AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 56T 



the vast number of box-hives and gums w^hich were found standing at very many 

 of the farm-houses all over the country. To obviate the difficulty of getting bees 

 into the sections, Mr. Miner invented a box-hive having no permanent top-board, 

 but in its place slats were used, standing up edgewise, for the bees to build their 

 combs on, and when the sections, or what were then six-pound boxes, were put on, 

 they were put directly on these slats. When no surplus arrangement was on the 

 hives, a cloth was laid on these slats, or more properly over the top of the hive, as 

 brace-combs were built between the slats, and on top of this cloth a board of any 

 thickness was placed, while a cap or hood, deep enough inside to go over the boxes, 

 was used to cover the whole. It was with this Miner hive that I commenced my 

 bee-keeping career, purchasing bees in said hive to start with. 



When I commenced to use frame hives I thought of these slats in the Miner 

 hive, and so made my frames very much like those described by Mr. Hill on page 

 307 of the " Bee Journal" for Sept. 6th, which he found at an apiary that he was 

 sent to work in. After using such frames for a year or two I became disgusted with 

 them, as Mr. Hill did, on account of the sagging propensity of the top-bars to the 

 frames, and the general "mess " which always occurred in taking off the surplus 

 honey. I then began experimenting, and finally adopted a top-bar a plump inch 

 wide by iive-sixteenths of an inch thick for the Gallup frame, and for the Lang- 

 stroth frame, a top-bar one and one-sixteenth inches wide by seven-sixteenths thick, 

 that being the size which gave me the best results, all things considered. I would 

 have preferred the thinner, but when I came to use them so, the top-bars would sag 

 when the bees filled the frames solid full of honey, and if made narrower the bees 

 insisted in covering the tops of them with comb, and in times of a great honey-flow, 

 filling this comb with honey, so I was driven to the adoption of the above. I have 

 always used a bee-space of five-sixteenths of an inch at the ends and tops of the 

 frames, with seven-sixteenths bee-space at the bottoms of the frames. 



With such frames and bee-spaces it is a rare thing that any honey is ever stored 

 between the sections and tops of frames, while not to exceed from five to fifteen 

 brace or burr combs are found jutting up above the tops of the frames, and these 

 brace-combs are always left, as I told in my former article. I still consider these 

 few bits of comb as great helps, nearly as much so as I consider the "bait" sections 

 which I use on every hive to start the bees into the sections early in the season, as 

 I have so often given in the different bee-papers. Wherever bits of comb are, there 

 bees are at home on them, and are climbing over them, inspecting them, etc., when 

 they would not be there at all otherwise, unless crowded there by on over-populous 

 hive, and this is why I called these bits of combs " little ladders." 



After having decided on the above frames, certain supply dealers began advo- 

 cating a top-bar made from % lumber, and from X to % inch thick for top-bars for 

 the Langstroth frames, the claim being put forth, that by using such, the sections 

 would be so near the brood that the bees would enter the sections without hesita- 

 tion, and better results in honey be obtained. Henry Alley, myself, and others, 

 expostulated, but the thing was pushed to such an extent that those ordering frames 

 different from these, were told that unless they fell into line with those using the 

 regular goods they must expect long delays in having their orders filled, as the 

 machinery was kept busy nearly all the while turning out this regular line; and 

 next, all were cited to these " regular goods " being the standard and pleasing, as 

 they had orders for them by the carload from all over the country, till the majority 

 of frames in use were of that " regulation size." 



Thus things went on till thousands, if not millions, of these narrow, thin, top- 

 bar frames were in use, and when it was found that they sagged, tin bars were put 

 in the center for a support when wiring them for the use of comb foundation. Thus 



