384 



November, lftl4. 



American l^ee Journal 



Noel House Aiiarv Near Ehensburg. Pa.— Another of Strittmatter's "Yards.' 



little ahead : besides, the bees were 

 much nicer to handle, and we were more 

 independent of weather so far as our 

 work was concerned. This house api- 

 ary is lixi!8 feet, 2 stories, having 75 

 factory-made hives placed in same, and 

 costing about $400 besides the hives. 



In the latter part of the third season, 

 or 1912, we decided to get all our bees 

 into house apiaries as soon as we 

 could, and proceeded to build a com- 

 bined house apiary and garage at our 

 home place. We had this building 

 completed and the bees moved in about 

 the first of October. This building is 

 20x30 feet, and 3 stories; the lower 

 one being dug into the ground in a 

 sidehill and used for garage, while in 

 the upper two stories we have built in 

 86 hives. This building cost, complete, 

 including hives built in, about $000, 

 and we found we were able to make it 

 muc/i more conz>enicnt to handle the 

 bees in this one than by our own first 

 arrangement of using factory hives in- 

 side of the building. 



In 1913, we proceeded to build our 

 third house apiary, which is built after 

 the same general plan as the one at our 

 home yard, only it is but 2 stories, and 

 for bees only. This building is 12x24 

 feet, 2 stories, containing 62 hives built 

 in solid, and cost about $300. 



In all these house apiaries we have 

 ample room for supplies in the same 

 building, and we can have them very 

 much handier than by any othersystem 

 I ever saw, besides having everything 

 in the dry, and safe from thieves and 

 meddlesome boys, but one of the great- 

 est advantages is that I can work right 

 on in most any kind of weather in sea- 

 son, and there is practically no sting- 

 ing inside the building, even when no 

 honey is coming in. I seldom need 

 veil or smoker, and no amount of open- 

 ing hives and manipulating will tend to 

 cause robbing, as no bees from other 

 colonies know anything about the hives 

 being open, as no bees can get into the 

 building anywhere except through 

 their entrance direct to their hive, ex- 

 cept bees from such hives as are opened 

 by the operator. 



We have all hives which are built 

 into these buildings arranged with 

 about 4 inches of sawdust or other 

 packing material around the bees. Our 

 hives are all the regular lO-frame size, 



using the same frames we had in our 

 chaff hives, and we also use the same 

 supers which we used outside. By cut- 

 ting small corners out of all window 

 panes, any bees getting into the build- 

 ing from hives opened can get out very 

 readily, and by means of screens and 

 home-made bee-escapes on the outside, 

 we have made it so that they do not get 

 back into the building this way. 



The first house apiary which we 

 built is made of boards covered on 

 all sides with a good grade of valley 

 tin, and the hives on the inside are ar- 

 ranged in pairs with room between the 

 pairs to work. The front end of the 

 hive is placed up to the side of the 

 building with entrance cut out through. 

 But the latter two are built of studding 

 placed 24 inches from center to center, 

 and weather-boarded on the outside 

 after having two piles of good building 

 paper tacked on the studding. One ply, 

 the ply next to the weather-boarding, 

 is tar paper. 



The hives are built with one hive to 

 each space between the studding, and 

 as our supers measure about 20 inches, 

 outside measure, this allows about 4 

 inches in the clear between supers 

 when they are on the hives. We find 

 this is ample room for handling. 



Our first house apiary has proved 

 very satisfactory; in fact, more so than 

 we expected, but our later ones we like 

 very much better. As to cost, we con- 

 sider it as cheap or cheaper in the end 

 to build outside house apiaries, pro- 

 vided you can buy the ground reason- 

 able, as to keep bees outside in chafT 

 hives; and single-walled hives do not 

 prove satisfactory unless protected 

 liberally for winter in our locality. 



As the pictures show, we have an 

 alighting-board as well as a roof board 

 to protect the entrances and give the 

 bees better chance to fly into hives, 

 and the same are painted different col- 

 ors to help the bees to locate their re- 

 spective hives. In these house apia- 

 ries we invariably find the bees come 

 through the winter with hives dry and 

 free from mold in the spring, while we 

 have considerable trouble with our 

 hives outside. One important thing is 

 to make everything mouse proof, and 

 to have plenty of windows of ample 

 size so as to have good light. 



I might say that the main reason the 

 third house apiary cost us less than 

 the first one is that we learned how, 

 not only to make it betler.but we were 

 able to make much better time in the 

 work of building, and had a little bet- 

 ter help. We did not, however, hire 

 any carpenter at this building, but had 

 a good all-around handy man whom I 

 helped most of the time, and who was 

 more careful to do things as I told him 

 than any carpenter I ever hired. 



It will be noticed that in our latter 

 two house apiaries the hives are ar- 

 ranged with the side to the wall, 

 the entrance consequently on the side 

 of the hive, giving a much more con- 

 venient arrangement to handle the 

 bees. The hives being solid, if you 

 wished to hive a swarm by the return 

 plan, you could remove the frames to 

 another hive and place empty frames 

 in their stead and cover up, and you 

 accomplish the same thing as by mov- 

 ing the hive. However, we did not 

 have a swarm last season, whichjmakes 

 me think that the house apiary is a big 

 improvement in this line. 

 Kbensburg, Pa. 



The 



Economics of Beehive 

 Architecture 



BY J. E. HAND. 



THE interesting article on page 309, 

 by Mr. D. Barone, shows that he 

 does not understand my real posi- 

 tion concerning the hive question, for 

 I do not advocate extra large hives ex- 

 cept when the extra capacity is utilized 

 for the development of principles and 

 the solution of problems aside from 

 the office of honey production, hence 

 the same large hives that I formerly 

 depreciated, I still depreciate today, for 

 reasons herein explained. 



THE HYPOTHETICAL OTESTION. 



While certain principles of architec- 

 ture may render a hive superior to 

 others for section honey, yet in its 

 allotted sphere, aside from the points 

 of economy and utility just mentioned, 

 one hive is as good as another up to 

 the limit of expansion sufficient to 

 fully develop the fertility of the most 

 prolific queens. 



The hypothetical question is, " What 

 is the orthodox limit of expansion of 

 brood-chambers ?" A correct answer 

 to this question is extremly difficult 

 except by a correct hypothesis relative 

 lo the amount of old honey on hand, 

 the amount of new honey and pollen 

 stored in advance of needs, and the 

 amount of drone-comb. Since these 

 conditions differ with different colo- 

 nies and different seasons and loca- 

 tions, it is impossible to correctly esti- 

 mate the number of available breeding 

 cells a hive will contain without see- 

 ing it. 



In my location, in view of the con- 

 tingencies mentioned, and the extra 

 prolificness of some queens, a hive of 

 less than 14-frame capacity may repre- 

 sent a loss in bees, and a correspond- 

 ing loss in honey production from 

 lack of room to accommodate the 

 queens, and equally evident that room 

 in excess of that limit is out of place 



