GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
A cor xt, 
88 
OUR PRIMARY DEPARTMENT, 
Or First Principles in Bee-Keeping. 
[Designed especially for the veriest novices, and 
those who know nothing ol' bees whatever. Conduct- 
ed by a fellow Novice of several years experience 
replete with blunders, as well as with occasional 
successes.] 
^ " 1 • • ■ — — ' ■ — ■ ■ 
■ c f/ IIAT kind of a colony of bees to pur- 
V'J chase ? Wc would advise that you take 
whatever comes handiest, if there are only lota 
of been in the hive. You will have to transfer 
ft any way, and so it will not make any great 
difference what contains them. Bees in a box 
hive are valued at from 2'., to 110.00 according 
to season, locality and strength of colony. If 
you could beg, borrow or steal a few empty 
combs, the simplest way in the world would 
be to buy a natural swarm, if one could be ob- 
tained within a day or two after having come 
out. Of course the word “steal" is not really 
intended, for we expect all bee-keepers if they 
wish really to enjoy their possessions to render 
a full fair equivalent for every thing, that they 
may feel ’tis all honestly earned by the sweat 
of their brow. 
Whatever the hive may be, locate it on the 
north side of the trellis as described last month, 
make it level unless ’tis intended to slant a lit- 
tle from the entrance to shed rain, and have 
the entrance on the east side. Bank it around 
with saw-dust far enough so that you can go 
down on your knees safely at any side of it. 
It's good for one to go down on their knees 
sometimes, and if you would be an Apiarist the 
sooner you bow as a submissive pupil to kind 
old dame nature, the better. 
Now we are not going to trouble ourselves 
to tell you which are the workers, and which 
are the drones etc., for 'tis your business to 
learn that yourself. The colony is to be trans- 
ferred into a Standard hive bye and bye, hut 
before you undertake such an operation you 
are to get thoroughly acquainted with your lit- 
tle friends. You should be so familiar with 
them in fact that you can He down in front of 
the entrance and examine the movements of 
their antennae with a magnifier as they greet 
new comers who return with a load of pollen 
or honey. You should also be able to distin- 
guish at a glance a bee filled with honey from 
one that is not, that you may be able to detect 
robbing at its commencement. Nothing but 
close careful observation will enable you to do 
ibis. They will very soon get so accustomed 
to your presence that they will not be disturb- 
ed at all, and will alight on your face when 
heavily laden as confidingly as if it were their 
own threshold. You should be able to distin- 
guish at once by their hum or note whether 
they are in a quarrelsome mood or only busy 
in the faithful discharge of their duties. We 
remember well our troubles during our first 
season with bees ; they had been robbing some, 
and in the afternoon we found a quantity of 
bees hovering about the entrance, crowding in 
and out, and making a sad hubbub, as wc 
thought; we so closed the entrance, and then 
felt sure ’twas robbing for they piled over it 
and made frantic efforts to get in. Soon anoth- 
i r colony was “attacked" and we closed them 
up and, oh dear, such a worry as we had. As 
they didn’t go home at dusk we let them in 
and it finally dawned on our understanding 
that ’twas only the young bees at play, as they 
almost always do from 12 till i! or 4 o'clock p. 
M. We had not then learned the peculiar “rob- 
bing note” nor did we know that swarming 
was always indicated by a sound that a bee 
never emits at. any oilier occurrence in life, and 
worst of all we could not distinguish a loaded 
beo from one that was not. If you learn all 
these things before transferring ’twill be all 
the better. A folding, or camp chair as they 
arc sometimes called is very convenient and 
then ’tis pleasant to take a hook or paper 
and sit by your hive and grape vine. The 
hum of their industry, to us, is the finest ac- 
companiment for enjoyable reading. 
Now both this hive, and the vine arc expect- 
ed to increase and multiply in time, and this 
vine is to have its one shoot tied to the central 
wire D, as fast as it grows, pinching off all 
side shoots after they have made one leaf. 
When it gets to the top of the trellis, pinch 
it off also, ami it will soon throw out side 
shoots. Pinch all off again except one on each 
side near t lie bottom bar B. Train these by 
tying, strait out horizontally until they reach 
the posts, then train them up the posts and 
pinch them off like the middle one. Now get 
two more shoots to train tip the wires C, and 
E, and we are done. The future treatment ot 
j the vines consists only in cutting the upright 
shoots all back to the horizontal arms tied to 
the lower bar B, every winter, and training 
two new shoots up each wire and post every 
summer, and pinching them off whenever they 
get to tlie top. 
Next month we’ll tell how to “swarm grape 
vines" artificially as well as more about the 
bees. 
A SCENE IN THE APIARY. 
/■•r].IME, July 10th, about dusk. Blue Eyes 
gli in charge of Mrs. N. is perched up on one 
side of the extractor bench with one fat arm 
stretched over to the crank, and while she is 
enjoying herself hugely in making it spin, Mrs. 
N. is telling Novice that she will take one of 
thq best SjilO.OO extractors and must hare it im- 
mediately as she wishes it to keep the baby qui- 
et. Novice however is dolefully contemplating 
his ankles just now, and seems evidently troub- 
led about some matter more weighty than the 
simple fact that they are only “useful” and not 
“ornamental.” The real trouble is this: the 
hives have just been discovered to be a little 
too full for the best economy, and P. G. in her 
ambition to have as many hives as possible 
emptied before dark, persuaded him lie could 
do “just one more.” This last one had made 
such progress in gathering honey, and the 
Queen had filled such nice combs with brood 
(they had been unable to repel robbers a wr/i 
few weeks ago) that lie took so much time t” 
contemplate the snowy wreathed combs, con- 
taining the basswood honey — he called it “dew 
of heaven” a few days before when an attempt 
was made to take out some before it was sidin'- 
icntly ripened, lint P. G. suggested that oil* 
honey customers might have a decided preler- 
ence for real lumey, after they had paid then 
money, in place of the aforesaid "dew” and s" 
extracting was adjourned until the evening > u 
