1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



667 



^//9 



'■^C^ 



honey a day, getting 

 from that amount about 

 20 lbs. of wax. I have 

 been making these dif- 

 ferent melters all on the 

 same principle. The 

 last one works perfectly. 

 The construction is 

 shown in the drawing. 

 There is, first, a galvan- 

 ized-iron pan, 2 inches 

 deep, with a corrugated 

 bottom, the corruga- 

 tions running cross- 

 wise. This is 28 inches 

 long and 18 inches wide, 

 ancT tapers down to 6 

 inches at the end where 

 the honey and wax flow 

 out. At one corner, as 

 shown, the construction 

 permits of heating the 

 knives in the water of the tank below. 



The tank holding the water is one inch 

 deep at one end and '2 inch at the other end. 

 This makes a very small amount of water to 

 heat. Under the water-tank is soldered a 

 false bottom, forming the hot-air oven, which 

 confines practically all of the radiating heat 

 from the gasoline-burner. This false bottom 

 is shown on a small scale under the main 

 drawing. The large hole in the center allows 

 the heat to spread over the entire bottom of 

 the water-tank. The air-space is about U 

 inch, and there are braces to hold the water- 

 tank from sagging down on to the false bot- 

 tom. 



I find that one burner of a gasoline-stove, 

 turned as low as it will run, is sufficient to 

 take care of all the cappings which one can 

 remove in a day. I let the honey and wax 

 run off together, and after the wax hardens 

 I remove it. Later I put it through a press 

 and separate what little slumgum it contains. 



The water can be brought to a boil in about 

 twenty minutes. The only opening to the 

 water-tank is at the right-hand corner, where 

 the 4 X 4-inch space is left for the knives. 



Imperial, Cal. 



FORMING BABY NUCLEI. 



HOT WATER 



rREDUCeO PI AN OF UNDER 



2? SIDE SHOWING OpENING 



TO HOT AIR CHAMBER^ 



How the Trick is Accomplished at the 



North Yard; Some Other Tricks of the 



Trade in Queen-rearing. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



In our last issue we promised to give some 

 particulars of how Mr. Pritchard, of the 

 north yard, was enabled to rear nearly three 

 thousand (jueens with the help of a boy. 

 Some little time ago our staff artist went 

 down to this yard to take pictures showing 

 the various steps in the operation. These 

 we take pleasure in presenting at this time. 



The man in charge has approximately, in 

 the spring, between 70 and 80 full colonies 

 in double-walled chaff hives. In the latter 

 part of May or the first of June he begins 

 grafting cells in wooden cell cups. These 



are given to strong colonies brought to a 

 swarming-pitch artificially. This part we will 

 explain at a later time. When the cells are 

 nearly ready to hatch he starts forming nu- 

 clei in the twin mating-boxes, having frames 

 55^x8 inches in size; that is to say, three of 

 these will just fit inside of a Langstroth 

 frame with a thick top-bar. 



While it was our 

 original intention to 

 have these little 

 frames inserted in 

 the big ones to be 

 filled with brood and 

 honey in the regular 

 large standard hives, 

 in practice we did 

 not find this either 

 feasible or necessa- 

 ry, except to have 

 the foundation in the 

 frames drawn out 

 into combs. After 

 that we prefer to 

 let the baby nuclei 

 fill them with honey and brood. 



FORMING THE NUCLEI. 



We take a regular eight-frame hive-body 

 that has a wire-cloth screen bottom and a re- 

 movable wire-cloth screen top. We then go 

 to some one of the other yards and shake 

 into this box some ten or twelve pounds of 

 bees. These may come from four or five 

 colonies, but generally from a dozen or more 

 hives, so that we do not pull too heavily 

 upon a few. This box of bees is then taken 

 to the north yard, where the nuclei are to 

 be formed. Four of the twin baby hives are 

 first placed upon a little light stand, each 

 filled with empty combs ready to receive the 

 bees, entrances closed, and ventilators open. 

 The hive-body containing the shaken bees is 

 then placed conveniently near. They are 

 wet down by a spray, then given a jar so as 

 to get the bees down in a mass in the bot- 

 tom. With a little tin dipper we scoop up 

 approximately four ounces of bees, making 

 anywhere from a thousand to twelve hun- 

 dred individuals. As the bees have been 



