VOL. LII. No. 2262. NEW YORK JUNE 1 1801 price, three cents 
_ J O* “J' $ 1.00 PER YEAR. 
A SERMON FROM THE BEE HIVE. 
“ My Son, Eat Thou Honey!” Proverbs xxiv—13—14. 
HATS OFF TO THE HONEY BEE. 
Plmsant work for the women folks, profit in it too ; Rev. 
S. P. Marvin of Connecticut, tells us all about it ; 
the Parson was “ stuck ” to the honey comb. 
The Right Hive to Begin With. 
For years I have regarded the honey bee with con¬ 
temptuous indifference. I have believed I didn’t like 
honey, and when some hospitable friend urged it upon 
me, I adroitly led the conversation to some engrossing 
topic, and sought to have the fact that I did not relish 
the delicacy escape attention. Recently, the lady 
who rules our household destinies was presented with 
a box of “ parsonage ” White clover honey, and was so 
pronounced in its praise that I was induced to try it. 
Astonishment! It was good I It was better than good: 
it was delicious ! Had I been wrong in my opinion all 
these years ; had my taste changed, or was this honey 
unlike other 
honey be¬ 
cause it came 
from the 
“ parson’s?” 
My interest 
was awak¬ 
ened, and I 
sought the 
fountain¬ 
head of 
knowledge 
of the sub¬ 
ject of bees 
and bee cult¬ 
ure in this 
vicinity. The 
results of my 
investiga¬ 
tions have 
proved so 
interesting, 
that I have 
decided t o 
place them 
before the 
readers o f 
The Rural. 
Mr. Marvin 
is a gentle¬ 
man who has 
preached the 
good word to 
a small par¬ 
ish in a coun¬ 
try town for 
■ years, with unabated zeal. One of the emoluments 
of his position is a parsonage, with a small and rocky 
farm attached, whereon he keeps a horse, a cow and 
some fowls, and sometimes essays a crop of barley, or 
a plot of corn, with varying success. He also has a 
good garden. This reverend friend of mine is popularly 
supposed to know all that is worth having any knowl¬ 
edge of, and he keeps bees. To him I went, and he 
cheerfully laid aside his hoe and led me to his apiary, 
which is seen at Fig. 137. Sixteen hives, two of which 
were young swarms producing no honey for sale last 
season, were clustered in a sheltered yard, overhung 
by a large grape vine. 
Mr. Marvin,” said I, “ how did you happen to start 
in beekeeping ? ” 
Well,” said he, “ I had thought of trying bees, 
■ nd happening to be at the home of one my neighbors 
■ ho kept some, I asked him what he would sell me a 
s warm for. He said he had none for sale, unless he 
sold me one of two swarms that stood apart from the 
■ .hhers and which had been sold to a man who was to 
have taken them the night before and had failed to ap¬ 
pear. He said he was under no obligation to keep them, 
and would sell me either one I chose for $2.50, hive in¬ 
cluded. I decided to take one and asked him to select 
it, as I knew nothing about bees He finally selected 
one hive for me and I took it home. From that swarm 
I got another, and 18 pounds of fine honey the first 
season. I was down to the place where I bought them, 
and on telling Mr. J. what success I had, he showed 
me the other hive of the two of which he had given 
me the choice, and said, ‘ There, that hive didn’t send 
out a swarm this season and it didn’t last year, and it 
hasn’t given me any honey.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘why 
didn’t you select that one for me ? ’ ‘ Why,’ replied 
he, ‘Well, I thought it would hardly do to stick the 
minister.’” 
Something About Bees and Honey. 
“ Do you have any trouble in handling your bees ?” 
“ Oh, no. I have a ‘ bee dress ’ which I put on when 
I am doing much work among them, [He has it on in 
the picture.—E ds ] but ordinarily they are quiet and 
harmless. I have taken out the frame on which was 
the queen, and taken it to the house for lady friends 
to see the queen, looking at her through the window, 
and have replaced the frame in the hive without a bee 
having left it or offered to make any disturbance.” 
“ Do you find bee-keeping profitable ?” 
“ Most certainly. I have never attempted to make 
much money out of the business, as I find it a pleasant 
recreation from the cares incident to my professional 
work; but incidentally the bees bring me in a good 
deal of money. My annual sales vary from 300 to 700 
pounds of honey, and I sell a good many swarms. I 
have sold 75 pounds from a single hive in one season, 
and 30 or 40 pounds is a fair average. There is great 
variation in this matter without apparent reason, and 
the seasons also vary. A cold summer, unfavorable 
for flowers, is also a poor honey season. The bee likes 
warm weather and doesn’t work so briskly on cold or 
wet days.” 
“ What style of hive do you prefer in your apiary ? ” 
“ I like the Jamestown hive the best of all I have 
tried, its greatest fault being that it is fitted for nine 
frames, where eight are sufficient. As the bees have 
all the honey that is on the frames, and I get mine 
from the boxes, they get more than their share. I 
get over this difficulty by putting in a board on one 
side in place of a frame. The manufacturers are 
making an eight-frame hive that goes together differ- 
ently, but I do not like the style quite as well as I do 
the old model. The honey boxes can be placed in 
tiers, one above another, as high as necessary, and 
can be examined readily at any time.” 
“ Do you have any trouble in securing the young 
swarms when they come out ? ” 
“ Not recently. In my earlier years I used to have 
some difficulty on that point. A gentleman whom I 
did not know, once sent me WQrd that he had an 
Italian queen that I could have if I would call on him. 
I promptly made his acquaintance and got the queen. 
I brought her home in one of the little cages in which 
queens are 
transported, 
and put her 
in with a 
swarm of 
young bees 
that had lost 
their queen, 
leaving her 
in her cage 
until the 
bees got ac- 
quainted 
with her. 
After a suf¬ 
ficient time 
had elapsed 
for introduc¬ 
tion, I car¬ 
ried the hive 
into a cham¬ 
ber, and at¬ 
tempted to 
set them up 
in business. 
A part of the 
bees escaped 
while the 
hive stood 
in an out- 
kitchen over 
night, but 
the queen 
with her 
wings clip¬ 
ped, was put 
in with the remainder of them and the window was 
opened. Pretty soon there was a great commotion 
and a stream of bees came pouring out of the hive and 
out of the window they went. I caught the queen 
and replaced her in her cage, and then I examined the 
hive to see what was the matter. I found it very 
dirty! and then and there learned that bees insist on a 
clean house. I had just finished cleaning out the hive 
and had replaced the queen in it, when back came the 
swarm in search of their lost sovereign. The delight 
they manifested at again meeting her was almost 
human ; they swent promptly to work and caused me 
no further trouble. I very rarely have any abscond¬ 
ing swarms, as when a swarm gets too large for 
the hive I divide it by taking out three or four 
frames with the bees upon them, and putting them 
into a new hive. I remove the old queen with them, 
taking care not to do so until there is plenty of brood 
comb in the old hive. The bees that remain will 
promptly go to work to make a new queen ; this is 
one of the most wonderful things in nature. The 
A Connecticut Parson Talking Honey in His “ Bee Dress. Fig. 137 . 
