D. L. Adair | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: until evening set in, the bees kept him prisoner. When he found himself a fixture he improved the time by studying up some law cases; but ever since he has believed in veils and gloves. While on this subject let us say a veil of some black material is best. Happy is the bee-keeper who can get possession of an old-fashioned black-lace veil. It is just the thing. For gloves nothing is better than the sheepskin gauntlets used in harvesting where thistles abound. They cost only about fifty cents, and with care will last a life-time almost. A word about bee-houses. Some of the bee-books, especially the English ones, contain very pretty plans of bee-houses, and early in our experience they tempted us into building the like. But we found them a perfect nuisance. They harbor moth-millers, toads, mice, and spiders. The close proximity and similarity of the hives confuse the young queens when they return from their bridal excursions, and cause loss; the very workers are nonplused often, and many a civil war is the result Eobbing is more prevalent when the hives are huddled together, as they must be in a bee-house. If a single hive becomes excited from any cause, all the adjacent hives quickly sympathize, and the place gets to be a perfect pandemonium in no time. Hives should stand isolated, at least eight or ten feet apart. It is well to paint them of different colors, that each may readily be distinguished. A little village of hives, located in a sparsely planted shrubbery, where partial shade is given them, looks very pretty, and is much better for all practical purposes than the most artistic and architectural bee-house ever erected. Bee-keepers who use the mel-extractor should provide some place inaccessible to the bees in which to work it; otherwise there will be more honey extr...