12 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
]M AY, 1912 
A few puffs of smoke at the entrance to the hive will subdue the bees 
and enable one to handle them with impunity 
source of supply, for if there is any one blossom that the bees 
love above another it is the blossom of the basswood, in quest of 
which they have been known to go as far as eight miles. 
After being fascinated for an hour or more I returned to my 
home and spent the rest of the day in reading several books on 
bees and beekeeping, and was simply amazed to find that in ad¬ 
dition to being invaluable as cross fertilizers of fruit blossoms, 
they could be made exceedingly profitable to their owners in the 
remarkably large crops of honey they would produce. 
My reading seemed to open before me a vista of new possi¬ 
bilities. Though I had reaped splendid returns from my garden 
of which I was pardonably.pFourl, T had Ipoked about for some 
other profitable hobby that wpuld take b*ij1;*4Atle‘of my time, and 
had thought of chick&ij fgl^h^^.'and'eveii sCjick^^aising, but after 
careful consideration.A.^^cided against bothV.’the^ fprmei being 
too messy in the nece^skry work, and the latter a ^l,ittle too exten¬ 
sive for the limited ground that surrounded the hoqse in which 
I lived. Beekeeping rem^njed, and thq idea appealed to me. 
The super containing the collecting boxes for the honey is set above 
the box which contains worker cells 
I learned that little space was required for a few hives, and that 
beekeeping was a possible success even in the hands of a novice. 
Bees are, according to statistics, the most profitable live stock that 
can be kept, as, unlike all other stock, they do not require constant 
feeding and attention, but gather their nectar from the bloom that 
others than myself have raised. I retired that night with the 
avowed purpose of “taking a flier in bees” even though my apiary 
should only boast the modest number of two hives as a beginning. 
With the bee fever in advanced stage I began to look about 
and discovered one dealer who offered to supply an entire and 
very complete outfit. It consisted of one hive filled with bees, with 
all of the storage chambers ready for work, and another hive 
empty but otherwise complete, to hive the swarm that was sure 
to and which actually did come out in June. 
Then there was the smoker with which to subdue the bees for 
handling. This was an ingenious and interesting little tin device 
to which was attached a bellows and in the furnace of which dried 
leaves or pieces of rotten wood were to be burned to secure the 
necessary smoke to render the bees tractable, and prevent my 
being stung. It certainly produced smoke in ample quaiitities. 
A pair of bee 
gloves, a veil, a tool 
with which to pry 
out the frames and a 
special trap to en¬ 
able me to take out 
the honey without 
disturbing the bees 
completed the outfit, 
and the cost of the 
entire plant was but 
the small sum of 
$ 30 , which, by the 
way, the bees more 
than paid back in 
honey that season. 
The hives were 
double walled ones 
with a packing of 
chaff between the 
outer and inner walls 
to keep the bees cool 
in summer and re¬ 
duce the tendency to 
swarming. This 
acted in winter as a 
perfect protection 
from the cord and 
enabled me to winter the sw'arm out of door wdthout fear of loss. 
When the hives arrived by express the sw'arm was confined in 
the hive by a frame covered with wire cloth that was nailed to 
both top and bottom of it. 
Donning the bee gloves and veil, and wdth the smoker going 
merrily, but with many misgivings and considerable timidity, I 
prepared to take off the screens and liberate the bees, first putting 
the hive bottom-board in place. 
Fortunately I had secured the w'ell-knowm Italian bees noted for 
their remarkable gentleness, and this fact rendered the work ex¬ 
ceedingly easy, as it wms but the w'ork of a moment to puff a little 
smoke down among them through the screen and wdth a large 
screw driver to pry off the screen. 
Not a single bee ventured to sting, and I afterward learned 
that their great buzzing was not a sign of anger but rather a plea 
for liberty that they might hie themselves away to the fields in 
quest of the fruit bloom. The trees were now in full blossom, as 
the bees were bought the early part of May. Incidentally this is 
the best time of the year in which to make a start. 
A well-filled frame with bees clinging to the 
comb 
