Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1878 — A FLOATING BEE PALACE. [ARTICLE]

A FLOATING BEE PALACE.

An Enormoot Apiary Slowly Migrating Up Jh« Mississippi Hirer. [Fran the New Orleans Picayune.] We learn that two barges have been fitted up in Kennerrille, La., for an immense floating apiary. Each barge haa a capacity of 1,000 hires of bees. These will be toyed slowly gp the river during the spring and early summer, passing this city about the first of June, and arriving in St Paul in July; returning,will reach Louisiana in Ootober. But we will let the Picayune give a fall description of the novel undertaking. Mr. Pen in e has been in Louisiana eighteen months studying np the bee business and preparing for the grand onward movement for which he will be ready in a few days. His plan is to start with his bee palaces ana his 1,000 oolonies from Southern Louisiana when the honey flowers are in full bloom, to remain bat a day or two at a landing, and move up each night to another landing and fresh field. He thinks the bees of from 1,000 to 2,000 colonies will take the cream from the country around the landing from one to two miles distant in one or two days. In this manner he expects to move up the Mississippi to St. Paul, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles, where he will arrive about the last of July. Returning, he will halt about two montllß somewhere above St. Louis, and will reach Louisiana with his palaces and bees in. October. It will be his object to take the autumnal flowers at each point in their prime precisely as he takes the spring flowers in Lis advance up the river. He expects his early swarms on his boats to increase his colonies to 2,000 in April and May. The colonies of bees are in hives with movable comb, on the most approved plan of modern hives. These stand in four walls, five hives one above the other, nearly the whole length of the boat, about 250 hives in each line. The walls of the colonies on the right side and on the left side have openings for the bees to come out on the water front. A space of two feet between the hives and the guards answers for a gallery for the bee man to walk on in front of the hives. In the middle of the boat there are two other walls of colonics, 260 hives in each, facing an inner court six feet in width. The bees from these colonies reach the open air through the skylight opening in the roof above the court. Between the first and second rows of hives from the outride there is an aisle three feet in width for the convenience of the bee man in handling the liiyes and the honey. The distance from the barge deck to the roof over the colonies is fifteen feet. The space below decks is ten feet in width and about seven feet high, and is to be used for sleeping apartments, making and repairing hives, handling and extracting honey and putting it in marketable shape. The dining-room and cooking will be on the steamer that tows the bee fleet. To run the steamer and manage the barges and bees from fifteen to twenty hands will be needed. The cost of the whole establishment, barges, bees, steamer and the complete outfit will not be much short of $15,000. Mr. Perrine has been engaged in the honey business in Chicago twelve or thirteen years, and has lately made it a special study. He has dealt largely in California honey. He expects to find the best market for his honey in Europe. Honey in the comb usually sells at about 20 cents a pound wholesale. Strained honey sells at wholesale at 7 or 8 cents a pound, or from 80 cents to $1 a gallon. A gallon of strained honey weighs about twelve pounds. The demand for honey is increasing in the United States, but Europe furnishes the best market for this article. The plan of moving bees to get the benefit of different ranges and fresh flowers has been tried in a small way in some parts of Europe. They are moved both in carts and in boats.