THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



251 



in an apiary the whole of its life time. 

 If it is moved from one apiary to an- 

 other, or even if sent by express, it is 

 always attached to a solid bottom 

 board which holds it square. If a hive 

 isfthoroughly nailed with cement-coated 

 nails of good size, the heart side of the 

 lumber being- turned out, it will have 

 all needed strength without any lock- 

 joints, or even an^' halving of the cor- 

 ners. In my opinion, these dovetailed 

 corners will yet prove a serious objec- 

 tion. It is well known that where 

 timbers exposed to the weather cross 

 each other they are much more liable 

 to decay. For instance, in bridges 

 and sidewalks. In a plain square 

 joint at the corner of a bee hive, the 

 water can easily run down and out. 

 Not so with a dovetailed corner, as 

 half of the surfaces are horizontal, and 

 the grain of the wood crosses at right 

 angles. What I fear is that those 

 dovetailed corners will, in a few years, 

 begin to decay, because of their ten- 

 dency to absorb and retain moisture. 

 Of course, if they are kept well-painted 

 this will not occur, but the painting of 

 hives is often neglected. To my mind, 

 the making of hives with dovetailed 

 corners is worse than useless expense 

 — it will eventually prove a detriment. 

 Bro. Root speaks of the advantage of 

 being able to handle Hoffman frames 

 by the twos and threes. In fact, he 

 speaks of this point as being of more 

 importance than the self-spacing fea- 

 ture—at least, I get that idea from the 

 way he writes. I have seen a good 

 many Hoffman frames handled, handled 

 a few myself, and have handled a 

 arge number of Heddon frames which 

 allow of this manner of handling, and 

 I must confess that I have seldom seen 

 his manner of handling put into prac- 

 tice to any great extent. If we are 

 handling frames in the production of 

 extracted honey, they certainly must 

 ae handled singly. If we are looking 

 'or a queen the frames must be handled 

 singly. If we are looking for the 



queen, and have been setting the frames 

 over into another hive, we can replace 

 them, after finding the queen, by tak- 

 ing them in threes if our fingers are 

 long enough and strong enough to 

 stand the strain. 



I have never had any difficulty in 

 securing wide boards for covers, but it 

 is quite likely that the factories would 

 have difficulty in finding enough wide 

 lumber for this purpose at a reasonable 

 price, and it is probable that, whether 

 we prefer them or not, we will eventu- 

 ally be compelled to use covers made 

 of several pieces. 



This shot about the Heddon hive and 

 complication is a close one, and com- 

 pels me to reply by "telling tales out 

 of school," if such it might be called. 

 In the new addition of "Advanced Bee 

 Culture, now on the press, the Heddon 

 hive will not be placed at the head. In 

 the last few years, new features have 

 sprung up in Bee-keeping, notably 

 that of "shook-swarming, " and a hive 

 that might be desirable in one epoch, is 

 not so in another. When I found mv- 

 self drifting into bee-keeping again, I 

 noticed that I did not adopt the Heddon 

 hive. When I wrote the chapter on 

 hives, it was quite a wrench to change 

 it over, but I made it conform to my be- 

 lief and practice. 



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