FEBRUARY 15, 1913 



121 



Jav Smith's " Perfect " feeder in the rear of the bottom board 



is a bee-space over the feeder so no bees are 

 crushed Avhen frames are handled. 



This feeder is always ready. I have fre- 

 quently fed 100 colonies in less than 15 

 minutes. The feeder holds one quart ; so if 

 it is desirable to feed for winter, feed them 

 twice a day for four or five days, and thev 

 will be " choke full." I have 100 fitted in 

 this way, and I see nothing lacking-; and so 

 I call it the " Perfect " feeder. The bees 

 keep it glued up water-tight, and they like 

 to cluster down among the cleats. 



Mr. Aspinwall certainly discovered an 

 important principle in making his hives full 

 of little cleats. I helped hive a swarm in one 

 of his hives, and I was impressed by the way 

 the bees took to the cleats, spreading among 

 them as naturally as though they themselves 

 had made it. In this same manner do they 

 cluster in my Perfect feeder when it is 

 empty. 



I do not believe beekeej^ers as a rule are 

 alive to the importance of stimulative feed- 

 ing. If you have good vigorous queens, 

 large hives, and if you give a little warm 

 syi'up each night for a month before the 

 honey-fiow you will get a crop where others 

 will not ; and, what is more, your bees will 

 go into winter quarters rich in stores where 

 others will starve. Enough em})hasis can 

 not be laid upon the fact tliat strong colo- 

 nies get the surplus where those not so 

 strong will starve. 



Some readers of Gleanings may remem- 

 ber that, several years ago, I wrote that the 

 common eight-frame hive is entirely too 

 small for a good queen. It was not uncom- 

 mon for a i^oor queen to get more honey 

 than a good one. The good queen filled the 

 brood-nest and swarmed, while the poorer 

 one did not swarm, thereby producing more 

 honey. 



For about six years I have used a Dan- 

 zenbaker hive and extracting-super for a 

 brood-nest (it is gratifying to me to see the 

 trend is toward a larger hive). This hive is 



good ; but there is val- 

 uable space lost in cold 

 weather, as the bees 

 must keep warm a top- 

 bar, a Ijottom-bar, a 

 bee-space, etc., right in 

 the cluster, while they 

 might better be raising 

 brood there, so I pre- 

 fer a one-story large 

 hive for extracted hon- 

 ey. The Jumbo hive is 

 none too large. Bees 

 will build up better in 

 the spring, as they 

 work better on a sin- 

 gle large comb than on 

 smaller ones. Doubtless many readers have 

 seen bees stick to one comb, filling it clear 

 out to the ends before jumping to the comb 

 above. There is a gi'eat loss of heat in this 

 way where divisible liives are used; as, in 

 order to preserve their )ieat to the fullest 

 extent, the bees should rear brood in a circle, 

 and this they will do only on large deep 

 brood-frames. Seldom indeed do you see a 

 man Avho has used large hives go to smaller 

 ones ; but it frequently works the other way. 

 If you are in a poor locality, use the 

 Jumbo hive or one as large; practice stim- 

 ulative feeding with the Perfect feeder, or 

 one similar, and you will get honey when 

 others lose their bees through starvation. 

 Vincennes, Ind. 



[If we understand our correspondent he 

 would call the Jumbo frame ideal if the 

 empty cells above the brood were filled with 

 syrup before the honey-flow to prevent the 

 bees from storing the first honey there in- 

 stead of in the supers. There is some dan- 

 ger of having a part of the sugar syrup 

 carried up into the supers if the feeding is 

 continued too late. 



The feeder described is similar in princi- 

 ple to the Cary-feeder bottom-board for- 

 merly sold by supply dealers, although, in 

 the latter, as is seen in the engraving repro- 

 duced herewith, grooves were cut in the rear 

 floor board to make room for the syrup. — 

 Ed.] 



