

aeOROE W. YORK, Editor. 





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40th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL, MARCH 29. 1900, 



No, 13. 



A New Bee-Cellar— How to Construct a First- 

 Class Winter Repository. 



BY T. F. BINGHAM. 



THE view of the roof covering my practically air-tight 

 bee-cellar is well illustrated by the cut. It is 20 feet 

 wide and 20 feet long, and, as shown in sectional view, 

 very steep, affording a large room for work above the cellar. 

 But, what is of more value to the bees, the room is dark. It 

 is into this room that the cellar is ventilated, or from it the 

 bees receive the air they use without taking it from the un- 

 warmed air outside. [See sectional view on nest page. — Ed.] 

 The sectional view shows the ventilator as passing up 

 thru the roof in the middle of the floor. This is correct, all 

 ■but in that the ventilating-tube, which is a three-inch tin 

 conductor reaching from the bottom of the cellar two feet 

 above the floor over the bees, does not directly reach the 

 outside. 



The value of this modifying room will be better under- 

 stood by the fact that it is in reality a part of the cellar, 

 and not merely a roof. The cellar is in all respects a cis- 

 tern. It is 16x16 feet on the level of the ground, and 12x12 

 feet at the bottom. The sills are 2x-12 inches, and 18 feet 

 long, and lie flat in the cement of which the 

 sides and bottom of the cellar are composed. 

 The roof, as you will note, extends below the 

 level of the ground, and discharges its water 

 into board conductors leading to lower ground. 



The floor above the cellar is 2 inches thick, 

 composed of dry inch boards. Three inches of 

 dry pine sawdust covers this floor. Every cor- 

 ner and crack thru which air could circulate is 

 closed with Portland cement. Three trap-doors 

 are of the same thickness as the floor, and an 

 easy stairway leads to the cellar. The hives 

 are in rows on all sides, three high, directly 

 over each other, leaving an open square in the 

 middle of the room. 



The square hives stand on their regular 

 bottom-boards, and have a back and front en- 

 trance 11 inches by %, with no possible upward 

 ventilation or communication. The roof is made 

 of tamarack (larch-tree) boards, one foot wide, 

 and battened with the same kind of lumber i> 

 inches wide, and covered with coal tar. 



The cost every one will want to know. It 

 was from $50 to $55. It now holds 90 colonies 

 and would hold 90 more if necessary. 



The ventilating-tube reaching to the bot- 

 tom of the cellar proved to be a failure. While 



it supplied cold air, and kept the temperature all right, it 

 failed to dilute the carbonic gas, and has been taken out. 

 Only the three-inch hole in the upper floor has been used 

 for the last month, and seems all right. The estreme_ vari- 

 ation in the cellar has been 4 degrees, being below 50 all 

 the time, but no time as low as 45 degrees. 



Feb. 14.— Bees O. K., 47 degrees. Out-doors, about 6 

 degrees. Death-rate about 2 pounds of dead per month, for 

 the 90 colonies. The last sweeping gave an increase of '/z 

 pound. • They are swept out every twelfth day of the month, 

 and the dead weighed. They were put in the cellar Nov. 12. 



Clare Co., Mich. 



[As I have said elsewhere in this issue, I believe it is 

 to be one of the cheapest and best repositories ever devised. 

 The scheme of having a gable roof and a good, thick frost- 

 proof floor over the cellar, the latter below ground-level, is 

 most excellent. The objection to the cellars of ordinary 

 dwellings is, that about two feet of the cellar is above 

 ground ; and in the two feet of wall there is liable to be one 

 or more windows thru which cold and light enter. By the 

 Bingham plan, the whole, or practically the whole, of the 

 repository is under ground. This thick frost-proof ceiling 

 or floor overhead, further protected by a gable roof, makes 

 almost an ideal protection. 



Incidentally it is interesting to note how little ventila- 

 tion, if the temperature is right, is required. I hardly need 

 say that Mr. Bingham, the inventor of the smoker, honey- 

 knife, and hive bearing his name, is a man of no ordinary 

 ability. He is a fine mechanic himself, and a practical 

 bee-keeper ; and whatever /w says is good, is good in my 

 estimation.— Editor.]— Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



//£. l\ C 



of Mr. T. F. Bingham, Clare Co., Micii. 



