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November, 1914. 



American Hee Journal 



der the cover was a grain sack. The 

 bees had worked passages through 

 them all, and plastered the remaining 

 fragments with propolis. The liive was 

 solid with honey and brood from top 

 lo bottom. 



Being in absolute ignorance of the 

 nature of such a contraption, I had to 

 feel my way along. Nowadays I would 

 be in such a conglomeration in less 

 than a minute, but at that time 1 did 

 not appreciate the tearing power of my 

 hive tool when properly applied to a 

 telescope cover sealed down with solid 

 honey. So I requisitioned a hatchet, a 

 a big knife, and attacked the struc- 

 ture. Once I got inside and viewed 

 the prospect I ordered utensils. After 

 two hours steady work I had put the 

 hive into workable shape, and found 

 I had replevened one super full of fine 

 ripened section honey, two big dish- 

 panfuls of chunk honey, and in addi- 

 tion had the farmers' children out of 

 reach of danger, held by the attraction 

 of a pailful of scraps, with which they 

 freely smeared their faces and hair as 

 they excitedly tucked into their little 

 stomachs the first honey that had ever 

 been produced in that apiary in the 20 

 years of its existence. 



I have a few photographs of this par- 

 ticular hive, and the various stages of 

 its demolition, but I dare not use them. 

 The beekeeper has now an apiary so 

 attractive that it has many visitors 

 yearly, but he threatens to kill me on 

 sight if I ever exhibit its past condi- 

 tion. The past is past, and he wants 

 to forget it. His example is having a 

 fine influence in the district, and the 78 

 boxes that stood for beekeeping in 

 that region a couple of years ago are 

 now nearly all replaced by modern 

 hives. For many years not a pound of 

 honey had been produced there, but in 

 one season it arose to nearly 500 

 pounds, so you see the beekeepers are 

 on their way. 



We do not like box hives in British 

 Columbia ; i n fact, our Foulbrood Act 

 forbids their use, so the inspectors are 

 bound in duty to get rid of them. We 

 find we do not heed to use the club; 

 all we have to do is to get some one in 

 a district to secure a crop of honey by 

 his own hands, and the spirit of rivalry 



comes into play. No man cares to 

 have to admit to his neighbors that he 

 is a second-rater, so he proceeds to do 

 as well as he can. 



A very amusing example came under 

 my notice this summer. A year ago in 

 a district with six beekeepers owning 

 56 colonies, 1 found not one pound of 

 honey had been produced for years. 

 The largest apiary had 36 colonies in 

 dreadful condition, and I urged the 

 owner to shape up things a little bit. 

 He answered yes in such a half-hearted 

 way that I knew he would not do any- 

 thing until he got stung by the spirit 

 of rivalry. He was the big man of his 

 locality, not doing very well, but no- 

 body was doing any better. I found a 

 beginner ready to be taught, so I gave 

 him a day, got him into shape, and 

 drew up a calendar for his region. 



Towards the end of this season's 

 honey flow I happend to see the sup- 

 posed big man on a suburban car, and 

 at once he started to tell me all that he 

 intended to do next year. I had to let 

 him finish, then I wanted to know 

 about the other men in his district. 

 Quite meekly he told me the beginner 

 had gotten -500 pounds from six hives, 

 and that most of the others had some- 

 thing. He was the only one without a 

 crop, and his dignity had received a 

 bad knock. I have earmarked him for 

 a day next year. I will probably go 50 

 miles just to get him on the tracks at 

 the moment he is anxious to do some- 

 thing. 



HIVE TINKERING. 



Now suppose I tell the kind of work 

 I will have to do to show this man 

 how to get his hives in good shape. 

 His bees are housed in a variety of 

 ways. He has several first-class mod- 

 ern hives with really good combs, but 

 he has just as many in which they are 

 built diagonally across the frames. 

 Then there are several Gallup hives 

 with non-spacing frames, many of 

 which have jumbled any old way, with 

 the combs built on similar lines. Also 

 he has a few soap boxes. He purposes 

 investing in modern 10-frame hives 

 and transferring from the odd lots. It 

 is my affair to start him right. 



Early in the season I will write him 



A Chinese Apiary in British Coi.um.iia. 

 [To view this properly liold it about one foot above the level of the'eyes.l 



to let me know when his supplies have 

 arrived, and as soon as I can I will be 

 with him. I will probably start by 

 making jigs for wiring frames and 

 fastening sheets of foundation, and 

 show him how to use them. 



The next move will be on the stand- 

 ard hives. Those with good frames 

 will be gone through, the presence of 

 unusual quantities of drone-comb in 

 the middle of the brood-nest will be 

 pointed out, and attention drawn to 

 the very evident fact that it is hinder- 

 ing the queen in her laying in the early 

 part of the season, for instead of the 

 brood-nest being in the form of a ball, 

 the queen has been laying backwards 

 and forwards along the combs, trving 

 to dodge the drone-cells, and too often 

 has been brought to a standstill in 

 working in a certain direction, inci- 

 dentally let me here remark it is some- 

 times astonishing how much drone- 

 comb one can find in some hives. In 

 one instance I found no less than 

 seven drone-combs out of a total of 

 eight. The colony died the first winter. 

 I diagnosed the case as a bad attack of 

 parthenogenesis. (Please, Mr. Editor, 

 put me down as the discoverer of this 

 affliction.) Wherever possible I get 

 rid at once of all combs in which drone- 

 cells predominate, but if heavy with 

 stores I work them to the side of the 

 hive and urge that they be removed as 

 soon as they are empty. 



Next I tackle the regular hives with 

 cross-built combs. I lift the first off 

 the stand, placing an empty body in its 

 place, and alongside of me I have a flat 

 cover or board handy. Ready to begin 

 operations, I force a long bladed knife 

 between the first and second combs, 

 cutting right along, then force out the 

 first comb and place it in the empty 

 hive. Next I cut between the second 

 and third, pry out the second comb, 

 shake the bees from it into the hive on 

 the stand, then lay it flat on the board. 

 I am going to true up the combs so as 

 to make them removable. As we look 

 on the comb we see that it is made up 

 of several parts that overlap each 

 other. To get rid of the overlaps I cut 

 through both with the knife, slashing 

 from top to bottom bar, throw the 

 trimmings into a scrap box, squeeze 

 the raw edges into line, then slip the 

 frame into the new hive. And so on 

 right through the rest of the combs. 

 In 48 hours the bees will probably have 

 made all repairs, and the beekeeper 

 has now a hive with removable frames. 

 Once I get info my gait I can fix up 

 four or fi^e such hives in an hour. 



Even in going through fairly good 

 hives I get a chance to demonstrate 

 how to true up twisted combs. You 

 simply run a knife or the edge of the 

 hive tool along the edge of the bar 

 where the connection is faulty, then 

 push the comb into place. In a very 

 bad case, such as a comb built entirely 

 on the side of the frame, it is better to 

 make two stunts of the job. On the 

 first day cut the connection between 

 top-bar and comb, and push the latter 

 into place. At next visit straighten 

 out the sides. When two combs are 

 attached to the same bar, dispose of 

 one entirely and remedy the other. A 

 bee inspector has a grand chance to 

 learn the tinkering trade if nothing 

 else. 



