Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-04-19

Honors Rendered the Queen Beetle
bies-Adyice to ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
for Business Women-Eggs in New York.
'fThe bee keeper today has hundreds Of con-
veniences, labor saving devices and methods
Of increasing the honey production that were
not even dreamed of a few years ago." said
veteran bee man to the inquiries of a reporter.
''The modern apiary is laid out in streets and
avenues of neatly painted hives, shaded by
small fruit trees or grapevines and sur
rounded by acres of clover, buckwheat, honey
plants and groves OF Eastwood and honey To-
Gust trees
"What profit can be made with bees? Well,
good colony of Italians, hived and ready
for business, costs about $40 in the spring.
They will produce from fifty to 100 pounds of
honey in a good locality, and will cast one
swarm, and sometimes two, during the sea-
son. Taking the lowest figures to estimate
on, each colony will earn s. fifty pounds Of
honey at ten cents and double their number
each year. The attention required Is SO little
that one man can take care OF several hun
dred hives and earn good income There
are large number Of bees kept in this city
and in Brooklyn, near the sugar redneI1es,
and they are said to do very well.
"At the present time we tame the bees do
mesticate them handle them without regard
to danger, guide their work. remove their
product a. will and reap the greatest benefit
from their labors The old method was the
contamination of cruelty to keep the bees at
work from early spri.g until late fall, build
ing comb and storing honey for their winters
feed, and then destroy the bees to obtain their
stores. Now we make friends of our bees.
We are gentle and kind with them. We fur
nish them with hives that are fitted with
every convenience and we remove the sur
plus honey only, leaving the bees enough to
winter on. or supply them with candy If they
get short.
There are two systems Of honey produc-
tion, the making of comb honey and the
making of liquid or extracted honey By the
first the small wooden boxes in the upper
story of the hive are removed when filled, the
sides are closed by inserting pieces Of glass,
and they are sent direct to market The
other system is to use large frames Of comb
throughout the hive These are removed
from time to time, and by rapid centrifugal
motion in an extractor the honey is thrown
out. 1t is then strained, put into neat jars,
tumblers, ETC.. and sent to the dealers.
Every colony of bees has one queen. She
is the only female, and lays all the eggs,
which occasionally amount to as many as
1000 in a single day. She deposits each egg
in the bottom of cell and CLUES it fast The
first eggs laid produce worker bees: after
ward she lays eggs in cells of larger dame
ter, which produce the drones or male bees
The queen bee is different in appearance and
instincts from the other occupants Of the
hive. Her body is much longer, brighter in
color and she is quicker in her movements
than the workers. At swarming time. or at
any time that the colony is left without a
queen, there is great excitement in the hive,
and the most singular thing in the bee bust
ness occurs-the bees set to work to make a
new queen. They select cell containing a
larva two or three days old that would, under
ordinary treatment, produce q worker bee,
and by enlarging the cell and feeding the
grub on the royal jelly, a special food that
they make in some mysterious manner, it be-
comes a queen.
"To provide. against accidents the bees usu-
ally rear several queens at once, and they
sometimes emerge from their cells stimuli
taneously. When this is the case battle of
queens occurs, and only the best one sur
wives. When the queen matches the bees
gather around her and plainly show their
iOV New York Mail and EyDress