654 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



November, 1918 



wintering or long-range beekeeping this one 

 feature alone is invaluable. If it did not 

 take $9.00 worth of stores and require so 

 expensive a case, it would be all right. 

 Entrances. 

 During the last year or so some develop- 

 ments have taken place in regard to the con- 

 struction of entrances. After examining 

 the colonies that wintered in the Govern- 

 ment cases at Washington and at Paines- 

 ville, O., I became convinced that one, two, 

 three, or more holes would be very much 

 better than a slot. In Fig. 9 we have before 

 us the two styles of entrance-contracting 

 cleats. George S. Demuth of the Bureau of 

 Entomology explained to me that an en- 

 trance in the form of a slot 8 inches long 

 and % inch deep was not of as good con- 

 struction as one made up of a series of holes. 



ago I did not take very much stock in it, 

 because I believed that a single three-inch 

 hole like this would clog up, because dead 

 bees gathered on the hive-bottom would soon 

 close this entrance. As every one knows, 

 such a closing would mean death to the 

 colony. But Mr. Demuth and Dr. Phillips 

 argued that if there were plenty of bottom 

 packing — six inches or more packing around 

 the sides, ends, and on top, there would be 

 no accumulation of dead bees on the bot- 

 tom-board. They proved to me that such 

 was actually the case, when I visited the 

 Government apiary last winter and spring. 

 The bees were so warmly housed that when 

 any dead bees fell down on the bottom, the 

 lives ones would poke them out of the sin- 

 gle hole before they accumulated. The 

 interior of the hive would be warm for the 



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ENTRANCES ENTRANCES 



Figs. 4 and 5 represent a modification of the Demuth plan as spoken of in Figs. 2 and 3. Some may pre- 

 fer more packing space than is permitted in Pig. 3. More room can be given by pitting four three-tier 

 Langstroth hives in close contract on one bottom-board and placing the inner cases in the inner corners 

 contiguous to each other. This leaves more packing for the exposed sides — 4 inches on the side and 6 inches 

 on the end. A common cover should cover the whole four hives, and in addition there should be a paper 

 wrapping around the four hives to avoid possible air currents between the hives proper. This mode of 

 packing is ideal where the colonies are placed in groups of four. While we did not use this scheme, we 

 did use that shown in Pig. 3 with the most gratifying results. 



It is a very easy matter for cold air to pass in 

 at one side of the slot and warm air get out 

 at the other side. In the new style as shown 

 in Fig. 9, if all the holes are closed except 

 one, 'and that in the center, during the cold- 

 est part of the winter the warm air in the 

 hive can not very well escape to any great 

 extent, and neither can the cold air from 

 without penetrate into the hive. I am frank 

 to confess that when this scheme of entrance 

 was first brought to my attention a year 



simple reason that there could be no rai)id 

 interchange of air cither in or out of the 

 hive. 



Mr. Demuth illustrated this plan by say- 

 ing that if a bottle with a %- or i/^-inch 

 opening were filled with smoke, it would be 

 very difficult to get the smoke out of it, for 

 the very obvious reason that it would be 

 next to impossible to blow air in and out 

 both at the same time thru so small an 

 opening. If we could imagine that this 



