270 ANNUAL REPORT 



Then Cui Bono? My mind has not yet offered any satisfactory 

 response to its own question. 



The only thing that occurs to me as worth attempting is simply 

 to give some of the results of my own experience and observation 

 and perhaps suggest some points for discussion, all of which is to 

 be taken only for just what it is worth. 



My apiarian experience extends over a quarter of a century, and 

 after several years of hive testiDg tribulation at the outset, I finally 

 settled down to a hive taking a frame about 9 by 15 inches, inside 

 measure. This proves quite satisfactory. 



My hive is a light, modified and simplified Langstroth. It has 

 no portico, has a loose floor, and a thin honey board about § of an 

 inch thick which I have no notion of abandoning. I use a flat 

 cover which answers for hive, honey cap, or super, fitting all alike. 

 For my extracting supers I use the perforated zinc honey board, 

 and regard it as simply indispensable. The frames fit either the 

 brood chamber or the extracting supers. The frames are put to- 

 gether with Boot's metallic corners, so changed as to permit the 

 ends of the top bar to rest upon the metallic rabbits, and the ends 

 are bevelled on the upper side to an angle of about 45 or 50 de- 

 grees. This secures every advantage and avoids every disadvan- 

 tage of the metallic corners, and makes the nicest frame I have 

 ever seen. 



For an apiary of not more than 40 hives I much prefer to place 

 the hives in a line east and west, fronting south, and three feet 

 apart. I shade my hives only during the hottest part of the sum- 

 mer, and the only shade cover I use is a tight shade board about two 

 by three feet in size. It is made of ^ inch pine, nailed upon four 1 by 

 2 inch cleats, which raise it two inches above the flat cover of the 

 hive. In very hot weather a continuous line of shade may be se- 

 sured by laying a shade board from the first to the second and thus 

 on throughout the line. 



For wintering a warm, dry, dark and quiet cellar is much the 

 best for a small number of colonies. I place a frame two inches 

 high, with movable wire cloth front piece, under each hive. 1 find 

 this very useful. Any upward ventilation of the hive is worse 

 than useless. 



Water is not required by the bees during the first half of the 

 winter, but is needed during the latter part of the winter. 



I keep only the common bees. Italians sting uendurably ; swarm 

 ungovernably; dwindle fearfully; winter poorly, and are inferior 

 comb honey producers, They are good at cramming with honey 

 the brood chamber, where no one wants it; are more quiet upon 

 their combs in gentle handling, and they are much superior to the 

 black bees in guarding their hives against robber bees. 



This latter is the only point upon which I regard them as super- 

 ior to the black bees. 



Any location possessing forests, and large and small fruits, 

 linden, white clover, sumac, and golden rod, is a good honey loca- 

 tion. 

 I should not know how to keep bees without linden or white 



