1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



44o 



pound retail, and carrying it to the houses ; 

 and even at that price it does not sell. We 

 do not wonder that you had such success 

 with Mrs. Pickard's honey, from Richland 

 Center, Wis. 1 was present when they were 

 taking it out, and I thought that their bass- 

 wood honey compared favorably with any 

 honey in the world. If basswood is thor- 

 oughly ripened, and is thick, and has no 

 taint nor fermentation, it is, in my opinion, 

 luscious. You know something about hav- 

 ing honey returned, as well as ourselves. 

 There is quite a tract of country down in 

 Kentucky and Virginia where the mer- 

 chants will return every bit of honey as 

 soon as it candies. They say it turns to 

 sugar, and is useless ; and during the past 

 winter we have exhausted our logic in try- 

 ing to convince them that it was all right. 

 Our good friend Capehart, who took the 

 orders, insisted that honey must be melted, 

 and shipped away hot— or, at least, that is 

 pretty nearly what he said. Well, so long as 

 it remained liquid it sold very well ; but 

 when a cold wave came, then there came a 

 wail from honey-dealers. I felt as if I 

 should like to get the whole of them togeth- 

 er and shake some sense into their heads. 

 Now, friend M., if you can sell honey down 

 there, and explain by circular or by personal 

 letters that candying is not a plain indica- 

 tion of fraud, I shall be glad to have you 

 undertake it. Where bee-keepers like the 

 business of peddling honey, and can dis- 

 pose of their crop in that way, by all means 

 let them do so ; but it certainly is a great 

 piece of folly to find fault with commission 

 men and middlemen indiscrimately. Why, 

 friend M., if it had not been for you and 

 your sturdy energy in working ofE the prod- 

 uct of Texas, Florida, Mississippi, and oth- 

 er like localities, I do not know where our 

 honey business would be just now ; and it 

 was news to me to learn that you had made 

 an opening for the great basswood product 

 from Wisconsin. Go on, and don't feel 

 hurt, even if some of our small fry say un- 

 wise things occasionally. 



DEEP SPACE UNDER FBAMES. ETC. 



NOT A SUCCESS. 



frame. It is jusf possible that, in spite of my 

 strong- and long- feeling against fixed distances, I 

 may think it worth while to try the experiment of a 

 wide frame in all its parts, with spaces at each cor- 

 ner. In any case I want the deep space under the 

 frames in winter, and, if necessary, I will in some 

 way lessen the space in summer. 



FLAT COVERS. 



Another thing that has not worked as well as I 

 expected is the tiat hive cover. Either the hive or 

 the cover, in too many cases, is just a little out of 

 true, and that lots in cold air in spring. Is there 

 any remedy for this? If I can not do any better I 

 can put quilts or cloths on. 



SAGGING OF TOP-BARS. 



While I am telling my shortcomings, I may as 

 well speak of top-bars. I have always said that I 

 had no trouble with =8 top-bars sagging, although 

 wired without any diagonal wires. This spring I 

 hoed all the brace-combs and propolis off my top- 

 bars for the first time in three or four years, hop- 

 ing to get the honey-boards to work as well as ever, 

 and I found some places where there was sag 

 enough to make a space of M inch between lop- 

 bars and cover, instead of %, as designed. I be- 

 lieve I would rather have top-bars so thick that no 

 sagging need be feared. My top-bars are all an 

 inch wide, except in the few Dovetailed hives I 

 have. These last are ,'»' wide, and they sagged 

 worse than those 1 inch wide. I think hereafter I 

 shall clean off the tops of my frames every year, as 

 I formerly did. 



KEENEY'S PLAN OF WIRING. 



I've tried hard to find some fault with the plan, 

 taken with Ernest's improvement on page 37'3, but I 

 can't do it. If foundation is cut a little too large, 

 so as to be crowded down on the bottom-bar, I don't 

 believe there will be any need of reversing to get 

 combs built down. I can readily believe that | top- 

 bars will not sag with this plan, since so few of my 

 % top-bars sag with perpendicular wiring without 

 any diagonals. But my bottom-bars, being Ji x V, 

 do sag— upward. 



ARRANGEMENT OF HIVES. 



The lay of the land has much to do with it. In 

 one of my apiaries I have, for the last two years, 

 used a combination of friend Hatch's plan, on page 

 374, and Ernest's plan on the next page. Perhaps I 

 might say it is simply the first part of Ernest's 

 plan. I like it better than any thing- else I ever 



My experiment in trying to have a deep space 

 under brood-frames through the summer has al- 

 ready come to grief. April 30 I found some comb 

 started under the bottom-bars, and in one case a 

 piece of drone comb, some 8 inches long, built clear 

 down and filled with drone eggs. It was all built of 

 old black wax. Others have succeeded; what 

 causes my failure? My bottom-bars are Ji wide 

 and }4 thick. Perhaps a wider or thicker bottom- 

 bar is needed. If top-bars can be so made that bees 

 will not run comb above them, can not end-bars 

 and bottom-bars be so made as to prevent combs 

 between them? They are certainly less inclined to 

 build comb there than between top-bars. If, how- 

 ever, bottom-bars are made wide, there will cer- 

 tainly be much trouble in having them glued to- 

 gether; for my Is bottom-bars sometimes touch 

 and are glued together. I need not say what an 

 annoyance it is to attempt to pull out a frame and 

 find it holding fast to the bottom-bar of the next 



tried. Possibly I might like the Hatch plan better; 

 but as there need be only 6 inches space between 

 the hives in each group, I can, without using any 

 more space, have an alley ir)>i ft. wide where friend 

 Hatch has 10 feet. If space is important, or if it is 

 desired to have the apiary as compact as possible, 

 my plan is better; but then flying bees will trouble 

 more. Where there is no objection to using a 

 large space, friend Hatch's plan is hard to improve 

 on; and if it be desirable to have them closer, the 6 

 feet between hives, where they face each other, can 

 be reduced to two or three, and the alleys made 

 narrower. Just now my assistant objects to having 



