1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



459 



The best and most convenient way for ex- 

 hibiting bees is the single-frame observatory 

 hive. A comb may be selected containing 

 brood in all stages, both worker and drone, 

 and if the queen is placed on such a comb 

 with the bees, a crowd will stand for hours 

 trying to catch a glimpse of the queen, of 

 the bees that are just hatching, of the eggs, 

 etc. 



The invariable question is, "Are those 

 bees making honey?" And to carry out the 

 plan and have the bees in as natural a state 

 as possible, it is best to locate the hive with 

 one end on a windowsill, using a short 

 " bridge " to extend from the entrance un- 

 der the sash out to the outside. The bees 

 will fly in and out just as though the hive 

 were out of doors. Blocks of wood should 

 close the open space on either side of the 

 hive under the sash, so that returning bees 

 may not fly in at the wrong place and come 

 out in the interior of the room. 



So small a colony can not produce surplus 

 honey to speak of, but the exhibit is made 

 much more attractive if four sections in dif- 

 ferent stages of completion are placed in the 

 upper part. These may be selected from 

 any super, or the hive from which the bees 

 are taken, and the whole process is then clear 

 almost at a glance. It is often difficult to 

 remove the sections and comb from a single- 

 frame hive of this pattern, but if the ends 

 are made as in Fig. 2 the difficulty is at once 

 overcomie. As shown, the two ends above 



the brood-frame are sawed out so that the 

 fingers may reach through the slots and 

 grasp the ends of the top-bar of the frame, 

 so that it may be lowered into place without, 

 a jar. The section-holders may then be let 

 down in the same way and the two brass 

 hinged plates swung up into position and 

 fastened. When the cover is on, the hive is 

 thus perfectly bee-tight, and yet the section- 

 holders and frame may be lifted out at a 

 moment's notice. It is quite important to 

 make the removal of these parts easy, for so 

 small a colony can not be kept indefinitely 

 and a fresh comb must be inserted occasion- 

 ally. At fairs, which last only a few days, 

 a change of comb is usually not necessary; 

 but in schoolrooms or in private homes, 

 where the observatory hive is kept for the 

 purpose of studying the habits of the bees, 

 a fresh comb must be put in quite often. 



NATIONAL ASSOCIATION NOTES. 



BY N. E. FRANCE. 



Albany, N. Y., has been selected by the 

 Executive Committee as the place of meet- 

 ing for the National Bee-keepers' Associa- 

 tion this year. It will probably be some 

 time during October, although the exact 

 date is not yet decided. Get ready for a 

 large and enthusiastic meeting. Every bee- 

 keeper who can possibly arrange to be pres- 



i 



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The brass plates at the ends of the "super" swung down to permit the easy removal of the brood- frame. 



