201 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Mar. 



ered, and a honey market established right here? 

 For my part, I don't want the " earth and all there 

 is therein," and I would rather see it gathered and 

 saved than wasted on the desert air. M. A. Gill.. 



Viola, Wis., Feb. 20. 



Friend Gill, you have indeed suggested 

 some very valuable points ; namely, that 

 caging queens not only prevents swarming, 

 but it prevents excessive breeding just 

 when we do not want it. We little realize, 

 many of us, how much is consumed in 

 brood-rearing ; and no doubt that, witli a 

 large force of bees, all of them capable of 

 bringing in honey, we might see considera- 

 ble increase in the amount of honey over 

 that where the queen is left at large in the 

 hive. We trust our readers will give this 

 caging process a thorough test during the 

 coming sea>-on. Who knows but that it 

 may be a solution of the problem how to 

 prevent swarming V It will require skill 

 to manage it rightly. — The point you make, 

 that thick top-bars cause the comb to be 

 built ciear to the bottom -bar, is a valuable 

 one indeed, if true. I know that the objection 

 has been made, that a heavy bar takes up 

 valuable comb space. If what you say will 

 prove true in the hands of other bee-keep- 

 ers, thick top-bars do not interfere with the 

 amount of comb to be built, but the con- 

 trary.— Friend G., do not be afraid of the 

 waste-basket. You know there is some- 

 thing in getting up a name. E. R. 



DOUBLE-TOP-BAR FRAME. 



SOMETHING ELSE 



TO DO AWAY WITH BRACE- 

 COMBS. 



A LITTLE over ten years ago I took the " be e-fe - 

 ver," and I took it " bad." I did not own a bee at 

 the time, and was a lad of only 18 years. What did 

 I do? Go and buy a lot of bees? No. I went to 

 reading and studying up the matter, and I said I 

 would begin at least part way up the ladder; that 

 is, I would not begin and spend my time in hope- 

 less blunders. I therefore studied for a year, then 

 purchased a hive of bees, only to find that I was on 

 the first round of the ladder after all, for all my 

 fine theories fell through when I came to handle 

 them. But I will not take up space to give you the 

 ups and downs of those ten years. My father be- 

 ing a carpenter I had access to all the tools neces- 

 sary for hive-making. I therefore got me up a 

 hive combining the good points of all (at that time), 

 as nearly as I could. This hive took the standard 

 box, carried two half-supers on top; the brood- 

 frames were of just the right depth to fill these two 

 half-supers when I wished to run for extracted 

 honey, so it made a very convenient hive; but in 

 time I found there was something wrong about my 

 pet hive. 1. I had, in the fall, to go through all of 

 my colonies, and cut central holes through the 

 combs, in order that the bees might find passage 

 from one side of the hive to the other, without be- 

 ing compelled to go around the outside end of the 

 frame. U. Jn taking off my supers I was vexed at 

 finding many of them stuck down to the top of the 

 bi-ocd-frames by brace combs. These two objec- 

 tions I was bound to overcome, and at last, two 

 years ago, I remodeled my brood-frame so that it en- 

 tirely overcame these two bad features. 



As the subject of thick top-bars is now before the 

 bee-keepers of the world, I think it is time I sent in 

 my testimony through Gleanings. My first ob- 

 ject was to get a permanent bee-passage through 

 the frame— one they would not close up as they did 

 in case where I cut holes through the combs; and, 

 recognizing the fact that heat rises, and that this 

 passage must be in the warmest part of the hive, I 

 simply put in an extra top-bar, just under the origi- 

 nal top-bar, with just a bee-space between the two. 

 This false top-bar just fitted the inside of the 

 frame, and was held in place by nailing through at 

 each end, and in the center a block one inch square 

 (the thickness of the bee-space) is slipped in, and a 

 wire nail passes down through both top-bars and 

 this block, which holds the two as solid as if they 

 were one piece. Width of top-bar is 3^8 'n.; depth. 



AMES' DOUBLE-TOP-BAR FRAME. 



including bee-space, 1 inch. As I have said, I have 

 used this frame two years, and in that time I have 

 never had a brace-comb built on top. nor have I had 

 a loss of a single colony of bees wintered on these 

 frames; and, better still, 1 have never had a queen 

 get above when put on these frames. I consider 

 them far ahead of a solid thick top-bar. 



If this is of any use to you or to the bee-keepers 

 of the world, you are welcome to it. 



Hudson, Mich., Jan. 6. Irving H. Ames. 



Many thanks, friend Ames. It is quite 

 possible that you have struck on to a good 

 thing. If a double top-bar, such as you de- 

 scribe, will do away with burr-combs as ef- 

 fectually as thick bars, then surely the 

 former will have the preference. It will be 

 lighter, and answer as a Hiirs device in 

 winter — that is, giving the bees a winter 

 passageway, anci it would be just as cheap. 

 Moreover, every bee-keeper, no matter how 

 many combs he has, can put it to a practi- 

 cal test by cutting out, say, one inch of 

 comb immediate to and parallel with the 

 top-bar, and inserting an extra bar, as 

 shown in the engraving above. Where 

 combs have perpendicular wires it might 

 interfere, but there will be enough combs 

 without such wires, so that every one can 

 prove for himself whether it will be a suc- 

 cess. In my hand is such a frame as you 

 describe. It came in the mails, and I do 

 not know from whom it came. If 1 can 

 judge correctly from the propolis accumula- 

 tions, it has been in use lor several years, 

 for it looks like an old " residenter." I am 

 not surprised that there should be no burr- 

 combs above the top- bar proper; but there 

 are actually no burr-combs built in the 

 space between the upper and lower bar. As 

 this double-top-bar frame contains the prin- 

 ciple of the slat honey-boards, in conjunc- 

 tion with ordinary brood-frames without the 

 break-joint, I should naturally suppose that 

 the intervening space would be filled with 

 burr-comb ; but in the sample sent, none 



