1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



541 



found this year that quite a lot of honey-dew 

 gathered has been almost pure honey-dew; 

 but the question has been, where honey-dew 

 is mixed in with other honey, how much, or 

 what proportion, could be sold as honey with- 

 out violating; the pure-food law? By careful 

 experimentmg it has been found that any 

 thing over twenty per cent crosses the dan- 

 ger-hne. If you hold up your frames before 

 putting them in the extractor, and find there 

 is not more than one-fifth of it dark, I think 

 it is safe, if you are a good judge, to sell this 

 without branding it "honey-dew." But when 

 bee-keepers are doubtful, as the conse- 

 quences are so great, it would be advisable 

 to send a sample to a chemist for his deter- 

 mination. 

 Philadelphia, Pa. 



CARPENTRY FOR BEE-KEEPERS. 



Hive-construction. 



BY F. DUNDAS TODD. 



Having decided to make some two dozen 

 hives of the divisible type, my next step was 

 to learn their dimensions. I had models in 

 plenty in my collection — twelve bodies in all, 

 ranging from Gallups of about one foot cube, 

 inside measurements, to Jumbos, but so 

 varied in size and style that it was practical- 

 ly impossible to combine any two of them. 

 Some were butt-jointed, some checked, some 

 mitered. To make the variety more com- 

 plete, a few were flat-edged like all modern 

 hives; some were rebated, while others had 

 the beveled edge of the Simplicity hive. 

 Careful examination indicated that not one 

 was of Langstroth standard dimensions, but 

 at the same time I did not know for a cer- 

 tainty what the standard dimensions were. 

 For several days I searched my books from 

 end to end; but it is simply amazing how in- 

 different the average writer is to such de- 

 tails, yet they are exceedingly essential. 

 Here is where Dr. Miller shines like a bril- 

 liant sun among a host of twinkling stars, for 

 he is exceedingly methodical in giving speci- 

 fications of every bit of apparatus he de- 

 scribes. Deprived of his "Forty Years 

 among the Bees " I feel I would at this stage 

 have been helpless; for whether I was study- 

 ing at my desk or working at the bench his 

 volume was in constant use. 



At the end of the notebook are two exceed- 

 ingly valuable pages that I should hate to 

 lose, for in them is a record of the dimen- 

 sions and specifications of every thing that 

 goes to the making of a hive such as I want. 

 From these two pages I will draw liberally 

 as these articles develop. 



The most important measurements to know 

 about a hive-body are the inside dimensions, 

 for these are constant; the outside measure- 

 ments will depend upon the thickness of the 

 lumber availaole. Root's hives are made of 

 j^s-inch lumber; but in this part of the world 

 '^i is the standard thickness. So, inside 

 measurements being known, one can easily 



make the necessary calculations for the lum- 

 ber-bill. 



The standard Langstroth hive, eight-frame 

 size, is 18,'4' inches long inside, and 12 V^ 

 inches wide; the ten-frame size has an inside 

 width of 14X inches. When made of /s-inch 

 lumber the outside dimensions are 13J^ by 

 20 inches for the eight-frame size, and 16 by 

 20 for the ten-frame. In my case, using ^4 - 

 inch wood a hive will be \^U inches long, 

 while the width will be 13>^ inches for 8 

 frames, and \bU for 10 frames. 



But before we order our bill of lumber it 

 is necessary to learn the size of the rabbet 

 we must have on the end pieces, for we are 

 to use hanging frames. Now, the top-bar of 

 a Root frame is 18^4 inches long; that is, they 

 are half an inch longer than the inside length 

 of the hive; and, besides, we must allow ex- 

 tra space for ease in manipulation — at least 

 ^4 of an inch in all. If we divide this ^ inch 

 equally between both ends of the hive (and 

 we must), then the rabbet on each piece 

 will be }i inch wide. This is what I use on 

 34 -in. wood; but Root uses {t, on the ^-inch 

 lumber, and I think it is better. 



How many of my readers could, offhand, 

 tell the exact location of the bee-space, 

 whether at top or bottom, in a Root hive? I 

 could not; but I simply had to know, for I in- 

 tended to use Root's goods, and I was quite 

 befogged until I remembered that, in my 

 furniture pile in the barn, there lay a Dan- 

 zenbaker hive. Examination showed the 

 bee-space to be above the frames. But it is 

 not always there, for in the hives in my col- 

 lection it is sometimes at the bottom, and in 

 bee literature I find diagrams showing both 

 ways. 



Now, the depth of the rabbet depends 

 partly on the location of the space and part- 

 ly on the thickness of the end of the top-bar. 

 The Root shallow frame for the divisible 

 hive has a top-bar y% inch thick, but the lugs 

 are thinned down to xV- Allowing }i inch 

 for a bee-space at the top, the total depth of 

 the rabbet will be, therefore, fV, which is 

 that adopted in the Root hive. Now, as the 

 depth of the divisible hive in Root's catalog 

 is given as 5?^ inches, and the frames are 

 5Vs inches, we see that the bottom of the 

 frames will be flush with the bottom of the 

 hives. I made my first hives L?s inches 

 deep, and found them a perfect nuisance; so 

 I increased to b'A. Then came along a con- 

 signment from Root, and I found they also 

 were bYa, so the catalog is at fault. 

 Since we are in possession of exact data of 

 hive-construction, we 

 are now in position to 

 make out a bill of spe- 

 cif icationsf or the lum- 

 ber-mill. In my first 

 effort I was content 

 to use ordinary butt 

 joints, thus. Fig. 1. 

 Here are the specifications for one eight- 

 frame divisible body. 



Two pieces |4X5^Xl9^4'; 

 HXbysXlZyi, 



Fig I 



Fig: 



