OCTOBER 1, 1913 



675 



river, but the bees stayed on board looking 

 for it, or the niggers — I don't know which. 

 The upshot was that we had to tie up there 

 for nearly a week until the bees quit bother- 

 ing before the niggers would venture on 

 board again to work the freight. No, thank 

 you; bees don't go on this boat again, even 

 if you paid double freight." 



It was useless to argue. 1 was obliged tq 

 sell the unshipped colonies at a loss. 



One colony, however, came through all 

 right. That, in the course of time, increas- 

 ed to some thirty ; but my new locality, 

 though affording more elbow-room, was 

 really a poor one for honey. 



Some three or four years ago, when feed- 

 ing back a lot of scraps in a super, 1 ob- 

 served, after a time, when every brood- 

 frame was doubtless filled, that the bees no 

 longer took the honey down, but, instead, 

 fastened the scraps to each other and to the 

 vessel in which I had placed them. This 

 gave me an idea. Instead of compelling' 

 the bees to build in the small sections, to- 

 ward which they seem to have a natural an- 

 tipathy, why not permit them to do the 

 principal work in the extracting-frames, 

 then cut it out in suitable plugs, or scjuares. 

 insert into the sections, and put them back 

 on surcharged hives to fasten upf 



With feverish haste I selected a few well- 

 filled extracting-frames, and, in a crude 

 way, cut out a number of plugs just the size 

 of my s-Jctions, slipped them in, and set the 

 sections over the same hive. Tlie following 

 day I took them off, and, lo and behold ! 

 they were all firmly fastened. It is true 

 that the job was not a neat one. Some had 

 toppled over, owing to the fact that the 

 lower cut had not been exactly at right 

 angles with the surface; others," for the 

 same reason, were fastened in rather crook- 

 ed ; but they were all nicely fastened. More- 

 over, wherever the sections had been smear- 

 ed with honey they were licked dry, and 

 not a speck of propolis was to be seen ; 

 they hadn't had time to daub them up. 



I figured that it would be cheaper to put 

 in full sheets of thin foundation in shallow 

 extracting-frames, just the size to yield 

 four sections; and that with special knives 

 rigged up in such a way as to cut out the 

 pkigs accurately with one stroke, slipping 

 in the plugs, putting on and taking off 

 would be preferable to putting fouiidation 

 into the sections separately and scraping 

 off the nasty propolis. Moreover, every sec- 

 tion would be filled — no half-filled sections, 

 some with merely a dab of honey. Last, 

 but not least, the well-kr.own preference 

 with which bees fill large frames to small 

 sections would insure a larger yield of sec- 

 tion honey; furthermore, swarming could 



be controlled, even as in the production of 

 extracted hone}^ 



The following winter I devised and con- 

 structed a machine consisting of a set of 

 five knives screwed four inches apart upon 

 a common pivot. These knives puncture 

 the comb just beneath the top-bar, when a 

 gentle pressure on a foot lever forces the 

 blades through the comb to the bottom-bar. 

 The comb is next slipped back off of the 

 knives before the foot releases the pedal. 

 This completes at one stroke the five verti- 

 cal cuts. The machine is made large enough 

 to hold a superful of combs, and to fit 

 snugly on a tin pan which catches all of 

 the honey drip. The horizontal cut is made 

 by a pair of knives mounted in one handle 

 four inches apart. For this purpose the 

 comb is laid upon an inclined plane, whence 

 the honey may flow into any vessel, and 

 where the sections may be slipped over the 

 plugs of comb after being slightly separat- 

 ed, allowing space foi- thickness of the sec- 

 tions. 



Being ready for business 1 impatiently 

 awaited the next honey-flow ; but the fol- 

 lowing year proved an absolute failure in 

 my locality. Then, very much like a grazing 

 horse that always thinks the grass in the 

 distance is better than that- near by, I mov- 

 ed again. This time T chose the northwest- 

 ern portion of Missouri, when, lo and be- 

 hold ! the drouth there the following year 

 (1911) was so severe that the bees had a 

 struggle to maintain themselves. Complete- 

 ly discouraged I turned my attention to 

 professional matters, and left my pets in 

 the care of inexperienced hands. The con- 

 sequence was that many of them went into 

 winter quarters with insufficient stores. 



With the following spring my interest 

 reawakened ; and hoping that I might try 

 my experiment on a larger scale I again 

 looked after my bees personally ; but, alas ! 

 over half had perished, and the remainder 

 were too weak to make a fair test. Any 

 way, the spring of 1912 was little better 

 in that locality than 1911. However, the 

 fall flow was some better, and I found it 

 jiossible to make the test. My first difficul- 

 ties were in finding but few of the extraet- 

 ing-combs, which I intended to cut into sec- 

 tions, as perfect as I desired. Owing to the 

 inexperienced help, many of those frames 

 (filled with full sheets of thin foundation) 

 had been on the hives too long during the 

 two failing springs preceding, consequently 

 some li;id been but partially built out, while 

 others had been gnawed and disfigured. 

 The imperfect combs did not prove to be as 

 much bother or loss as an e«|ual number of 

 imperfect sections would have been, for 

 they were all extracted, though the first ex- 



