Vol. XIII. 



MARCH 1, 1885. 



No. 



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NOTES FROM THE BANNER APIARY. J 



NO. 63. j 



THE HEDDON FIXTURES ANI> SYSTEM. 



'OW that this subject is up for discussion we j 

 may as well stick to it until it is finished. 

 You, friend Hoot, in your report of the j 

 Mich. State Convention. ))aKe s;), sa.v that, ' 

 while wo were visiting- the collcfre apiary, ! 

 you noticed that the crates and honey-boards, made j 

 upon the Heddon plan, were covered with bits of 

 comb and propolis; but you noierlect or forgot to ! 

 state what my eyes instantly detected, and what [ 

 Prof. Cook mentioned: viz., the cases were not pro- ; 

 perly constructed ; the spaces between them were not 

 the right size. Since 1 have been usin^r the Heddon 

 case and honcv-board 1 have experimented some to 

 determine what sized bee-space would frive the best ! 

 satisfaction, and I have found it to be 5-16. If this ' 

 distance is increased very much, brace-combs arc ' 

 the result; if dc^ereased, propolis is the penalty. j 



I am glad to see you admit, at last, that the Hed- i 

 don hive-cover will not warp. Now in rcfrard to the ! 

 " twisting-" feature, 1 have used 125 of the covers, | 

 and only tm) of them have caused any trouble by ] 

 twisting; and, if one cares to take the trouble, this j 

 can be remedied by taking off the end cleats and j 

 using: the remaining l)oard for making- a bottom- j 

 board. You say, "The cover has no place, but 1 

 stays just where you lay it." I do not see that this | 

 is an objection; perhaps you did not mean it as j 

 such. It is just as easy to la.v a simple Hat board i 

 over a bo.v, the upper edges of which are plain and : 

 flat, as it is to put in place a cover with a rim I 

 around it, the rim being- beveled to fit the beveled i 

 edges of the box or hive; and so far as the staying- ' 



in place is concerned, the wind has yet to even dis- 

 place the first cover of the Heddon style for me; 

 what more can you ask? 



In regard to taking out sections one at a time, 

 versus a whole case at a time (see J. W. Porter's 

 article, page 123), T would say that I should not take 

 out sections one at a time as fast as finished, even 

 if their places cmild be filled with empty sections, 

 and no bulging result. When tiering up is prac- 

 ticed, the finished sections are always in the top 

 ease, and there is not that travel over them that 

 there is in the lower cases, and they can remain 

 until the whole case is finished, and not one of the 

 combs show any stain. However, I do not always 

 leave a case upon the hivt; until every section is 

 finished. If there is a section in each corner un- 

 finished, I do not usually wait for them to be fin- 

 ished, but take off the case, "whack" out the 

 sections, cratf; the finished ones, and set the three 

 or four unfinished ones into an empty case. When 

 the case becomes filled with nearly finished sections 

 it is put upon stmie hivi;. Hut to show how nearly I 

 sometimes allow the sections to be finished before 

 removing them, I will mention that, from the first 

 lOlK) lbs. remov(>d last season (that sent to A. C. Ken- 

 del, and you will remember how he praised it, and 

 pronounced it the best lot of the season), there was 

 only one case of unfinished sections (»<) to put back 

 on the hives. 



In raising honey 1 fail to see why, as Mr. Porter 

 says, " We have frequent need to get into the brood- 

 chamber;" and, honey-boai-ds or no honey-boards, 

 I see no use for a " flexible quilt." 



The Wilkins sisters, unless I am mistaken, and I 

 think 1 am not, do not allow the bees to have access 

 to the outside of the sections; i. e., they have the 

 Doolittle system, as mentioned, and, with that sys- 



