DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO BEES ENISLE HONEY 
Vol. II. . AUGUST 1, 1874. No. VIII 
HOW TO CONDUCT AN APIARY. 
No. 8. 
n OULD we know just what the yield of 
honey would be during this month, with 
each of our readers, we might advise much 
more to the point, but whatever the circum- 
stances may be, please do not let your Apiary 
ran down, and get grown up wi h weeds. We 
have had much to say on this matter ’tis true, 
but it seems so natural to find every thing al- 
lowed to run down after the honey yield lias 
ceased, that we fear'very'much more will need 
be said before Apiaries are kept like a “tidy 
workshop” especially in the fall of the year. 
There are very many points still so unset- 
tled, that we cannot as yet decide on what is 
best; they are now under the consideration of 
our best thinkers and “doers” too for tiiat 
matter. For instance: How large had we 
best make our hives? We certainly arc not 
prepared to decide at present. A visit to some 
very successful neighboring Apiarians gives 
no positive grounds for a decision on the sub- 
ject. Two of their owners, are quite confident 
that a quart of Italian bees will gather about 
the same quantity of honey whether they are a 
nucleus by themselves, or whether they form 
a part of a two story hive, or whether they 
belong to a four foot New Idea hive; and in 
the former case the Apiarist can secure nearly 
as much of an income from them, from the sale 
of Queens, as from the honey they gather. 
Our friend Dean, of River Styx, as we have 
before mentioned has before this season only 
used a single story hive, containing when full, 
12 Gallup frames. He always uses a division 
board, and moves it up so as to have the bees 
fill their space, at all times, in fact quite a 
swarm issued while we were there, and we 
were informed they came all from a one comb 
nucleus. This seemed incredible, blit after he 
h 1 1 taken away their Queen to induce them to 
go back, we looked inside and found the whole 
space on both sides of the comb, fall of been. 
No wonder lie is successful, these bees filled 
their one comb with honey as soon as the full 
stocks filled their twelve combs, and so on 
through his 40 or 50 colonies. The certainty 
and ease with which he built up colonies and 
raised Queens, made his bees build all worker 
comb of beautiful evenness and regularity, etc. 
' tc., was enough to make any one think the 
pursuit the most fascinating in .the world. 
Although lie inis three of the four foot hives 
under way, lie did not seem disposed to agree 
on their universal adoption, and he could not 
dunk of abandoning his division boards any 
sooner than abandoning hives, to use his own 
expression. Mr. Blakeslee uses the Langstroth 
hive and he thinks his bees that are rearing 
Queens, give him nearly if not quite as much 
honey as if they were in a large hive. Our 
own bees are at present in single story Sim- 
plicity I,, frame hives, and the lightness and 
ease with which we handle them (when there 
is no upper story on) tempts ns very much to 
be satisfied with our Langstroth frames, and 
never to think of any other. As we had inten- 
ded to increase without any thought of surplus 
this season, we have been very agreeably sur- 
prised to find that a one story hive crammed 
full of been will give a very large amount of 
honey, if it be extracted promptly when the 
hive is full. It is true that our Standard hive 
can be allowed to go 8 days, when our Sim- 
plicities would need emptying in 4, but the 
latter only take about half the time and the L. 
frames standing square before you in their 
shallow hives, are much the easiest to manipu- 
late. Please remember that we are only con- 
sidering both sides of the matter without ma- 
king a positive decision either way, but we 
would advise those who like ourselves have a 
thousand or two of nice L. combs, to be in no 
haste about transferring them into something 
else. When bee-keepers decide whether they 
wish a hive to contain 10, 20, 80 or 40 combs, 
we can tell better what shape we wish our 
combs to have. Again : What about winter- 
ing? We really cannot gather that the very 
long hives have practically shown themselves 
much, if any superior to the ten frame hives, 
when the latter contained plenty of bees; the 
former having dwindled down in some locali- 
ties, just about the same as the others. 
Now it will be very well to begin this month, 
to consider the matter of wintering, and those 
who decide on wintering on natural stores 
should cease using the extractor in time to al- 
low them to fill up nicely. As no report lias 
ever been given showing that sugar-syrup was 
inferior to natural stores we shall still advise 
taking away the good honey and feediug'thc 
cheaper food. We cannot gather that the syr- 
up stores have any influence either way on the 
recent troubles in getting them through the 
months of March and April. 
In regard to cider mills ; as soon as the bees 
commence visiting them or the groceries, we 
would, advise keeping them elsewhere employ- 
ed on dry sugar, and our experiments last fail, 
though made late, and not conclusive, seem to 
indicate that the remedy may be effectual. We 
would keep them away from the cider mills on 
account of the great number that are there 
