THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



283 



dead bees another pulled the brood combs 

 from their fastening. Kach comb would, if 

 properly cut loose at tlio top, have a strip of 

 sealed honey along one edge which would be 

 an equal mixture of bee-bread and honey. 

 The balance of the comlj would be a mixture 

 of sealed and unsealed brood and unsealed 

 honey. The strips of sealed honey were cut 

 from each comb and stored in stone crocks 

 as " gilt edge " goods. The remainder was 

 put into a cloth bag and hung near the chim- 

 ney fire to drain. We pronounced the 

 gilt edged goods best, but the strained 

 " real good. " I believe much of the preju- 

 dice against extracted honey has its root in 

 the crude methods of those long ago years. 



What wonderful changes since then. 

 Hundreds and hundreds of patented hives 

 and other inventions which experience has 

 proved, in 95 cases in a 100, to be of no 

 practical value, and in many cases harmful. 

 However, in this indiscriminate seed-bed 

 many splendid new plants appeared. Mov- 

 able frames, the honey extractor and comb 

 foundation take first place. Indeed, with 

 the use of these three great inventions we 

 could get along quite well if all the rest had 

 never come to light ; yet there are other 

 things of great value, such as sections, smok- 

 ers, bee escapes, swarm catchers or hiving 

 boxes, queen excluders, uncapping knives 

 and many other indispensable conveniences. 



The movable comb hive no doubt ought 

 to stand first, for without it the extractor 

 would be useless, and comb foundation 

 would probably never have been invented 

 but from the fact that movable combs made 

 it necessary, yet for raising comb honey I 

 am not sure but that having to choose be- 

 tween movable combs and comb foundation 

 I would not stick to the latter. Of the 

 frame hive and extractor but little need be 

 said here, they being entirely familiar to all 

 bee-keepers that read bee papers. The 

 frame hive removed the necessity for the 

 crude and destructive methods (destructive 

 in destroying brood combs and brood) of 

 getting surplus, and the extractor changed 

 the nauseous compound mentioned in the 

 beginning of this article to the crystal 

 liquid seen upon our tables to day ; and, no 

 doubt, when in best condition the diamond 

 of sweets. Of comb foundation I can truly 

 say I believe it scarcely takes second place in 

 practical honey production. 



Much has been written of late as to the 

 proper size of brood chambers. I have 



successfully used small hives and have com- 

 mended them while others have argued for 

 large hives, saying that small hives increas- 

 ed the tendency to swarm and then caused 

 small undesirable swarms. Our small hives 

 always seemed to give as large swarms as 

 our neighbors' larger hives, and we began to 

 investigate the subject. Thirty-five years 

 ago we were greatly in need of drone traps. 

 Each afternoon in the honey season the 

 drones would fly from out the hives with a 

 noise like a great water-fall, and some 

 method of destroying them was needed. 

 We experimented in many ways of getting 

 rid of them, but without satisfactory results. 

 At length Mr. Doolittle told us to shave the 

 heads off the surplus drone brood as soon as 

 it was sealed. The bees would then clean 

 the combs. If they raised a second crop, 

 repeat the beheading. This was, of course, 

 better than feeding them all summer, and 

 we have killed thousands in that way. Now 

 you will never notice any drones about our 

 yard that change the music of the workers' 

 wings. If you are to notice drones at all 

 you will have to watch the hives closely. 

 All this has been brought about by the use of 

 foundation. All our brood combs are now 

 bnilt on full sheets of worker foundation in 

 horizontally wired frames, and by the aid of 

 our slatted top bars all sagging is prevented 

 and a scant 34 inch bee-space is always 

 maintained, hence no drone cells can be 

 stuck in extra corners, and we now have 

 fifty or more colonies that, all together, do 

 not have enough drone comb to fill a single 

 frame. We have this season examined many 

 ten-frame hives of Langstroth size where 

 the combs had been built just as the common 

 bee-keepers usually have them built, with 

 starters or half-sheets of foundation, an'd 

 we found our small handy hives contained 

 far more room for worker brood than the 

 larger hives as commonly used. Queen 

 breeders may need drone traps, but for 

 producing surplus honey I would not pay 

 express charges on a quantity of the best 

 traps yet invented. The honey producer 

 who is raising drones that need capturing 

 is not up to the first rank. Plenty of work- 

 er brood foundation is the best investment 

 he can make. I shall, next season, take 

 several of my Handy hives and use no frames, 

 only the top bars to these, and I will fasten 

 full sheets of fonndation to these, set the 

 hive on a level stand and let the bees work 

 them as a box hive. These swarms will be 



