1022 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



HOME-MADE VS. FACTORY-MADE HIVES 



BY LEWIS L. WINSHIP 



The question of home-made vs. factory- 

 made hives has been discussed pro and con 

 until it would seem highly improbable that 

 more remains to be said. Such does not 

 seem to be the case; and the more said, the 

 more remains to be said. In years to come, 

 there is some chance that this question will 

 be settled once and for all. 



To my way of thinking it might as well 

 have been settled years ago. Thei-e is only 

 one conclusion to which a fair-minded 

 thinker can come; and that thinker, when 

 he comes to a conclusion, will want factory- 

 made hives. The average home-made hives 

 are fit for nothing so much as kindling- 

 wood. For this they are excellent, as the 

 coating of propolis on them saves kerosene. 

 If you happen to be a representative of 

 that class of noble. and high-minded men, 

 viz., bee inspectors, I know you will quite 

 agree with me. 



I am speaking on good authority, as last 

 spring I took three hives (if you can call 

 therti by that name) of bees on shares. I 

 was to have all the increase and half of all 

 the marketable honey secured. The man 

 from whom they were taken was a nursery- 

 stock agent; and so, when the busy season 

 for the bees was on, he was also busy with 

 his nursery stock. He spent his time in the 

 winter making new hives and, when pros- 

 perous, had many colonies of bees. But as 

 time passed his bees dwindled down to the 

 three colonies as bees will Avhose owners 

 make their own hives. Now, do not think 

 that I mean no beekeeper can make hives 

 as good as the factory-made article, because 

 some few of them can; h';t (and here is the 

 "rub") they usually try to economize in 

 eveiw possible way; and the hive when fin- 

 ished usually looks like the one in the illus- 

 tration. 



Beekeepers seldom try to make frames, 

 as they know that the factory-made article 

 is far superior to their best efforts. But 

 this man was one of a reckless few. He 

 may have thought he could do it, but he 

 could not make me agree with him. Every 

 one is prone to believe that he can do any 

 thing better than the other fellow ; but it is 

 rare that the other fellow agrees with him. 

 The probable reason for the delusion was 

 that he never opened a hive, and so could 

 not see why his frames were not as good as 

 those factoiy-made. Why, this man was 

 even feeding his bees di-y sugar in a little 

 saucer above the frames in April, and won- 

 dering where the honey was coming from, 

 as they were not using any of the sugar. 



He did not stop to think that there were 

 blossoms all over God's green earth, all of 

 which were abundantly yielding nectar. 



Starting with the cover T shall describe 

 one of his hives similar to the one in the 

 IDhotograph. You can see that the structure 

 is made of a drygoods-box, and that one 

 corner of the cover is at least three inches 

 lower than any of the others. When the 

 sun shines very bright and hot, the cover 

 serves to some extent as a shade-board ; but, 

 oh my! when the first rainstorm struck it I 

 came near taking it into the house for a 

 sieve. The water poured in torrents be- 

 tween the combs, and the poor little bees 

 were washed out the entrance. The first 

 thing I did after the shower was to put tin 

 over all three of the covers and paint them 

 two coats, to prevent a similar disaster. 



The hive was made from a drygoods-box. 



The super was one of the greatest pieces 

 of ingenious mechanism I have ever had the 

 sorrow to look upon. A Philadelphia law- 

 yer could not place empty sections in it. 

 I did not attempt such a hazardous job, but 

 set a factory-made super in its place. Even 

 if a lawyer could have put sections into it, 

 a preacher would most certainly have dis- 

 cliarged a volley of oaths if he had had to 

 remove the sections when they Avere full of 

 honej^ 



The brood-chamber, if it may be given 

 that name, was more a nursery for worth- 

 less drones; and if the Iiive were mine it 

 would certainly have been used for kindling- 

 wood, and the bees tiansfeiTed into an up- 

 to-date factory-made hive, Th(^ frames were 



