1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKl 



615 



built-out combs than formerly. I find that 

 the bees are more apt to build drone comb dur- 

 ing the swarming season; but after that lime 

 they are quite inclined to build nothing but 

 worker comb: hence, early in the honey-flow I 

 give drawn-out combs: and, later on, frames 

 with only starters of combs." 



It will be remembered that Mr. Boardman 

 has a side-opening hive, and his practice in the 

 past has been to cut out combs in the brood- 

 nest from those that did not have brood in, 

 compelling the bees to carry their surplus up 

 into boxes for the want of storage room below. 

 These combs that contain honey are extracted, 

 and are rendered in the large Boardman solar 

 wax-extractor. 



Once more we changed the subject. 



"What about the I^angdon non swarmer? 

 have you tried it? " 



•' I have not; and I do not know that, for my 

 purpose, I want to. I desire bees to swarm. 

 Just come with me." 



"We took our hats and started for the apiary. 



"There is a colony," said he, pointing to one, 

 " that was bringing in, by the scales, from four 

 to five pounds of honey daily. The new swarm, 

 after being hived, brought in over double that 

 amount daily. Besides that, the old colony 

 was doing something, and that is ;,bout the 

 case with more of them. Yes," he added, by 

 way of emphasis. ■' I inint my bees to swarm." 



We do not remember exactly, but we think 

 he said that, for him, the parent colony and 

 the swarm would gather considerably more 

 honey than any colony would gather with the 

 same force of bees, with the swarming impulse 

 taken away, if such could be done. 



As we passed along. Mr. Boardman, pointing 

 to a number of hives in which there were cone 

 bee- escapes at the entrances of the upper story, 

 said, "There is the best bee-escape out. I just 

 simply attach one of these escapes, fastened to a 

 thin strip of board 2 inches wide, and the width 

 of the entrance. There," said he, " by turning 

 this wire button over it, you see it can be 

 attached and detached in an instant. When 

 a super is full I put this on at night, and the 

 next morning the bees will be all out, with the 

 possible exception of two or three." 



boardman's hive. 

 The bees, instead of going through the bee- 

 escape into the brood-nest direct, come out into 

 the open air and go down to the entrance be- 

 low, with which they are familar. As our 

 readers may have forgotten what the Board- 

 man hive looks like, we reproduce a cut which 

 was shown some time ago in Gleanings. The 

 bee-escape is shown in position. It was friend 



Boardman, we beiii've, who gave the first pub- 

 lished account of the successful working of the 

 cone bee-e.^cape. But the matter seems to 

 havi- been dropped at the time, and no particu- 

 lar proininence was given to it until about a 

 year lati^-. when our enterprising friend J. S. 

 Reese introduced it to the bee-keeping world. 



As we walked through the apiary. Mr. Board- 

 man called our attention to his bee-feeder. We 

 pronounced it the best entrance feeder we had 

 ever seen, and requested him, when he had 

 time, to write up a description of it for Glean- 

 ings. 



" Did yon notice," said Mr. Boardman, " that 

 the grass is all kept down in the bee-yard." 



" Yes, we did notice it." 



" The weeds were shaved down," he contin- 

 ued. " only once this spring, and you see how 

 clean the ground is now." 



We continued walking through the yard un- 

 til we came before three of the mammoth 

 Boardman solar wax-extractors. These are 

 kept constantly going, and Mr. Boardman is 

 constantly accumulating some nice beautiful 

 wax of first quality; for you know he cuts 

 combs out of the brood-nest to force the bees 

 into the supers; and these combs must be dis- 

 posed of. You will remember, some time ago 

 we raised the question as to whether or not the 

 solar wax-extractor rendered all the wax out of 

 the cocoons. We challenged our friend to send 

 us 25 lbs. of slumgnm, or refuse, saying that we 

 thought we could show that there was still 

 wax in it. We did show the presence of wax, 

 and that was all. We secured, after a great 

 deal of labor, by the use of sulphuric acid, wax- 

 press, etc., a few ounces. The test proved that 

 Mr. Boardman secures practically all the wax 

 there is in the old comt)S. and that the only 

 reason why this slumgum makes such a fire is, 

 that the propolis, melting at a higher tempera- 

 ture than is reached by solar wax-extractors, 

 remains in the slumgum. We were pleased to 

 notice that Mr. Boardman uses tlie extractors, 

 not only for rendering out combs, but for dry- 

 ing out fruit, corn, etc. By the use of ventila- 

 tors near the top he lets the moisture escape as 

 the fruit dries. 



As we looked at tlie bottom of the extractors, 

 w^e asked him what it was that prevented tlie 

 boards from shrinking and letting the wax run 

 through the cracks. 



" I had some little trouble in that direction, 

 and an old carpenter told me that butternut 

 was the least liable of any wood to shrink or 

 swell. After using that kind of wood I liad but 

 little trouble." 



We will explain to our readers, that the 

 Boardman solar wax-extractors have, for the 

 bottom, only matched boards, and, of course, it 

 is desirable that the stuff be put together as 

 tight as possible. 



We intimated several times that we should 

 have to get on our wheel, because we had to be 

 at home that night. It was very hard to break 

 off in the midst of so many interesting topics. 

 We finally told our friend that we hoped we 

 could call upon him again this same season, 

 and take a little more time. We mounted the 

 wheel at 4:20, having stopped an hour and 20 

 minutes. At 10 minutes of 6 we w(>re in Well- 

 ington, some 20 miles distant. We did not stop 

 to talk long, but sped ov(^r to a restaurant for a 

 lunch, and at i):() we were on our way again. 

 At exactly 7:4.5. standard time, we were in front 

 of our own door, the last 20 miles being made 

 in 1 hour and ;{".• minutes. Our entire run that 

 day was 90 miles; and Sd perfect are the wheels 

 nowadays that we felt little or no fatigue. In- 

 deed, we felt as if we shduld like to go another 

 20 miles. 



Perhaps some of you will not believe this — 



