EXPERIMENT STATION REPORTS 105 



EEPOET OF THE APIARIST FOR 1896-7. 



WORK AT MICHIGAN'S EXPERIMENTAL APIARY. 



BY E. L. TAYLOR, APIARIST. 

 THE HIVE. 



There is perhaps no point relating to bee-keeping about which I am 

 asked so many questions as this. 



It is well to understand that the bees themselves are not much con- 

 cerned about the characteristics of their hive, they will make as i.iuch 

 honey, other things being equal, in a shoe-box or a nail-keg as in a hive of 

 the latest pattern or patent. So the form of the hive is a mere question of 

 convenience to the apiarist. He may shape it so as best to secure the ob- 

 ject he has in view. But bee-keepers have many objects, so hives are 

 wanted: 1, for catching moths; 2, for pleasure; 3, for preventing swarm- 

 ing; 4, for producing bees; 5, for wintering bees; 6, for rearing queens; 7^ 

 for producing extracted honey; 8, for producing comb honey. 



Fortunately, a different kind of hive is not required for each of these 

 objects; if a hive is to be selected for one object, an eye may be had also 

 to points calculated to secure other objects that are subsidiary and yet 

 necessary to the full attainment of the main one, thus, whatever the 

 main object, the hive must be such that it will prove as little fatal to the- 

 bees in winter time as possible. Still, no particular hive is likely to 

 prove the best for all purposes. 



The numbers of those who delight in hives simply on account of their 

 moth catching qualities are of course small, but as there are some whose 

 chief pleasure and occupation in life is to tame mosquitoes and train 

 fleas to perform tricks, we are not to be surprised tliat there are some 

 whose chief consideration it is to trap wax moths. It might be well if 

 all of that type of bee-keepers were confined to moth trapping. 



To be classed with these are those who keep bees and select hives for 

 pleasure onlj^; not that they are equally eccentric, but because the pre- 

 scribing of hives for each of these two classes is alike outside the lines- 

 of apiculture proper. 



Intermediate between these two classes and those that have an eye- 

 strictly to financial returns are those who are intensely interested in non- 

 swarming, producing bees and in wintering bees. I call these interme- 

 diate because a part of each class is so passionately absorbed in inventing 

 or otherwise securing or in testing a hive specifically adapted to the at- 

 tainment of one of these ends that all interest in the primary objects 

 of bee culture are so lost that they fade out of view, (who has not met 

 those who are in ecstacies over their large or frequent swarms, yet who 

 either forget to put on the surplus boxes or to take them off) while the 

 other part make these objects more or less subsidiary to the attainment 

 of the proper rewards of bee keeping. The first part of these classes 

 must be relegated to a place with those who are pursuing pleasure and 

 moths; with the hope, nevertheless, that by chance some device may be 

 hit upon by them sometime that will be found worthy to be incorporated 

 into the mass of real value to apiculture while the latter part will receive 

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