204 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



June 



help iirrest a disorderly man and take him 

 to jail, and after he is there and is sober, to 

 sinj? a hymn and kneel in prayer with him. 

 wliile he threatens to burn niy'buildinia:s and 

 damage my property generally. I tell yon I 

 havn"t "jjrowed big enough'" tor such a task 

 yet, my friends. 



1 suspect it is the same element that 

 troubles me. in my work of holding up 

 Mitchell and his class. I either fail to do 

 my work thoroughly, or I swing over into a 

 lighting mood, and one extreme is almost as 

 bad as the other. I really do ho])e Mitchell 

 will move down into our neighborhood, as he 

 talks of doing ; I would give more to see 

 him than almost anybody I know of. If we 

 could get him started in some honest busi- 

 ness (I know this sounds patronizing, but I 

 cannot help it) what a glorious undertaking 

 it would be. 



''Father, forgive them, for they know not 

 what they do." 



in contact with the bees or combs. The 

 greatest trouble I see with your rubber 

 end division boards, is that you have made 

 no provision to prevent wariiing. Where 

 chaff is as expensive as it is with us, we can 

 hardly afford to throw it away, to get a fresh 

 supply every season. Nor would I want it 

 loose, in a liive, or about the apiary, that it 

 might be blown about at the sport of tlie 

 wind. I hardly think oiu- readers will decide 

 to disjiense with neat, well made, and nicely 

 fitting cushions. 



GEORGE; GRIiniH. 



ppHE following will, without doubt, jn-ove 

 "Jl^, interesting to many, because it seems 

 ' to imply that, though our friend Adam 

 Grimm has dejiarted, his work may yet be 

 perpetuated, through that of his son, and 

 that the end of bee culture, with the Grimm 

 family, is not yet. 



About six weeks a^o I returned from Ann Arbor, 

 Mich., where I had been attending: the law school. 

 When I c:ime home, I resolved to srive my whole 

 time to study, to prepare myself fitly for mv last 

 year's course. But alas I for all human resolutions 

 and endeavors! About two weeks a g'O I was com- 

 pelled to look at one of my hives of bees, and since 

 then, I believe I have had the "bee fever." Instead 

 of selling- out all I had, as I intendr-d to do, I that 

 day boug-ht out all of my mother, Mrs. Adam 

 Grimm's, and a lot that twoof my sisters h^d. Still 

 I have not enoug-h, and will start to-dav in search 

 of more. Were it not that I have another year's 

 course in colleg-e before I can graduate, T would at 

 once buy up a larg-e apiary; as it is 1 must necessa- 

 rily wait another year before going- into the bee 

 business on a grander scale. 



I do not believe I could live happily without bees, 

 brougrht up as I was, in thei- midst. Their busv 

 hum is sweet music to me, and for hours I could sit 

 and watch them at their work, some g-oing:, lig-ht 

 and free, others coming, loaded with the sweet liq- 

 uid that afterward graces our table and fills oiir 

 purses. Bee business is a business that not only 

 .vields the greatest amount of pleasure, but pays 

 well for the capital invested in it. This I say from 

 my own experience, as well as from that of my 

 father before me. 



I think I have made no report, as yet, of my suc- 

 cess last ye;ir. Well, I will only sav this mucli, that 

 I Taore than tripplcd about 30 swarms, and got some 

 box honey besides. During the winter, I lost two 

 swarms. Geo. Grimm. 



Jefferson, Wis., May 10th, 1878. 



RUIS»EIl LINED T»E VISION BOAR».<«, 

 ANO CHAFF. 



fWISH to suggest, as an addition to my article 

 sent last week, that if the rubber strip bf put in 

 both ends, and set with them both bent towards 

 the cimbs, it will m:ike lui admirable holder f(u- 

 loose eh I'f filling, for those who nse loose bottoms; 

 for whi'ii the room is w.anted. by lifting thr^ hive 

 Oil, the cliaff will drop out. This you see will do 

 uwav with the cure of r-hitf cushions, as well as the 

 exp -nse of them. The rubb^T will hold quite firmly 

 and air titrlit. J. W. Porter. ' 



Ch irl >ttesville, Va., Feb. ISth, '78. 



Th inks for your ingenious idea of getting 

 out tlie loose chaff without having it come 



W* I gl ^ 



mAKING HIVES EXTRA WIDE; AliSO, 

 SIDE STORING, VS. TOP STORING. 



^1 



|HE Simplicity hive has width enough to allow 

 jrji two frames of sections for box honey, which 

 — " fact might be accounted for on the principle 

 of compensation; but now comes Mr. Foster with 

 his i/)(/)/(ir( //i'7?f on the Simplicity, which improve- 

 ment consists in the enlargement of the space allot- 

 ed to side boxes in the Simplicity, with the assertion, 

 that section boxes at the xiiies af the hrood are an ad- 

 vantage in themselves; that is, as I understand It, 

 they have known advantages over section bo.xes on 

 top of thr hriind. Now I would very much like to see 

 these advantages concisely set forth in Gleanings. 

 Would like to use them. S. F. SeedwitiI. 



Upper Montclalr, N. J., May 8th, '78. 



The idea of making the L. hive wider than 

 14i inches, that the surplus room may be all 

 at the side, instead of in an up])er story, is a 

 matter that has been not only discussed, 

 but experimented on for years past. It is. 

 essentially, the same thing as Adair's explod- 

 ed "New Idea hive;'" the same that Mitchell 

 patented, just about the time when every 

 body had abandoned it. While good results 

 may be occasionally secured by side storing, 

 our bee keepers have, almost without excep- 

 tion, abandoned the i)lan, sooner or later. 

 While visiting bee keepers, in different 

 States, I have found these "Long Idea" hives, 

 almost invariably, tumbled away among the 

 rubbisli, after Imving been in use a season 

 or two, and some of them have been very 

 nicely made, and at a considerable expense, 

 too. Whatever may be the theories, practice 

 has unquestionably decided, that hives 

 made to be exclusively side storing are a 

 failure. Hives made so as to be both side 

 and top storing, are considerably used : but, 

 even then, the greater part of the honey is 

 "obtained in the upper portion of the hive, or 

 that directly over the brood. If we give no 

 room above, and not too much at each side, 

 very good results may be obtained ; but, 

 just as soon as a space is opened above the 

 brood, it obtains a preference over the boxes 

 at the sides, nnless we except comb building. 

 Bees will often build comb faster at the 

 sides, and store honey faster above. Many, 

 on this account, get the comb built at the 

 sides, and then remove the sections to the 

 ui)per i)art of the hive, to be tilled with hon- 

 ey. I have made a number of experiments 

 with hives just a little wider than the Siin- 

 l)licity. and, with extra strong stocks, there 

 seemed rather to be an advantage ; but, tak- 

 ing it all together, I do not think we can very 

 much imju'ove on the dimensions of the L. 

 hive, as Mr. J.,angstroth gave it to us, and 

 as I have arranged it both for the Simplicity 

 ciiid i^'nair i.ivej. 



