Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1877 — Bee-Keeping In the Himalayas. [ARTICLE]

Bee-Keeping In the Himalayas.

A correspondent gives, in the Londbn Agricultural Gazette, an interesting count of bee culture in India. He writes: “ Some of the villages make the keeping of beastheir chief business; and, although their method would perhaps hardly answer eitheF with Englishmen or English bees, it Ik at any rate curious, and it is cprtainly very successful and exceedingly profitable. ■ j. .j “The houses are built of a framework of wood, "which it would not be easy to describe without a sketch, but which leaves everywhere in the walls, both in their whole length, .and height, open spaces of about two feet bighand from ten to twelve. feet long, which are subsequently filled un with stones and clay, after which the wnole is plastered inside and out with a preparation of gypsum, which is found in abundance in the hills. The roofs are flat, of beaten clay, and the eaves project pbqut three feet beyond the walls. As the whblc weight of the roof rests entirely bn the wooden framework, the stones and clay, with which any one of the spaces I have mentioned is filled, can at any time be removed and replaced without at all interfering with the stability. In each of these spaces, particularly in the walls facing the south, is placed one dr more round earthenware waterpots, the height of which ought to be equal exactly to the thickness of the wall; these are built into the wall lying on their sides, with the round bottom outside, and its extreme convexity flush with the outside of the wall; whilst the mouth of the vessel, which is six or eight inches in diameter I ,' is flush with the wall in the inside of a room; in some houses there are as many as forty of these waterpots . (called ghurrahs in India) thus imbedded; All that is now wanted is to make a small hole on the outside convex bottom of each waterpat for the bees to enter—stick on a small patch of clay below it for them to alight on—put in a swarm and close the mouth pf the pot with an eartherware lid made tp flt. When honey is to be removed, alt that is required is for the operator toenter the house, close the door, tap on the lid of the ghurrah to drive out the bees, or, if that is not sufficient, open the lid a little and blow in two nr three puffs of smoke from a lighted rag, then open the lid fully and remove as much of the honey as may be deemed expedient, after which the mouth of the pot is reclosed, and the bees soon return ana go to work again; enough of the honey always seems to he left to support the stock through the winter, and I <Jould not ascertain that artificial feeding is ever resorted to. As the houses are occupied by the family $s well as the cattle of the owners, and in winter pielty constant fires are kept up, the bees, no doubt, benefit by the heat. “Beside these hives, which are never killed off,, each house generally has a larg number of others, the result of swarming, which are managed in a different wdy. For these a hive is prepared thus: A piece of 'the trunk of a pine or cedar tree, of about eighteen inches in diameter, is cut to a length of two and a half feet; this is split down the middle, and each half hollowed out in thq center, so that when rejoined there is a considerable space inside. A hole is made in one of the halves for the bees to enter; and a swarm being secured, it is lodged in the hoJlowlog, the two parts of which, having been securely tied together, are then hung up close under the projecting eaves of the house’and well out of the reach of bears, which are numerous in the district, and are very partial to honey. To get the honey from these swarms, I believe it is usual to destroy the bees; but I have heard, although I do not know exactly how it is done, that, instead of destroying all ths bees, the t]ueen only is sometimes killed, and the workers added to one of the stocks in the house wall, which may hgve become weak.” —The pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Milton, N. Y., IS said to be extremely plain-spoken. The other evening he said -that a certain man was going straight to perdition, even if his name Wtte on the, ghurch, books; whereupon the .individual mentioned arose and left the church with several of his friends. This clergyman is the same who rficently paused in the middle of his sermon, ana told a ’young lady in the congregation that if she granted to “spark” she had better go imome.— Boston Globe. tI " , i-i < o. ii ■»!*■'. oat b- t > *” L —Anew London song is entitled, “I %annot zay good bye.” Then why doesn’t .he Sbnply say “Ta-fa-”— .Norristown rt .... —L, tth Wxrarorr’B Tosic'.—A Bxrz, Sutra amd 'ScptNTuric CuKg ( —The unprecedented sale of thia world-renowned medicine proves, incontestibly, that fib remedy has superseded the use or this reliable Tonic. No spleen has been found sb hayd as not to yield to its Mttenfng Influence, atid ho liver so hypertrophied as not to glve up Ms long retained bib kfiis secretions, and no Cidll or Fever has yet refused to fall into 'like. G. R. Fimuat A Co., Proprietors, New Orleans. Fob bajji qx aia Daiwowta.