1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



53V 



Now, your Dovetailed hive is to me simply my Hed- 

 don-Langstroth of the loose-bottom variety as I 

 have been making- and selling-; but with the dove- 

 tailed corners added— not a new invention, but a 

 new application, transferred from a soap or candle 

 box, to a bee hive. It is a good thing. Perhaps you 

 are asking how I knew and now know that my mod- 

 ification of the L. hive was so much better than 

 yours, the Simplicity. I will tell you. So very 

 many bee-keepers like Professor Cook, Hutchin- 

 son, R. L. Taylor, P. P. Styles, and so on up to forty 

 of them, who are bright, clear men, and practical 

 and successful honey-producers, dropped the Sim- 

 plicity and adopted my modification, that my ex- 

 perience and opinions were verified by these 

 friends. But, now, friend Root, is not there some- 

 thing else better still? I do not expect you to see 

 all at once the many advantages possessed by my 

 new patented hive; but I do believe the time will 

 come when you will fully realize and appreciate 

 them all. In this article, let us leave out of the 

 question the best feature of all— the divisible, al- 

 ternating brood-chamber, and give our attention to 

 the style of frame in combination with its adjust- 

 ment to the brood-case. The standard eight-frame 

 L. hive is ten inches deep. Now, if you make the 

 same brood-case eight inches deep, and put in my 

 close-fitting reversible frame, with end-bars loosely 

 fitting the case, nine inches deep, it would give you 

 the same capacity. Here is certainly an advan- 

 tage; for shallowness in the brood-chamber is an 

 immense advantage in every respect. It is easier 

 to handle; it is better adapted to surplus storage; 

 bees will breed up better and faster, not only in the 

 spring, but at all other times of the year; and, 

 lastly, they will winter better than in any deep 

 hive. If I could get the capacity desired, as cheap- 

 ly, aud still keep the standard length and width, I 

 would not have my combs over four inches deep. 

 The fact is, the shallower the better. But, to re- 

 turn: 



Suppose you make your dovetailed brood-case 

 nine inches deep; nail a tin strip on the bottom of 

 each end-piece, projecting inward an eighth of an 

 inch; make the frames close-fitting, just the same 

 as I make them ia the new hive; and these shallow 

 half-brood-chamber cases, put the screws through 

 the sides, and clamp them up together snugly, so 

 that the whole thing can be instantly inverted, as 

 well as each frame being invertible at will, and now 

 don't you see that you have a very much better 

 brood chamber than you possibly could have with 

 the swinging loose-fitting frames? But these latter 

 frames had some advantages; advantages which, 

 in the minds of many bee-keepers, overcame the 

 superiority of the close-fitting frames, but now 

 with the new arrangement of adjusting the frames 

 to the case, by which the glue is avoided and the 

 frames can be handled much safer and quicker, 

 and since wire and comb foundation have given us 

 such straight combs, to me there is no comparison 

 between the many advantages peculiar to this style 

 of frame. The close-fitting frame, adjusted as in 

 my patented hive, is, I am confident, going to win 

 the preference with all practical honey-producers. 

 Think of it; and after you have done so, and experi- 

 mented, feeling sure as 1 do that you will find it as 

 I have said above, then make the case shallow, us- 

 ing two of them for t Ik." complete brood-chamber of 

 full size, and one of them when that valuable sys- 

 tem of contraction is practiced, and you will ap- 



preciate my new hive then as you now appreciate 

 my break-joint bee-space honey-board. 

 Dowagiac, Mich., June 10, 1889. James Heddon. 



You say, friend Heddon, that tl I desire 

 to level my gun and tire away directly at 

 you.'''' As there are two Roots here at the 

 Home of the Honey-Rees, it is a little diffi- 

 cult to tell at which your gun is leveled. 

 As, however, yon place emphasis upon the 

 personal pronoun you, the mlerence is that 

 your weapon is directed at A. I. Root ; but 

 it so happens that A. 1. R. is not the 

 " game." He has neither said any thing in 

 favor of nor against the Dovetailed hive. 

 Neither has he •'gonebackou ,, the Simplicity. 

 Perhaps I should say in this connection, the 

 1 means Ernest II., as your humble servant 

 has written the editorials and other matter 

 referring to the Dovetailed in particular. 

 A. 1. Root rather inclines toward the Sim- 

 plicity, although he is not opposed to the 

 Dovetailed. 1 make this statement so that 

 the lack of consistency may not be ascribed 

 to him. While in pattern the Dovetailed 

 hive is similar, as you say, to the Heddon- 

 Langstroth, yet in quite a number of re- 

 spects it is different. The bottom-board is 

 movable and has a raised rim, as you have 

 already intimated. The body is dovetailed, 

 and dispenses with the cleats at the top, 

 and uses, instead, hand-holes. If you will 

 turn to page 172 of that excellent work, Da- 

 dant's Revised Langstroth, you will see that 

 our Dovetailed hive is more of a copy of the 

 Blanton hive than of the old-style Heddon. 

 After we had settled upon the construction 

 of the Dovetailed hive, I accidentally ran 

 across the engraving of the Rlanton hive in 

 the Langstroth Revised, and was surprised 

 to note that we had both hit upon the same 

 thing essentially. 1 do not quite see why 

 you should want to call the new Dovetailed 

 hive a Ileddon-Langstroth. It is more a 

 Rlanton -Langstroth. Blanton's hive has 

 essentially the same bottom-board and cov- 

 er. The two bodies are exactly the same, 

 without the dovetails and hand-holes. 



In regard to closed-end frames, you will 

 see by my article in last issue, under the 

 head of Recent Developments, that I ad- 

 mire some of their features. It is possible 

 that I may one day become a convert to 

 them ; but from what I now know of them, 

 1 think I should prefer the Hetherington 

 reversible metal-casting frame ; or if this 

 should not prove to be a success, the ordina- 

 ry hanging frame. I have tried your close- 

 fitting upright repeatedly. While your 

 thumb-screw makes its manipulation more 

 simple, yet you do not obviate the killing of 

 bees between the bottom of the upright and 

 the tin support below. Of course, you can 

 avoid it to some extent by letting it down 

 gently, and, by a slight pressure, causing the 

 bees to slowly work their way out ; but to 

 handle every frame thus, I tell you, takes 

 time ; and after you have gone through the 

 sixteen, you have examined only one brood- 

 nest. You will say, handle hives, examine 

 the brood-section at once in toto. I can't do 

 it as yet satisfactorily. From my present 

 experience I should much prefer full-depth 

 closed-end frames (if I were to choose close 

 uprights at all), with thumb-screw arrange- 



