4T2 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



T tins in the supers ; the others I found in the same way had pattern slats, and, 

 besides, the first hive was not quite so wide as the others. 



I began to question the need and the economy of sending away for hives at all. 

 The dovetailing didn't seem altogether necessary, nor the grooved cleats, nor the %- 

 inch strips between hive and bottotn-board. These cleats might be made a little 

 heavier, without any grooves, and nailed to the underside of the bottom-board and 

 cover. The sides and ends of the hive-body might be made % inch wider, and have 

 an entrance cut in one end, and the hive could just as well stand on a smooth bot- 

 tom-board as on any intervening strips. Some long, slender wire nails with flat 

 heads would hold the corner together with sufficient firmness ; if not, some strips of 

 tin tacked around the corners would assist in holding them tight. I made some 

 hive-bodies, bottoms and covers on this plan, and I am so well pleased with them, 

 and the saving in cost, that my dovetailed hives will henceforth have to get along 

 without any "tails." 



Some of the winter leisure which hangs so heavy on the hands of some bee- 

 writers can be put in as above indicated. 



While I was working along with the dovetailed hive and its possible supplanter, 

 it occurred to me that possibly the bee-department in the agricultural papers was 

 not doing its whole duty ; so I bought a copy of Dadant's revision of Langstroth's 

 work on the honey-bee to -help it out. This work I read with all the eagerness and 

 interest of a boy who comes in possession of a Waverly novel. But I had not read 

 long until I discovered that the work I had been doing was wrong — all wrong, and 

 altogether wrong. The Dadant idea of bee-keeping seems to be big colonies of Ital- 

 ians in big hives, and extracted honey and— little work. They tell the beginner to 

 begin with these big hives, and assure him that he can produce twice as much of 

 extracted honey as he can of comb honey, and that it will sell for about two-thirds 

 the price of comb honey. 



Well, I thought I wanted some of these big hives, and the consequent easy time 

 in hot weather. But where could I get the hives ? Dadant did not ofifer any for 

 sale, and nobody else made any that I knew of, so with the description contained in 

 the book before me, I set to work to make one. I got along nicely until I had one 

 completed — almost — but then my comprehension failed and I had to send to Dadant 

 for a sample hive. Since then I have made several of them, and have the big colo- 

 nies in some. 



But about this time, when I had made up my mind to have more of these big 

 colonies in more of these big hives, and produce lots of extracted honey, and have a 

 good, easy time, the bee-papers began to get numerous about the house, and every 

 paper had something to say about adulteration. Its terrible spectre stood between 

 me and my vision of honey and happiness. I scanned the papers for the market 

 quotations for extracted honey, and they were not encouraging. I would go slow in 

 the matter of increasing the number of those big hives. The Dadants were luring 

 me to my ruin. I would resume the use of some of those little hives, and produce 

 some comb honey. I had only just got settled down to this idea when up sprung 

 that infernal discussion in the bee-papers about sugar-honey. Here 1 was up 

 another stump ! If every other fellow was going to set his bees to making honey 

 out of granulated sugar, what was a fellow to do who let his bees get their honey in 

 the old-fashioned way ? The sugar feeding might go on from early spring to early 

 winter, and perhaps the year round, while the nectar-gathering bees had only a few 

 weeks in which to labor ! What could they do against such competition ? Happily, 

 the handle of this discussion got so hot that the fellows who had the firmest grip of 



