884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



on the surface more than a few minutes. Don't 

 imagine now, that this excellence will be durable 

 without labor and care. The new scraper hangs up 

 on the side of the bee-house, where it is handy; and 

 a6 often as it is needed it is run over the ground, 

 which grows hard and smooth, and the weeds and 

 grass disappear. 



Now, my brother bee-keepers, I should like to 

 have you see for yourselves the place I have been 

 describing, and how pleasant I have made my apia- 

 ry for myself and my bees. I would send you all a 

 card of invitation to visit me, but I fear you would 

 think this too much trouble, and so I have had a 

 nice picture taken, showing a portion of my apiary, 

 and have sent it to friend Root, who, may be, will 

 show it to you in Gleanings. If he does I shall 

 have the pleasure of presenting to you my model 

 apiary, as well as myself and Ed. If I am sure you 

 are anxious to know, I may some time tell you the 

 advantages of keeping an apiary clean. 



H. R. Boardman. 



East Townsend, Ohio, Nov. 1, 1889. 



Friend B., we were exceedingly inter- 

 ested in that new instrument for keeping 

 the ground clean. Although you do not say 

 so, 1 presume the saw-plate is ground sharp 

 all around, so as to be pushed and pulled 

 like a scuffle-hoe. By the way, a scuffle-hoe 

 will do more of this kind of work in an hour 

 than a common hoe or any thing else will in 

 half a day, if it is kept sharp, and used right. 

 Your yard certainly looks very clean and 

 nice in the picture, and the artist has given 

 both you and your assistant so faithfully that 

 we should almost know you from the picture. 



WORKING FOR COMB HONEY. 



DOOLITTLE TELLS US HOW HE DOES IT. 



« CORRESPONDENT wishes me to give in 

 Gleanings an article on how 1 work for 

 comb honey. Although a little out of sea- 

 son, I will try to please him, for perhaps 

 some may wish to arrange a few hives this 

 winter to try my way of doing it. In order to make 

 all plain, I will say that the hive which I use mostly 

 is 24 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 12 inches deep. 

 As the frames are but 11# x IB4 inches square, 

 they must, of course, go in the short way of the 

 hive. Five inches from either end of the hive is 

 placed a slotted division-board % of an inch thick, 

 which I used to use when I used side boxes in con- 

 nection with the top boxes, and which comes very 

 handy with my present management. This leaves 

 a space of 12 x 12 x 13i< inches for a brood-chamber 

 in which 9 Gallup frames can be used. The front 

 and rear of the hive is protected by 4 inches of 

 chaff or fine straw, which is always left in place 

 summer and winter. The entrance to the hive is a 

 %-inch slot cut from the bottom of the hive the 

 whole length of the brood-chamber (or 13^ inches 

 long), and is regulated by entrance-blocks. At all 

 times of the year, except the latter part of spring, 

 as will be explained further along, the five-inch 

 space on eitherside of the brood-chamber is closed 

 by a strip of common cotton cloth being spread 

 over the frames and down each side over the slot- 

 ted division-boards. The five-inch space is now 

 filled with a cbaff or sawdust cushion, which is 

 made so as to just fill the same, using one on either 



side. When the bees are being prepared for win- 

 ter, the sections are taken off, the ends of the cot- 

 ton strips folded back over the frames, and a chaff 

 or sawdust cushion, large enough to go over the 

 whole top of the hive, chaff sides and all, is put on. 

 Thus the bees are left during the winter, whether 

 placed in the cellar or wintered on the summer 

 stand. When spring arrives, the bees in these 

 hives packed with chaff, etc., are stimulated by any 

 or all of the ways familiar to the apiarist, till the 

 nine frames are filled with brood. As the weather 

 is always changeable in the spring and early sum- 

 mer, the chaff packing is a great help to the bees, 

 by way of enabling them to maintain an even tem- 

 perature, and thus the hives are filled with brood a 

 little earlier in the season than they otherwise 

 would be. As it is still too early for swarms to is- 

 sue to the best advantage for the production of 

 honey (the honey harvest not being yet at hand), 

 and desiring all the bees possible at this season of 

 the year (these bees are in reality our crop of hon- 

 ey), I remove the chaff cushion and cotton cloth 

 from one of the five-inch spaces, and place three 

 frames of brood, taken from the brood-chamber, 

 beyond the slotted division-board, placing empty 

 combs in the brood-nest in place of the removed 

 frames of brood. In a week the other end of the 

 hive is served in the same way, if the queen is pro- 

 lific enough to lay as many eggs as such a course 

 will require, which gives me, as will be seen, 15 

 frames in a hive, thus securing a large force of 

 bees, with no disposition to swarm thus far. As 

 the brood in the frames which are set over in the 

 five-inch space should be sealed over when set 

 there, it will be seen that, in 12 days, the brood 

 should be all matured; and as the queen rarely goes 

 into these spaces to deposit eggs, we have these 

 combs devoid of brood, or nearly so, when the 

 flowers begin to secrete honey. " They can now be 

 taken out and reserved for new swarms. If any of 

 the combs I wish to take out still have brood in 

 them, they can be used in building up weak colo- 

 nies if we have such, or they can be placed in the 

 upper stories to such hives as we are working for 

 extracted honey, where they will be filled with hon- 

 ey as soon as the few bees remaining in the brood 

 form are hatched. Meantime, if the flowers begin 

 to yield honey of any amount larger than is con- 

 sumed in brood-rearing, I put on the wide frames 

 over the brood-chamber part of the hive, so the 

 bees can go in them to store this first honey. 



When I have decided that it is time to put on the 

 sections, I take out the six combs which are be- 

 yond the slotted division-boards, place back the 

 strip of cotton cloth and the chaff cushion in the 

 same position they were in for winter, with the ex- 

 ception that the part of the cotton cloth which then 

 went over the top of the brood-frames is now fold- 

 ed back over the cushions, when the queen-exclud- 

 ing honey-board is put on, which extends out over 

 these side cushions to the sides of the hive. The 

 wide frames of sections that had been on the hive 

 before, if any had been put on, are now placed 

 over the brood as before, while more are added at 

 their sides, to the amount 1 think the colony will 

 need. If none have been on the hive, then "bait 

 sections," or those filled with empty comb, are 

 placed immediately over the brood-nest to tempt 

 the bees into the boxes at once. It will be easily 

 seen, that the sections will be filled with bees at 

 once under the conditions which now exist; and 



