was done that was the end of 

 it until about the 11th of March, and then we 

 should not have gone through the whole so 

 thoroughly as we did had we not found a colo- 

 ny already starved. 



Why do I put this in our homes ? Because 

 it seems to me it is one of the very weakest o 

 liuman weaknesses; one that is more to be 

 feared than all the bee diseases that were ever 

 — worried about. Our neighbor Phelps has 

 just been in, and reports several colonies dead 

 from starvation, and among them the one con- 

 taining his imported queen. I asked why in 

 the world he did not give a great excess, and 

 he said he thought he did. 



"Did you weigh the hive?" 



"No, but I tilled the combs so well that I felt 

 ■^ure there could be no doubt about it." 



"You gave her an abundance of bees I sup- 

 pose to be sure they would not 'dwindle out' 

 iu the spring?" 



"To be sure I did, and that was where tlie 

 trouble was." 



Mr. Elakeslee has lost quite a number by 

 starvation, and we hear of starving bees on 

 nearly all sides. Now what is to be done? 

 If I continue to let one or more of my colonies 

 starve year after year, are my readers going to 

 be so foolLsh as to follow in my tracks ? Shall 

 we accept the idea that there are some people 

 so constituted that they will mar their whole 

 lives by this species of carelessness? Mr. 

 Biakeslcc ha.s always been so careful that he 

 has hardly ever lost any before in this way, 

 but our friend Plielps— he will forgive it, for 



he knows I am very anxious to have him im- 

 prove — has starved his bees ever since he com- 

 menced. He has starved them in the winter, in 

 the spring, and in the fall ; and his friends 

 have made the remark that it was no use for 

 him to try, for he would let them starve all his 

 life. Now friend Phelps can you not let your 

 friends know that there is something more in 

 you than they ever gave you credit lor ? and 

 that you will show them you are strong- 

 enough to see your own faults and set about 

 curing them ? 



Accepting the idea that our friend is abso- 

 lutely incapable of getting over ihe unfortu- 

 nate weakness, like a slick of timber that is 

 just a little too short for bridging a certain 

 stream, now the question is right before us; 

 shall friend Phelps and I give up beekeeping 

 because we are so careless and heedless? or 

 shall we strive to get the better of these hab- 

 its that hang about us like evil spirits? To 

 give up is to sink down one step in the ladder, 

 and when one begins to go down, where shall 

 they stop ? Perhaps we had better take fewer 

 colonies. But may our Creator forbid that we 

 ever cease to strive earnestly to weed out all 

 that we discover in our stubborn natures 

 that unfits us for the work that lies before us. 

 If there is now no lighting to be done for our 

 country, there is at least fighting to be done 

 with our own selves, and great is the reward 

 that one feels when he can look back and see 

 where any bad habit has been literally "licked 

 out," so tfTectually as to leave nothing to indi- 

 cate that it ever existed. 



When the house apiary was first built it was 

 a novelty, and of course it was a pleasure to 

 have every thing made nice and exact. After 

 a while it got to be something of an old story, 

 and then in steps this besetting sin, a disposi- 

 tion to prefer to work at some new thing. At 

 present, I would like very well to try Prof. 

 Vogel's "hive-wall hall," but if I am really un- 

 able to stick to what I now have on hand, and 

 do that well, I shall deserve lo lose the confi- 

 dence and patronage of my friends and readers. 

 I wonder if any of my readers ever get into 

 the mood I will try to describe. 



It is now the o'th of April, and after what 

 has been written about the house apiary, of 

 cour::e we have many callers who 

 would like to see it. Now I take pride usual- 

 l.Y, in showing anything about the apiary, and 

 especially about the house apiary, but there 

 is now just one unpleasant feature about it; 

 there are more or less bees on the floor, and to 

 hear them snapping under ones feet is enough 

 to make any one nervous, who lias been trying 

 hard to keep the floor clean. To be sure bees 

 have no kind of business being on the floor at 

 all ; but this spring they have taken a peculiar 

 fancy to crowding out under the edges of the 

 cloth covering to the hives, rather than going 

 out by the entrance, and therefore we have 

 bees on the floor. We could cover the hive 

 with a thin board it is true, but we should 

 then have more traps about, and when the di- 

 vision board is pushed up to make a 3 comb 

 hive, this board would be tilting up. The 

 cloth covers are held nicely back against the 

 wall by the stri]) of tin that is folded in the 

 back edge, but the problem i.< to keep the edge 

 of the cloth along the rabbets close down to 



