302 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTITRE. 



Sept. 



L.INOEN \rOOI> FAKM APIARY. 



WHAT I GLEANED IN ONE FORENOON, THE 16 OF AUG. 



SHE waked me up— the baby did, and, as it was 

 after 5 o'clock, I proceeded to clothe myself in 

 my linen trousers, with mind intent on the 

 apiarv." Now Mrs. R. protests against these same 

 linen" clothes, but, with the amount of "tearing 

 around" I have to do during these hot summer days, 

 anything heavier and more complicated would be 

 entirely out of the question; sol consented to add 

 to the "aforesaid pants, a long linen coat, just to 

 give proper "dignity," you know, to the "boss" of 

 the factorv. The bees, to my great delight, were 

 .iust tumbling before the hives with their great 

 loads, and Mrs. R. and the baby, too, were soon 

 summoned to share the general rejoicing over a fall 

 crop of honey, and no sugar to be bought— no, not 

 even the cheap grape sugar. Like a huge caravan, 

 and with a great amount of roaring, the bees were 

 going, by the thousands, in a particular direction. 

 By and by, I too, was going in a "particular direc- 

 tion," with as huge strides as the long coat would 

 well admit of. After delivering the morning's 

 queens at the depot, I passed over to the factory 

 (the factory is located right adjoining the depot, 

 you know), "and after interviewing the masons, car- 

 penters, and carriers, passed across to where the 

 field of silver hull buckwheat was just coming into 

 bloom. You see, we are to raise our own seeds 

 after this. Well, the field was roaring with bees, 

 and, after talking with the men who were preparing 

 the ground just back of it for sowing seven top 

 tnrnips, I went on, to see a field of common buck- 

 wheat a mile beyond, where the owner had been 

 furnished with the seed free of charge. The light 

 clothing, light, easy walking shoes, with the fresh 

 morning air, soon made me feel like jumping over 

 every fence 1 came to. and when I passed through a 

 field "of red clover, and found the Italians all over 



it, as if it were June, I felt thankful, and said so, 



the best I knew how. Those who say' Italians do 

 not work on red clover would better go out into the 

 fields and look about. The field of common buck- 

 wheat had more bees on it than the silver hull, but 

 it had been sown some days earlier; the greater 

 part of the bees, too, were black bees or hybrids. 

 Right close to this field was one of the ABC class, 

 who has about 30 hives, mostly devoted to queen 

 rearing. His pretty little apiary is at the back of 

 the house, and a great part of his bees have been 

 obtained by getting wild bees from the woods. I 

 climbed over the fence, and, after a survey, noting 

 how he had adopted, here and there, the hints given 

 in Gleanings, I walked up to the back door, and, 

 seeing him comfortably seated, reading a paper, 

 called him by name. Out he came, with a bound, 

 and a hearty welcome. Do bee folks always wel- 

 come everybody so heartily? 



Our friend, Clark, always works among his bees 

 barefooted; and, as there is a soft carpet of grass, 

 except in front of the hives, I really can not but say 

 I should like to do the same way. He uses one of 

 the old st.vle Quinby smokers, and it does not go out 

 either; for he has a"suppl.y of nice rotten elm wood 

 broken up in small pieces, that he keeps in a pock- 

 et somewhere behind him, in his light pants, for he 

 evidently agrees with me in regard to "simplicity" 

 in clothing, as well as in bee hives. The hives were 

 opened, and sure enough, in almost every one, we 

 found new honey and comb building in the central 

 frames, and the peculiar white c ips of the new wax, 

 so encouraging to the owner of the apiary. As I ex- 

 pressed surprise at this, he remarked that there was 

 one hive which he must show me. One-half of this 

 hive contained new white combs as pretty as any 

 seen in the month of June. Four combs had been 

 partly filled, and some of it sealed over, since bass- 

 wood had failed. I cut out a piece and tasted the 

 honey, and it was pure clover honey, with no taint 

 of buckwheat. These full bloods were filling the 

 hive with honey from the red clover faster than the 

 blacks and hybrids were getting it from buckwheat. 

 The h ine\- from red clover is very much like that 

 from the white, but his a little more of the acid in 

 it. It N hardly as ploa=!ant, although the color is 

 about the same. Mr. C. showed me bees working 

 freely on .\lslke clover, which is the first time'I ever 

 saw them do it in the month of Aug. These two 

 col >nies were full bloods. When I first came into 

 the yard, I was inclined to laugh at his home made 

 chaff hives. Our artist went over and made a draw- 

 ing of one, which is showa below. 



CLARK'S RUSTIC CHAFF HIVE. 



When our friend tumbled the cover off of one, 

 and took out the clean chaff cushion and laid it on 

 the cover, revealing two, fine, 4 frame nuclei for 

 rearing queens, I changed my mind about them. 

 The inside is just like the inside of any L. hive, only 

 that he had a partition board that extended a little 

 higher than the sides. Some pieces of carpet, of 

 jitat the riijht size, covered the frames of eacn side. 

 The entrance to one colony is shown in the cut; the 

 other is exactly like it, on the opposite end. I re- 

 marked-that such hives would be exactly the thing 

 for rearing queens in cool weather, and that they 

 would winter there without any doubt. He replied 

 that two stocks had wintered in each one of them, 

 without any trouble so far. 



The beauty of this chaff hive is that it costs almost 

 nothing. Any old boards will do to make it: even 

 if the cracks between the boards are so open that 

 the rain beats in, it would soon dry oat; the over 

 hanging roof, which is made of rough, unplaned 

 boards, like the rest, would probably shield it from 

 the greater part of the storms. Any old, black, 

 rough boards will make the outside, but the inside 

 should be' made of '2 inch stuff, planed at least on 

 the inside. The dimensions inside should be very 

 accurate, to hold the L. frame. 



Although friend C. is great on econom.v, and be- 

 lieves in making his bees piy their way as they go 

 along, he is a staunch advocate of fdn. and the 

 metal corners. The hives mentioned, were about 

 2x2' 2 feet, and were not intended for an upper sto- 

 ry, although this ciuld easily be set on, in place of 

 the chaff cushion, at any time. The entrances are 

 simply little wooden shutes extending from the in- 

 ner hive, through the chaff and the outer shell. 

 Now where you feel that you have not very much 

 monej' to spend for chaff hives for wintering, and 

 are not particular about the looks, I think these will 

 do very well; for they will give just as good results 

 as any; perhaps, in fact, better than the nice paint- 

 ed ones, for they are so well ventilated, that they 

 are much like the original, stereotyped, old straw 

 bee hive. Friend C. raises beautiful queens in 

 these hives, anywaj-. That is all; good day. 



I REJOICE to tell you that the bottle queen cage 

 will keep queens all summer, if we wish. Some of 

 the workers will die in 4 or 5 weeks; but, by putting 

 in fresh young bees, and taking out the dead ones, 

 there seems to be m trouble in keeping them any 

 length of time. In cool weather, we shall need 

 quite a little cluster to keep the necessary tempera- 

 ture. At first, we lost a few queens, by having the 

 orifice in the cork a little too large; the water got 

 shook out and wet the bees. The cut in the cork 

 should be just enough to let the bees get their 

 tongues to the water. In going to Texas and Or- 

 egon, the bees used all the water out of the vial, 

 and then died. We now use a 2 dram vial, for long 

 distances. We have several dozen hybrid queens 

 which have been kept in these cages since July, 

 and, as they seem brisk and lively, I think we may 

 say that queens are no longer perishable property. 

 It seems now, that there will be no difficulty iii 

 keeping queens thus all winter. 



