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293 



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Folding the One-Piccc Sections 

 Toefctiier. 



Wrttten lor the American Bee Jou/mdl 



QuEHY 705.— 1. How do you fold to- 

 gether one-piece sections^ 2. What speed 

 do you, or your helpers, make? — Indiana. 



1. With a hammer. — Mrs. L. Harrison. 

 I use nailed sections. — G. M. Doolitti.e. 



I use only four-piece sections. — R. L. 

 Tatlor. 



1. By hand. 2. I do not know. — J. M. 

 Hambaugu. 



We use only the 4piece, dovetailed, 

 whitewood sections. — C. H. Dibbern 



1. By hand. 2. "Lightning speed." — A. 

 B. Mason. 



1. I use a press. 2. I have never timed 

 it. — A. J. Cook. 



1. By dampening and carefully folding, 

 commencing at the end. 2. 1 could not say. 

 — Will M. Barnum. 



1. With a wooden mallet. 2. This work 

 is mostly done by boys; 3,000 would be a 

 good day's work, allowing 10 hours to the 

 day. — J. P. H. Brown. 



1. I use but few one-piece sections, 

 but the 4-piece. I have 2, and sometimes 

 3, boys at work putting up sections. 2. I 

 do not remember how many they put up 

 per hour. — H. D. Cutting. 



I use so few that I require no help, and 

 have no occasion to time myself as to 

 speed. I use the all-in-one-piece sections, 

 and put them together without the use of 

 a machine. — J. E. Pond. 



One of my boys has always done this 

 work. I do not know what speed he at- 

 tained. He is now away attending school, 

 hence I cannot ask him. — Eugene Secor. 



I do not use 1 -piece sections. Small boys 

 can put together from 400 to 500 4-piece 

 sections a day. It does not pay the bee- 

 keeper to put together sections, if he has 

 anything else to do; but it is just fun for 

 the boys.— G. L, Tinker. 



1. Without any machinery, simply push- 

 ing them together with the hands. 2. My 

 sou puts together 21 in a minute to show 

 off, and 16 a minute when doing a day's 

 work. It takes a strong grip, however, to 

 do this, and use no mallet. — C. C. Miller. 



1 . It is said that a mother-bear, teaching 

 her son to walk, said: "The way to walk 

 is to walk." I put them together in the 

 only obvious way. To prevent them from 

 breaking, I pour boiling water on the out- 

 side, opposite the grooves. 2. I hav3 not 

 used a gi-eat many, and do not know how 

 many I could put together in a minute. I 

 can nail 4-piece sections more rapidly than 

 I can put the 1-piece sections together, and 

 I prefer them. — M. Mahin. 



1 . My method is as follows : A sponge is 

 used to moisten the wood ; the sponge is 

 then drawn across the back of the V-cuts ; 

 as this is done, the pieces are stacked up in 

 front of the operator. When putting to- 

 gether, the piece is laid Hat on a solid 

 dressed surface, with the broad end toward 

 the operator. The folding is done from the 

 end pointing toward him. When the dove- 

 tailed ends are brought in position, a blow 

 or two of the hammer finishes the job. If 

 not too dry, the sections will fold without 

 the sponging, but the box is much stronger 

 if the sponge is used. 2. I do not time my- 

 self. A man, or woman either, will live 



longer by keeping cool both in body and 

 mind. Do not time yourself— just work 

 steadily on.— G. W. Demaree. 



Never use 1-piece sections. I would not 

 take them as a gift, of any manufacture. 

 They are made of basswood, the joints are 

 bad, liable to breakage, and, that is not the 

 worst of it, the openings between the sec- 

 tions should always go clear through from 

 side to side, and basswood is not fit to make 

 sections of, anyway, because it soils and 

 daubs with honey and stains so easily. 

 White poplar is the thing, and it does not 

 work at all on the 1-piece plan. It is not 

 the right kind of wood, but it is just the 

 right kind of wood for sections, every other 

 way. I pay 50 cents per thousand for 

 driving together, perfect and square, the 

 4-piece sections, dovetailed at all corners ; 

 and a small boy who is glad to earn 50 

 cents a day, will readily put a thousand 

 together every eight hours.— James Heddon 



Use a "press" made for that purpose. 

 The speed of doing it varies according to 

 the temperament and capacity of those 

 doing the work. — The Editor. 



INCREASE. 



Prevention of Sw^arming With- 

 out L.OSS to the Bee-Keeper. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



I have received the following letter 

 for reply, which fully explains itself : 



Dear Sir: — Last fall, at the meeting of 

 the Northwestern Bee-Keepers' Society in 

 Chicago, we had a short conversation. In 

 answer to my question in regard to your 

 experiments during last season, in caging 

 the queen for 10 days at the opening of the 

 swarming season, you told me that the 

 readers of bee-literature would get what 

 you knew on the subject, before spring. 

 Not hearing from you, I take the liberty of 

 writing to you in regard to the matter. 



The finding of some plan whereby in- 

 crease can be avoided without loss to the 

 bee-keeper, is a matter in which many are 

 interested. What do you think of giving 

 each colony a hatching queen-cell at the 

 removal of the old queen? By thus doing, 

 a colony has a new laying queen in about 

 10 days, but is queenless for not so long a 

 time. With hives on scales, and otherwise, 

 my experiments in this matter point quite 

 conclusively to the fact, that a colony of 

 bees, queenless or with a caged queen, but 

 having eggs and brood left them whereby 

 another mother can be reared, do not 

 gather as much honey during the queenless 

 state, as before, or after; nor do I find 

 them doing as well with a virgin queen 

 present, as with a fertile one. How does 

 my decision agree with yours? 



The question in my mind has been, 

 " Does not the bee keeper lose more dollars 

 in the form of ungathered honey, by pre- 

 venting increase, than he would expend in 

 purchasing new hives and allowing a mod- 

 erate increase?" 



Bees have wintered well in this locality. 

 A part of my colonies were put into the 

 cellar repository in October; the remainder 

 a month later, and all camo out in appar- 

 ently the same condition, with the prefer- 

 ence, if any, for early putting away. I like 

 the plan of wintering without the hive- 



bottoms. Your opini(m in regard to the 

 queen caging operation will lie most grate- 

 fullj' received. J. C. Wheeler. 



Piano, Ills., March 81, 1890. 



You say well, that " The finding of 

 some pl;in whereby increase nan be 

 avoided without loss to the b(!e-kee])er, 

 is a matter in which many arc inter- 

 ested." Years ago, the great ihsidera^ 

 turn with many was increase. Gradu- 

 ally the question arose, "How can we 

 profitably jirevent increase ?" and this 

 has changed in tlie minds of many to the 

 inquiry, "How can we profitably pre- 

 vent swarming ?" The two questions 

 are quite different, and to the last I 

 have as yet seen no satisfactory an- 

 swer, although it is more and more 

 coming to the front. 



My experiments in caging the queen 

 were really to prevent swarming, al- 

 though, of course, whatever prevents 

 swarming, prevents increase. Instead 

 of caging, I generally toolj away the 

 queen and put her in a nucleus, al- 

 though I do not know that it makes 

 any material difference, so far as the 

 old colony is concerned, whether the 

 queen is caged, or taken away. I took 

 the queen away before I thought the 

 colony had got ready to swarm, de- 

 stroying the queen-cells if any had 

 been started. Within 6 or 8 days all 

 sealed cells were again destroj'ed, and 

 again within 10 or 12 days from taking 

 the queen. This left it impossible for 

 these bees to swarm, providing all cells 

 were destroj^ed as I have stated. But 

 it is not an easy thing to make sure 

 that no cells are missed, and so many 

 were actuiilly missed in my case, that 

 I can hardly say I am satisfied with the 

 plan. Please remember, however, that 

 such men as Messrs. Hetherington and 

 Elwood are so well satisfied with the 

 plan, that they use it. and their success 

 outweighs mj' failure. 



Now you will want to know whether 

 the bees did as good work in tlie ab- 

 sence of the ([ueen ? Candidly, I do 

 not know. Mr. Elwood claims that he 

 finds the bees working with even more 

 than their wonted vigor after becoming 

 hopelessly queenless. I certainly know 

 that in some cases I have seen bees do 

 excellent work when they had neither 

 (jueen, brood, nor queen-cell in the 

 hive. Still, I have some lingering 

 doubts whether bees will, in the long 

 run, do just as good work if kept for a 

 time queenless, as they will when a 

 queen is present through the entire 

 season, and no desire arises to swarm. 

 But in this last consists the trouble — 

 they are pretty sure to want to swarm, 

 and this may be worse than being 

 queenless. 



Just how you would like your plan 

 of giving a hatching queen-cell on re- 

 moval of the old queen, you can only 

 tell by trying. Bees have such a way 



