Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/257

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BEE-KEEPERS AND BEE-KEEPING
209

sides; and as we saw they were being filled with combs, we rejoiced that we need not "take up" any more swarms, as the suffocation by sulphur fumes was termed.

When, to the invention of the box super, was added the greater invention of Langstroth, and finally thereunto was added the invention of the honey-extractor, bee-keeping became a science, instead of a haphazard avocation.

Bee-keeping in America has since then passed through many phases and survived many experiments. Our bee-keepers have been wide awake and willing to try all things and hold fast to the good. Once, having read of the floating apiaries of the Nile, which follow the flower bloom along the banks, an enthusiast tried the same scheme on the Mississippi River, starting at the southern part early in the season and coming north abreast of the spring; but too many bees were left behind to make this profitable. Another enterprising gentleman took his bees south winters, but the cost of transportation took away the profits. Now, however, another plan for gaining pasturage is proving most successful; i.e., the establishment of out-apiaries. As seventy-five or a hundred colonies will usually take all the nectar of a given locality, the bee-keeper places his surplus colonies in other apiaries far enough distant, so there is good pasturage for all. Mr. A. L. Coggshall has about 3,000 colonies in out-apiaries in central New York.

The up-to-date bee-keeper is not merely an