THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



41 



lished ami contains hundreds of colonies you 

 will tiud theui in hives the manufacturers of 

 which are not menaced witli the necessity of 

 cliangint; to some other style. I say, if you 

 have your bees in a liive that is giving you 

 good results stick to it unless you have 

 good evidence that you can change without 

 loss. I have my own machinery and coulil 

 change my hives with less loss than those 

 having to buy their hives, and if i had my 

 1)668 in hives that requireil a great waste of 

 time in extra work, 1 should adopt a style of 

 hive that 1 was convinced 1 could manipu- 

 lat«' more easily, hive all new swarms in 

 them, and transfer at the time the old hives 

 cast second swarms, .lust hive the second 

 swarm in an empty box, set it on the oKl 

 stand, transfer the combs to the new frames 

 immediately as there will l)e but few bees to 

 nunoy at this time, set the transferred hive 

 where the second swarm stood, shake the 

 bees in front of the new hive and the work is 

 done. 



After I became acquainted with dovetailed 

 sections with wide ends and narrow tops and 

 bottoms, 1 oftimes looked at them and said 

 in my mind would not this be a good way to 

 make brooil frames for hives? .lust make 

 them with closed ends and slip them into a 

 hive body resting on a strip of tin nailed on 

 back and front of hive body, but 1 never 

 carried out the idea until Mr. Heddon 

 Ijrought it out. I then made fifty hives with 

 closed end frames and useil them many 

 years, but 1 never had any pleasure in open- 

 ing hives and handling these frames when 

 the hive was crowded with bees, and this 

 last fall 1 burned all these frames. 



( )f late there has been a great deal said 

 and done about the proper kind of joint for 

 the corner of hive bodies ; one claiming su- 

 periority for their hives because the corners 

 were dovetailed or lock jointed, another for 

 mitred corners, still others for halved cor- 

 ners. Now, all these methods will make 

 good hives, but 1 affirm that the boards cut 

 squarely ott and nailed properly makes the 

 Itest joint yet made. It takes less lumber, 

 is more quickly and cheaply made and will 

 last longer in exposure than any complica- 

 ted joint, whether lock-cornered, halved or 

 mitered. 1 now have hives made with simple 

 square nailed corners that have been in use 

 tweuty-tive years, and they show no defect 

 in this respect. What more can we ask than 

 this ■/ 



In regard to the size of brood chambers I 

 will say, from much experience, that to get 

 the most white honey, either comb or ex- 

 tracted, esjieciulli/ comb, we must have a hive 

 that can be reduced to not more than SOD 

 inches of comb surface to hive new swarms 

 in, and the double brood cliamber is the 

 most practical way I have ever tried to ac- 

 comi)lish that end. At swarming time and 

 through clover and basswood I want a small 

 hive ; at the end of the white honey harvest 

 and during the rest of the year 1 want a 

 large hive and the sectional brood chamber 

 is the quickest and most practical way 1 

 ever tried to make this change. 



Now, friends, 1 know you may have just 

 cause to conclude that a person that has been 

 flitting about from one kind of a hive to an- 

 other -is one of those impractical, good-for- 

 nothings who could not raise honey or any 

 thing else except lots of noise and gas. In 

 reply to this reasonable charge 1 will say, 

 that in 188r> I made a contract with a firm in 

 St. Paul that I should increase my honey 

 crop all I could and they would push their 

 honey trade and buy all the comb honey I 

 could produce. That year they paid me 

 $4r)() for honey : the next year $800 ; the 

 third year $1,200. and the fourth year I had 

 2('),(XX) pounds for them, when they begged 

 off and 1 released them from the agreement, 

 and easily sold the entire crop to other par- 

 ties for cash. 



Before I close this article I must again 

 caution needy bee-keepers to spend no mon 

 ey for cases for spring protection. We have 

 given this method an extended and careful 

 trial for three seasons and, as the readers of 

 the Review know, decided it did not pay. 

 This was putting it mildly for I really had 

 reason to say that it did hanti, and I see 

 that experimenter \i. L. Taylor makes the 

 same report. I now have nearly a hundred 

 nicely finished packing cases occupying 

 much room that 1 regard as of no value as 

 bee supplies. 



I have not written this article in any spirit 

 of hostility to any manufacturer of supplies. 

 All of them, so far as I know, make goods 

 of more or less merit and each beliei-es his 

 goods to be the tiest, but many of them are 

 not really practical honey producers : they 

 have never fairly tested their hives in com 

 parison with other makes and do not really 

 know the faulLt of their goods. It is just as 

 easy to make good as bad hives, provided 



