120 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



August 5, 1861. 

 Mr. Pardee in the chair. 



HONEY AND BEES. 



Mr, Steele exhibited a specimen of honey made in small sashes 

 without any intervening partitions. A little guide-comb is rub- 

 bed upon the inside of the top of each sash, when the bees will 

 proceed to fill the sash with honey, which can be removed with- 

 out cutting. He, also, exhibited his bee-moth protector, which 

 is constructed with a row of circular apertures, fitted with trap- 

 doors, alternately opening inward and outward. The bees will 

 pass through readily, while the bee-moth will be ejBfectually 

 excluded. 



Dr. Trimble regarded this a most ingenious contrivance, and 

 had been pleased to see the bees going in and out. It had been 

 said by naturalists that it is impossible to educate any insect, 

 because their lives are not long enough. This apparatus seemed 

 to overturn that theory. 



Mr. Steele — It is not the result of instruction, for I have had 

 the bees pass through within three minutes from the time it was 

 put on, without instruction. Bees coming out and opening the 

 door, will open it to go in again. Bees not in at the time, and 

 coming back from the fields, seeing it for the first time, would 

 wait, and seeing others go in would enter in the same way. 



Dr. Trimble — There is the instruction. 



Mr. Steele — It is a perfectly efiectual protection when it is 

 properly put on. I have never known it to fail, excepting from 

 not putting it on properly, or from not putting it on early 

 enough. 



Dr. Trimble — Must the hive be made perfectly tight ? Will 

 the young insect creep through into the hive ? 



Mr. Steele — Undoubtedly I make my hives perfectly tight. 



Mr. Carpenter said that there was another annoyance ; mice 

 would destroy both bees and honey, and this would be no pro- 

 tection against mice. 



Mr. Steele — You can protect the bees from mice in various 

 other ways. The bees can be put upon a stand so suspended 

 that mice cannot approach them. 



Dr. Trimble stated that but one kind of mouse would attack 

 bees. The ordinary mouse and the meadow mouse will not touch 

 them. It is rather a small mouse; the tail is very long. Its 

 fore-legs are short. It is somewhat of a kangaroo shape. 



