Written for the American Bee Journal
BY LEWIS K. SMITH.
As a caution to my brother bee-keepers, I will say: Don't climb unless you are sure of your footing. On the 26th of last May, I was called on to hive a swarm of bees that had settled high up in an apple tree. Having been a great climber from childhood's days, I bounded up to the top of the tree, and sawed off the limb containing the swarm while I stood on a limb below. The additional weight of the bees and limb split off the one on which I stood, and down came Smith, bees and all—a distance of 22 feet. That it did not kill me I am humbly thankful to Him who holds us in the hollow of his hand. For nearly two days I was partly paralyzed, and was finally relieved by the application of an electric battery, and other means applied by two eminent physicians who were unremitting in their attentions day and night.
Do we sufficiently appreciate the arduous labors of those men of science, working day and night with both mind and body, taxing every energy, and enlisting every sympathy of their being? Is it wonderful that they wear out, break down, and die suddenly? Whenever I think of those terrible hours of suffering, when my digestive system was completely paralyzed, and my life was wavering in the balance, my heart goes out in thanksgiving to a merciful Providence, and I treasure the faithful ministrations of my physicians and friends.
DRUMMING BEES FROM A HIVE WITH
CROSSWISE COMBS.
Let me add one suggestion to the instructions to F. M. L., on page 716 of the Bee Journal for Dec. 7, 1893, relative to drumming bees out of a hive with cross combs, into a box above. If he will go to some hive having nice, straight comb, and get a frame or two with unsealed brood, and put in the upper box or hive, I am of the opinion his bees will go up more readily, and stay better contented. Then, too, it will be much easier to find the queen if he desires to supersede her.
RESULTS OF THE PAST SEASON.
From 66 colonies, spring count, some of them nuclei, my crop of section honey was between 400 and 500 pounds. This surplus was stored by a few extra-good colonies—one of them filling 78 sections, and not swarming. The queen of this colony was reared in 1892 from an imported Italian mother.