210 



(CLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



for the best of my dark comb, and was told to 

 bring all 1 possibly could take from the bees, at 

 that price. When I appeared on the scene again, 

 somebody had just brought in a very fancy arti- 

 cle of white comb honey and offered it at 10 cts. 

 per comb, and I could not expect the retailers to 

 pay me any thing like 13 for my much darker 

 honey any longer. 



Had the o;her party known the 

 condition of the honey market he 

 could have asked from 15 to 17 

 cts. for his grade of honey and could 

 have sold lots of it at that piice. 

 Later in the season a bee-keeping 

 farmer of my locality traded some 

 honey for 8 cents (took its value in 

 groceries), where I had obtained 10 

 cents in cash for a similar grade of 

 honey, varying only in so far as mine 

 was clean of propolis and dirt, and 

 the other man's was not. 



And, again, as I accosted the buy- 

 er of a grocery firm which has han- 

 dled my honey on and off during a 

 good many years, he said, " I am 

 sorry, but your price is too high," 

 showing me the price list of a city 

 jobber, a firm which quoted: "Ne- 

 vada comb, water-white, 12^; ditto, 

 light amber, 8;" whereas I had asked 

 10 cts. for the best of my dark comb. 



Thus I find the lack of co-opera- 

 ation among the producers of nature's 

 noblest article of food apparent on 

 every hand. When will the bee- 

 keepers wake up and attend to the 

 quoting of the markets themselves, 

 instead of letting somebody else make 

 the prices for them.? 



I regard it as highly desirable that 

 we pay some attention to questions 

 of this kind before we break our 

 necks in trying to obtain larger crops from year 

 to year, while honey, our product, is going a 

 begging the country over. 



Stockton, California, Feb. 11. 



behind the hooks, and the frames are securely lock- 

 ed for reversing. The bottom-board needs no de- 

 scription except that it is on hinges at the back, 

 and the front can be moved up and down to give 

 any desired depth of entrance, and held in place 

 by button and thumb-screw in front of the board. 

 Buffalo, N. Y. 



^///////////-:;/ 



■-yz'''////// '/// ///// /// ////M 



A NEW REVERSIBLE HIVE. 



BY CHAS. HURST. 



The illustration shows my reversible hive, to 

 be used in connection with a comb-honey super. 

 I think this hive is the easiest manipulated rever- 

 sible hive now made, as the reversing can be done 

 by lifting off the cover and reversing the body, 

 frames and all, with one operation; and it is not 

 necessary to reverse the hive back again in order 

 to take out the frames. The reversing is done 

 without disturbing any of the inside fixtures, and 

 all is done so quickly that the bees hardly know 

 it. I believe that a larger crop of honey can be 

 secured by reversing at the right time. 



The frames have two pins at a certain distance 

 from top and bottom. In putting these frames 

 in the hive the pins at the bottom of the frame 

 rest on the holder D; then to lock the frames in 

 one end of the frame-holder, D fits under the an- 

 gle C; the hook A slips over the other end of the 

 frame holder D, and the piece of wood B slides 



'FRONT OF BOTTOM Bd. SLOTTFD BUTTON. 



hurst's reversible hive — PATENT APPLIED FOR. 



A, small metal hook; two in the two corners of hive on one side. C, metal 

 angle; two in each corner on opposite side. D, wood strips forming supports 

 for frames. 



[From 1882 on till 1885 the whole bee-keeping 

 world (on this side of the Atlantic at least) was 

 very much stirred up at the big possibilities that 

 might accrue from reversible frames or reversible 

 hives. All sorts of extravagant claims were made; 

 and while there are advantages in having & frame 

 reversible, there is but very little gained in hav- 

 ing the hive made so. The chief advantage in 

 reversing is to get the comb built clear down to 

 the bottom-bar. When it is reversed so that the 

 bottom-bar is up, the bees will fill in the gap by 

 building the comb up to what is now the top- 

 bar. After that it may be put back to normal 

 position. There is another incidental advantage 

 in that bees will sometimes, when the comb is 

 reversed, carry the honey out of what is now the 

 bottom, and deposit it in the supers; for it is 

 against bee nature to store honey next to the bot- 

 tom or entrance. We say so?netimes, for they 

 will not al-Tvays carry it up. The hive above 

 shown is similar in principle to the Danzenbaker 

 in that it employs a pin support, and to that ex- 

 tent wonld be an infringement of the Danzenba- 

 ker patents. Instead, however,;of using a double 

 set of pins the Danzenbaker hive uses a single 

 set. In another way the hive is like the re- 

 versible hive brought out by J. M. Shuck and 

 patented by him in 1885. But of late years we 

 have heard nothing of that hive nor of reversible 



