THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



49 



Honey-boards. 



James Heddon. 



Friend Alley: — I see the Apictiltu- 

 EiST still continues to be a good pa- 

 per. Some way or other it is a live 

 l^aper; things in it that are wide awake 

 and directly relating to success. Of 

 all the articles m your issue of Feb. 

 1st, which seem to me to need con- 

 troverting, that is, something pre- 

 sented on the other side of the ques- 

 tion, is the one on honey-boards by 

 our old friend Dr. Tinker. I do not 

 care to write at any great length, but 

 I believe it would be well to get our- 

 selves squarely on record, and then 

 when the near future determines the 

 right from the wrong, it will be of 

 value to beekeepers to know who is 

 right and who is not. Will you allow 

 me to emphasize, as I understand it, 

 just what brother Tinker does claim. 



Fii-st, he says the break- joint prin- 

 ciple in honey-boards, has had its 

 day. I say that it is not fairly intro- 

 duced; that its wonderful advantages 

 are only just beginning to be learned 

 by practical honey j^roducers. I 

 contend as heretofore that the break- 

 joint princii^le has a tendency io keep 

 the queen below; nothing • certain a- 

 bout it, however, but so far as the pre- 

 vention of burr-combs is concerned, 

 it is just about an absolute prevent- 

 ive of their being built above the 

 honey-board and next the surplus re- 

 ceptacles. A year will soon roll 

 around, and I would ask your intel- 

 ligent readers to test it by pushing 

 the honey-board sidewise as far as it 

 can be made to go and not slip down 

 farther than the edge of the hive on 

 one side. The passage-ways will then 

 be continuous, that is the spaces be- 

 tween the slats of the honey- board 

 "Holl be made to come directjy over 

 the spaces between the brood-frames 

 below. Now, you will have a contin- 

 uous jjassage-way, not continuous 

 passage ways such as the doctor used 

 to strongly advocate and in this ar- 

 ticle seems to have returned to his 



first love, but a direct vertical i:)as- 

 sage way, one opening directly over 

 the other; nothing between but spaces 

 and plenty of burr-combs, for who- 

 ever makes this experiment, as we 

 have done one hundred times, will find 

 that there will be quite a number of 

 annoying burr-combs built between 

 the top surface of the honey-board 

 and the sections above. 



The Doctor's second statement is 

 that in his experience the break-joint 

 principle in honey-boards proves no 

 bar to the extension of biuT-combs 

 in any case. I wish you would put 

 this and the former declaration of the 

 Doctor's in italics. I want these 

 statements remembered. I think it 

 is well that beekeejjers should know 

 and remember from time to time what 

 kind of exi^eriments and statements 

 leading beekeepers are making. Re- 

 member that the Doctor says that 

 there are less burr-combs built (and I 

 suppose he means next to the sur- 

 plus receptacles for we care but lit- 

 tle about brace combs between the 

 bottom of the honey-board and the 

 top of the brood frames; it is to keep 

 them away from the supers, whether 

 for comb or extracted honey, that is 

 of vital importance as 3'ou and yoiu' 

 readers well know) where the passage 

 ways are continuous than where they 

 are broken by the break-joint princi- 

 ple. 



Isn't it strange that none of us 

 should ever have discovered this in- 

 terference with the perception of 

 light at the entronce of the hive by 

 the bees in the ujiper pai't of the hive? 

 When will the Doctor cease to spring- 

 new and unheard theories upon us? 



Why, bless his soul, there are very 

 many kinds of hives with entrances 

 in such a shape that the light hardly 

 enters the brood-chamber at all, and 

 I supposed that if any difference, 

 there was an advantage in keeping 

 everything dark. Bees want no light 

 to work by. It has been asserted by 

 the greatest experimenters of old, and 

 I supposed it was an admitted fact 



