1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



337 



gave you the idea (necessity is the mother of inven- 

 tion); goon and improve on my original shipping- 

 cage; but remember, my first attempt was a suc- 

 cef5s equal to any of the new-fangled cages of the 

 " latter-day saints." C. J. Robinson. 



Richford, N. Y., May, 188:i. 



MAKING WIRED FKAMES WITHOUT 

 ANY PIEKCING. 



A NOVEL INVENTION. 



Sp FIND in your May number an inquiry for a 

 I proper machine for piercing wired frames. I 

 """' wish tosay, no such machine will ever be neces- 

 sary. I have invented what I consider a better way 

 to make wired frames — not use any piercer, but 

 make the top-bar in two pieces, the bottom in one; 

 the bottom-bar is only ';i wide. Where the wires go 

 on I saw in Jj inch or less on the edge of the bot- 

 tom-bar, and one piece of the top-bar is cut in on 

 one edge the same; the frame is then put together, 

 leaving oti one piece of the top-bar, then the wire is 

 run on instantly, as fast as taken from the spool, 

 easily drawn tight and nice, braces and all, then 

 the other piece is bradded on the side of top, and the 

 frame is complete. 



The way I put them together: I make a board 

 that will just fit the inside of the frame, nail cleats 

 on the board around the edge so as to let the top and 

 bottom bar rest on them just low enough so the 

 surface of this board will be even all around where 

 the wires go on. You will perceive that the bottom- 

 bar is nailed one side of the center, so as to make 

 the wires come in the center. I like it better than 

 having the bottom in two pieces, or having it as 

 wide as the top. It gives more room for sediment 

 or dead bees to fall to the bottom-board. I use two 

 sheets of wax, one on each side of the wires, and 

 press them together with the Given dies; the wire is 

 then in the center, and the wax is not cut half way 

 off by the wires. I can wire 8 or 10 frames made in 

 this way, and do it better, in the time of wiring one 

 the other way. 



To put on the wire, 

 drive a small tack in 

 the upper right-hand 

 corner ; leave it up a 

 little; take the spool in 

 your left hand, end of 

 wire in your right; twist it once or twice around the 

 tack; pull it gently with your left hand; run on the 

 braces, or diagonal wires, then run it up and down 

 till you get back, and finish at the same tack. 



J. C. Clark. 

 Alden, Erie Co., N. Y., May 10, 1883. 



Perhaps our readers will get friend Clark's 

 idea a little plainer, if I say that, instead of 

 drilling holes in the top and bottom bars, he 

 simply cuts in with a saw. Suppose you 

 take a board and make shallow saw-cuts 

 across it, say 2 inches apart; well, if you rip 

 off strips from this board, these cuts will be 

 in each one. Now, instead of putting the 

 wire through a hole, our friend simply drops 

 it into this notch, or saw-cut, and then car- 

 ries it along to the next, and so on. It can 

 be done very rapidly, without question ; but 

 I should not like a bottom-bar half width, 

 nor a split top-bar, I fear. We tried top- 

 bars in two pieces, several years ago, as a 



way of putting in fdn., but we found it very 

 hard to make a neat job and get the ends to- 

 gether square so the frame would hang true. 

 1 think 1 should rather have these notched 

 strips tacked inside of an ordinary frame; 

 but then we could not get at it to wire them, 

 with such expedition. As friend Clark has 

 it, the wires can be put on nicely, and with 

 great precision. Reports from the (iiven 

 press, where two sheets of wax are used, one 

 on each side of the wires, are very favorable. 

 It seems to me that fdn. made in this way 

 should ship with liardly a chance of its work- 

 ing out. Has friend Ileddon ever used them 

 that way? Two sheets should give good 

 fair walls on each side; and if the thin end 

 of one sheet matches the thick end of the 

 other, we should have a very even frame of 

 fdn. with the wires exactly in the center, and 

 entirely out of sight. 



FRIEND WILSON'S PERPLEXITY. 



INTROIIUCJNG A QUEEN WITHOUT FINDING TOE OLD 

 ONE. 



^ S you do not have many questions to answer, I 

 Jc^^ should like to ask one or two. I received 

 '^ — ' from you last July a cueen, and was intend- 

 ing to put her into a hive something like a Sim- 

 plicity. I looked for the old queen, but could not 

 find her, and, after trying several times, and 

 getting stung several times, I gave it up, and, being 

 very much hurried with my business, and also be- 

 ing afraid my queen would die on my hands, I let 

 her go into an old American hive that I had, think- 

 ing that she would stand one chance in a thousand 

 of living. Now, that is a very slack way of doibg 

 business, I confess. I will only say in excuse, 

 that I was very much hurried at that time. Well, I 

 did not see any thing that indicated her presence in 

 the hive until this spring, when I saw a very few 

 yellow bees, but concluded they came from the oth" 

 er hive, as I had one colony of Italians. Now, I win' 

 tered my bees in a dark room in the basement of 

 my barn; and when I took them out for a fly in the 

 winter, I did not set them on their summer stands, 

 and, consequently, the bees got somewhat mixed upi 

 and there were a few yellow bees in almost all of the 

 hives. Well, to return to the hive in question, I 

 watched them closely this spring, and, after a week 

 or two, did not see a yellow bee until the 33d of this 

 month, when I was very much surprised to see yel- 

 low bees going in and out, and, looking closely, I 

 found that they were not the same shade of yellow 

 as my other Italians, but had a reddish cast, and 

 they are increasing in quantity every day, nearly 

 every tenth or twelfth one being yellow. 



Now for the questions: What was the reason that 

 the yellow queen did not lay last season, and why 

 should she all at once take a notion to raise a fam- 

 ily? Of course, there must be two queens in the 

 hive, or else she must have had two husbands. I 

 should like very much to have your opinion on the 

 subject, if you have time to give the subject a 

 thought. Dr. J. A. Wilson. 



Hanover, Mich., May 29, 1882. 

 My explanation would be this, friend W. : 

 The queen you let in at the entrance was 

 killed, and the hive afterward raised a queen 

 that met an Italian drone. Your queen is, 



