278 



GIpaniriKS in Bee Culture 



Miles Morton, of New York State, a broth- 

 er-in-law of Mr. Niver, alluded to by our 

 correspondent. Full particulars in regard 

 to the construction, dimensions, etc., of 

 this swarm catcher, are given on page 173 

 of our Mar. 1st issue for 1899. — Ed.] 



THE ASPINWALL NON-SWARMING PRINCIPLE 

 APPLIED TO AN ORDINARY HIVE 



Not an Entire Success, but Enough so to Justify 

 Further Experimenting 



BY A. V. SMALL 



Dividers like those used in the Asplnwall hive 

 used in a double-story ten-frame hive, ordinary 

 construction. 



attempt to mention at length in this letter, 

 is his trolley-pole telescoping hiving-basket 

 for securing way-up-in-the-air swarms of 

 bees. The photograph will make the whole 

 idea clear. The basket fits into the upper 

 end of the pole, and by means of the win- 

 dow-cord the basket is soon "histed" right 

 under the swarm; and by means of a pole 

 with a hook at the upper end the bees are 

 jarred into the basket without any apparent 

 trouble whatever. The wire-cloth container 

 may be held near where the swarm has 

 alighted, or it may 

 be allowed to rest 

 against a tree nearby, 

 and all flying bees 

 of the swarm will soon 

 join their fellows in 

 the basket. Easy, 

 isn't it? Another 

 good feature about the 

 contrivance is that the 

 whole affair does not 

 have to be lugged 

 about the yard in one 

 piece. The basket be- 

 ing easily removed, it 

 is slipped from the 

 pole, and the bees car- 

 ried any distance, a 

 cloth cover having 

 first been pulled over 

 them. 

 Oakland, Cal. 



[If we are not mis- 

 taken, the original in- 

 ventor of this exten- 

 sion pole was the late 



In the last edition of the A B ( " and X Y 

 / of Bee Culture there is a description of 

 Mr. Aspinwall's non-swarming comb-honey 

 hive. One feature of its construction is a 

 movable side so that the brood chamber can 

 be expanded laterally, thus making room 

 for twice the usual number of brood frames. 

 Three or four weeks before the swarming 

 season, the sides are moved outward, and 

 the brood frames are set about l^s inches 

 apart. These spaces are filled with slatted 

 partitions, or dividers, of the same size and 

 shape as a brood frame. The slats are per- 

 pendicular, and are a bee space apart. This 

 makes a large airy brood chamber with 

 more than twice the ordinary clustering 

 space. Mr. Aspinwall states that he has 

 had no swarms from colonies kept in these 

 hives. 



Last summer I applied the Aspinwall 

 principle to an ordinary hive by making ten 

 slatted dividers the size and shape of a 

 brood frame. The last of April I set anoth- 

 er hive body on top of the brood chamber 

 and placed half of the brood frames in each 

 hive body, alternating them with the slatted 

 dividers. Now, the brood chamber is com- 

 posed of two sections — one above the other 

 — each section containing five brood combs 



Tlie right way to assemble the IbjHman frame. 



