138 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE 



I'ariial vi 



The losses were confined to the fruit dis- 

 tricts. As soon as I got two miles away 

 from any orchards no more losses were 

 found among' the apiaries, and good crojrs 

 and jilenty of increase was the rule. 



Boulder, Col. 



AN AMERICAN APIARY IN CUBA 



BY P. MERCONCHINI 



I take pleasure in sending a partial view 

 of my little beeyard, located about 300 

 yards from the last house in this city, and 

 near to the Cuba Railroad water-tank. 

 I am now running 50 colonies, as 1 have no 

 time to attend to more. The bees are all 

 Italians, of an American strain. 



In this vicinity there are about 2500 colo- 

 nies. My assistants are my two boys — Rod- 

 rigo, 11 years old, and Luis Maria, eight. 

 They are good assistants but better honey- 

 eaters. 



Manzanillo, Cuba. 



THE LATEST FORM OF THE FERGUSON 

 CAPPING MACHINE 



UN- 



A Light Model that Can be Pushed Down Over the 

 Top-bar while the Frame is Still in the Super 



1!V L. R. FERGUSON 



Since tlie appearance of the article, July. 

 1909, describing my uncapper, T have been 

 devoting most of my si>ai'e time to develop- 



ing a machine especially adapted to use wit!i 

 the Hoffman frame. As the character ol 

 the end-bars is such that the frames can nol 

 be pushed through tlie machine endwise, as 

 in the former machine, it occurred to mo 

 that there would be a decided advantage in 

 making the machine light enough to be 

 easily liandled and pushed down over the 

 frames as tiiey hang in the super, and then 

 leaving them in the super to drij), thus elim- 

 inating one handling. 



To obtain the best results, the capping 

 tank should be set low down and provided 

 with slides or rails so arranged that the su- 

 pers as taken from the hives can be put on 

 at one end, and easily slid along toward the 

 extractor at the other end after the combs 

 are uncapped. In this way the liandling 

 or moving of the combs is all done by th? 

 superful instead of singly, thus saving a 

 great deal of time. When the supers are 

 set on the slides the frame next to the op- 

 erator should be removed to give room for 

 the machine to enter the supers. These re- 

 moved frames should be put in another su- 

 per; and, when the right number have ac- 

 cumulated, put on the slides with the others. 



In the act of uncapping, the operator 

 grasps the handles of the machine and en- 

 ters the points of the end plates, one end at 

 a time, just inside the end-bars of the frame 

 as shown in Fig. 1; then he pushes the ma- 

 chine straight down over the frame, remov- 

 ing I lie cappings from !)otii sides of llie 



