1901 



GI.EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



329 



lined up pretty strongly at the home yard the 

 next morning. Evidently they thought they 

 knew where they belonged. 



Occasionally one finds quite a diflFerence in 

 the character of the honey gathered in differ- 

 ent apiaries located within two miles of each 

 other. If bees gathered their loads in fields 

 up to within 15 miles, or even 7, the honey 

 gathered in apiaries so near each other would 

 be quite uniform, not only in quality but in 

 quantity. We do not find this so. 



I have an out-yard but 1% miles distant, i 

 alwaj-s get buckwheat honey there ; my home 

 yard does not produce it in such quantities. 

 Combining all these minor facts and observa- 

 tions I can not believe that bees ordinarily 

 make such long flights as from 7 to 15 miles. 



I have received of late a circular from a 

 dealer and queen - breeder in Maine. His 

 comb - foundation samples are unsurpassed. 

 He will work up wax on shares. It is inter- 

 esting what he says about the no-beeway sec- 

 tions and fences. " The plain section has no 

 beeways in the box ; they are provided for in 

 the fence separator. Some have cleats nailed 

 on, where the boxes come against them, these 

 cleats being exactly the amount lacking or 

 taken off from the box. Now, I want to 

 ask. Is it any advantage to the bees whether 

 the bee-space is on the box or the separator, 

 after being crated and ready for use ? How 

 are the bees to know the difference? Now let 

 us look at the separator. It is composed of 

 slats, there are beeways through it. Is there 

 any thing in this ? Some one thinks // is, as 

 the bees can see throtigh it and see what the 

 neighbors are doing. Now, brother bee-keep- 

 ers, can a bee see in the dark ? ' ' 



It would lead too far to quote any more of 

 this, and I wish to say : Now, brother bee- 

 keepers, if you can bring out any sound argu- 

 ments and facts either against or for the plain 

 section or fence separator, let us have them ; 

 but do not waste breath with any talk of that 

 kind. Time is worth too much to listen to it. 

 Has it ever been claimed that the no-beeway 

 section, /»^r 5i?, is of any material advantage 

 to the bees ? Has any one ever asserted, that, 

 because bees can see through the beeways in 

 the fence, they will, on this account, do better 

 work ? I answer no to these questions. Let 

 us stop inventing ridiculous objections. I my- 

 self prefer to use a cleated whole separator ; 

 perhaps a wire-cloth separator, if I should get 

 to using it, might suit me best — I do not know. 

 I like the cleat on the divider because it gives 

 us a box brimful of honey — an advantage to 

 the consumer, not to the bees or apiarist. 

 Shipping-crates will hold more no-beeway 

 honey — an advantage to the apiarist. Perfect- 

 ly free communication in the super insures 

 better filling of the sections. I have used 

 hundreds of supers without separators and 

 free lateral communication. The sections in 

 these were always filled and sealed clear 

 around to the wood, an advantage in more 

 ways than one. The more the free communi- 

 cation is hampered in the super, the less per- 

 fect the filling, other conditions being the 

 same. While it is not denied that a good deal 

 of perfect honey is made in supers between 



whole separators, the chances are not as fa- 

 vorable as with wire-cloth separators or no 

 separators at all ; and the fence separator has 

 its merit on account of the freer communica- 

 tion, not on account of the cleat. In these 

 times it is entirely out of the question to pro- 

 duce comb honey without separators of some 

 kind, and we might as well choose the best 

 one in the lot while we are about it. 

 Naples, N. Y., Feb. 6. 



[It is truly laughable, some of the objec- 

 tions that have been raised against the plain 

 section and fence. The idea that it would 

 make any difference to the bees whether the 

 beeway was in the sections or separator or 

 fence, is too absurd to require refutation. 

 The fence system, while it favors indirectly 

 the bees, favors the bee-keeper particularly. 

 It does not make any difference to the bees 

 whether they store honey in an old box hive 

 or in the best hive ever invented ; but it dees 

 make all the difference in the world to the 

 bee keeper what kind of hive he uses. The 

 more marketable he can make his honey with 

 the minimum of labor, the better. If modern 

 appliances offer facilities that worthless ap- 

 pliances do not offer, then those are the ap- 

 pliances to adopt. 



Bees seeing in the dark — well, I am not 

 sure that they do not see. If we really 

 thought the bees needed to see, we would 

 make our hives with doors and windows and 

 skylights. 



But the fence, in spite of its opposers, is 

 quietly making its way into the graces of bee- 

 keepers everywhere. So far I do not know of 

 any one who has given the fence system a 

 careful trial on a reasonably large scale who 

 has abandoned it. — Ed.] 



HOFFMAN FRAMES AXD THE MATTER OF PRO' 

 POLIS. 



The Eight-frame Dovetailed and Ten-frame Jumbo. 



BY W. W. SHEPARD. 



Dr. C. C. Miller: — I commenced keeping 

 bees in 1894, and have been feeling along in a 

 small way, keeping not more than ten colo- 

 nies, and studying their ways, also reading all 

 I could find on the same. I now wish to 

 build up to 100 colonies ; and while I have 

 practically little invested in hives and fixings, 

 I am anxious to start with the best hive for 

 the production of comb honey. As you and I 

 live in about the same latitude, and, I should 

 judge, about the same average temperature, I 

 believed you could give me valuable informa- 

 tion in regard to hives, as you have been test- 

 ing the merits of different ones. 



I will say here that my experience has been 

 with only the Dovetailed hive and Hoffman 

 frame. I lived, until the past year, 30 miles 

 north of my present location, and the Hoff- 

 man frame worked all right there ; but there 

 is a large amount of propolis here, and the 

 Hoffman frame is not the frame. Our surplus 

 is from clover, basswood, and buckwheat (all 

 we got this year was from buckwheat). 



