892 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



necessary: such as, for instance, wing-clipping, 

 .superseding for the purpose of introducing, or 

 raising another queen.— Ed. J 



NUMBERING HIVES. 



INVISIBLE numbers; THE GROUP PLAN OF S. 

 E. MILLER. 



By S. E. Miller. 



Friend Root: — Seeing so much said, lately, 

 through the bee-journals about numbers for 

 hives, it has caused me to offer my method, 

 which is without numbers of any kind, except 

 those kept in my head, and I do not think these 

 are made of tin, manilla paper, or any other 

 similar material. I did not know, however, 

 that others were using a similar system to my 

 own until I saw in the American Bee Journal 

 for Oct. 31 the plan given by R. V. Sauer; and 

 this evening, in looking over the editorials In 

 Gleanings for Nov. 1, 1 notice what you say in 

 reference to what E. E. Hasty had to say in the 

 Review regarding hive numbers and toads' 

 tails. 



S. E. MILLER S PLAN OF AN OUT- APIA RY 



My method is not exactly like Mr. Sauer's, 

 Mr. Hasty's, or Mr. Boardman"s. and yet sim- 

 ilar to all. Mr. Hasty numbers his groups, 

 while I think letters for the groups are prefer- 

 able. But without further preamble I will 

 give my method. 



If the reader will refer to page 21 of the A B 

 C of Bee Culture he will see the S. E. Miller 

 plan of an apiary. This plan was first given In 

 Gleanings about five years ago, but I can not 

 tell the exact year and number without over- 

 hauling a pile of back numbers. 



Probably the editor could help out here at 

 giving the number, or he might have a cut of 

 the plan lying around the shop somewhere, 

 with which to illustrate it if he considers it 

 worth the trouble. 



The hives are arranged in groups of 5, so that, 

 for an apiary of 80 colonies, it will take 16 

 groups. We will say we stand on the south 

 side of the apiary, and, facing it, we will call 

 the southwest group A: and, going east, B, C. 

 D, in succession. The first group on the west 

 end of the second row is E, and so on through- 

 out. Each group having 5 hives, the numbers 

 run from 1 to 5. Thus, facing a group and 

 looking north, the southeast hive of the group 

 is 1, and the northeast group is 5. So the hive 

 that occupies the third position in the third 

 group is C3. It does not matter whether I am 

 at home or abroad, that particular position of 

 the apiary is where C3 belongs, and it doesn't 

 have to have a big tin tag nailed fast to it 

 either. And now see here. Mr. E. R.. you may 

 be older than I am. and know much more: but 

 I'll bet you are not any bigger; and if you 

 think you can put us fellows, who prefer to 

 carry our hive-numbers in our 

 heads, aside by a wave of the 

 hand, or even by a six-inch edito- 

 rial, you are mistaken. 



And now let us see what we 

 have to say in favor of numbers 

 in the head as against numbers 

 nailed to the hives. 



First, it is obvious that the 



stand and not the hive should 



bear the number. If No. 10 is 



here to-day, you do not want to 



look away over yonder for it 



to morrow, which would be the 



case if No. 10 should swarm and 



you wished to remove the parent 



colony to a new stand, arfd hive 



the swarm where the parent 



colony stood, unless you should 



pull off that number (that you 



ought to have in your head) from 



the parent colony and nail it fast 



to the hive, and then go and get 



a new number for the parent 



colony. Certainly, for those who 



winter in cellars a number is 



necessary if one wishes to have each colony 



occupy the same stand in the spring that it was 



taken from in the fall; but these numbers need 



be only temporary, and a piece of blue or red 



crayon would do very well to mark the hives 



with while they were in the cellar. 



Second. These numbers are always where 

 they belong: and if the apiary is laid out in 

 any thing like order they are as stationary as 

 the lot on which your house stands; while 

 numbers, if hung on a nail driven into the hive, 

 are liable to blow off and get lost in the grass; 



