762 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 

 THE COMMUNITY HIVE, 



Dec. 1 



A Scheme for Working Ten Colonies in One Large 



Tenement, Separated from each Other by 



Wire-cloth Division-boards, 



BY GEO. W. PHILLIPS. 



Dear Mr. Boot: — So long a time has pass- 

 ed since my name appeared in your paper I 

 fear most of your readers, and perhaps the 

 editor himself, will have to look over Glean- 

 ings of five years ago to recall who I am. 

 At any rate, my college and university 

 studies have not lessened my interest in 

 bees. Throughout my seven years of stu- 

 dent life I have endeavored to keep at least 

 partially in touch with apicultural progress. 

 More than once I have been honored by re- 

 quests to address scientific departments up- 

 on the more practical aspects of bee-keep- 

 ing; and, one year excepted, two hives of 

 bees have always shared with me my suite 

 in the dormitory. 



Some three years ago I wrote an article 

 for you upon the subject of indoor winter- 

 ing. Since then I understand you also have 

 tried the method and found it highly suc- 

 cessful. Last winter, by keeping my win- 

 dow hive in a very warm room, I managed 

 to pull through a nucleus so weak and im- 

 poverished that in any other situation it 

 must have died. I recognize that his meth- 

 od of wintering must, for the present, remain 

 the method of the man of few colonies. Per- 

 haps some time the bee-keeper of large in- 

 terests will devise a method of bee-house 

 construction by which large apiaries may 

 be wintered indoors at a temperature of 70°. 

 In fact, the longer I handle bees the more 

 inclined I am toward the indoor method. 

 If ever I go to the tropics again to launch 

 once more into the bee-business I shall cer- 

 tainly consider seriously the open shed. I 

 am convinced that the saving in hives 

 would be alone sufficient to cancel the cost 

 of such construction. You have no idea of 



FIG. 4. — BANANA-BLOSSOM DISSECTED TO SHOW THE FORMATION. 



FIG. o. — THE SAME PLANT AS IN FIG. 2, 



BUT TWO MONTHS LATER, SHOWING 



THAT THE PERIOD OF BLOOM IS 



NOT YET OVER. 



how bee-hives act in .Jamaica. Your cleated 

 covers, if not abundantly and frequently 

 painted, wrinkle 

 up and crawl off 

 the hives like 

 ground lizards. 

 Only metallic cov- 

 ers, or those that 

 are double-roofed, 

 eliminate the ever- 

 lasting robber-line. 

 And as to rotting 

 — well, I don't want 

 to seem to exagger- 

 ate. Indoors, with 

 first-class results, I 

 have kept a por- 

 tion of my home 

 apiary in the trop- 

 ics. Discomforts of 

 rain and sun were 

 eliminated, besides 

 a saving of the 

 weather on the 

 hives; and the 

 same would be true 



