48 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



Dewey's Peet Cage. 



Almost everyone is familiar with 

 the Peet cage and that there are sever- 

 al objections to it. Messrs. F. H. & 

 E. H. Dewey of Westfield, Mass. have 

 lately improved it so that the prin- 

 cipal objections are done away with. 



Below we give an illustration of 

 the cage as made by them. 



It will be seen that unlike the old 

 style it has a piece of wire gauze on 

 either side, so that the queen does not 

 come in direct contact with the tin 

 slide, which in cool weather would be 

 liable to chill her, and there are also 

 two \ in. holes through the end filled 

 with candy and also one through the 

 side, thus enabling a number of bees 

 to be at work at once liberating the 

 queen. When the candy is consumed 

 the queen emerges through one of the 

 holes. By using this cage the brood 

 comb is not mutilated, as the cage is 

 simply hung by one of the tin points 

 in the brood chamber between two 

 frames, so that, by spacing the frames 

 the bees will have access to both sides 

 of the cage. 



As a rule, I prefer to hive all swarms 

 on the old stand, removing the old col- 

 ony to a new stand, thereby throwing 

 all of the working force into the new 

 hive on the old stand, removing the sur- 

 plus department from the old hive to 

 the new. — Dootittle. 



A New Swarm Hiver. 



Below we give an illustration of a 

 new swarmer, the invention of Mr. N. 

 C. Petrie, of Cherry Valley, O, He has 

 recently obtained a patent on it. As 

 will be seen in the illustration, it con- 

 sists of a box, which is the trap, made 

 of wire cloth and wood, and two other 

 boxes or guides made of queen exclud- 

 ing zinc. The swarmer is used in the 

 position shown, with the perforated zinc 

 boxes, which are open on the bottom 

 and sides towards the hive, in front of 

 the hive entrance. 



It is, of course, understood that one 

 oP the hives is empty. The bees, which 

 are about to swarm, issue from the hive 

 entrance through the holes in the per- 

 forated zinc into the open air. But, the 

 queen is stopped, as the perforations are 

 too small to admit of her escape. She 

 then crawls along into the central box 

 through a wire gauze cone which will 

 not admit of her returning, thence 

 through another cone into the other 

 perforated zinc box, and then into the 

 empty hive, where the young swarm 

 will follow her. The central box is 

 made with wire gauze front, and also 

 has a trap door of perforated zinc on 

 top which will allow workers to escape 

 should they get in. If the cones are 

 arranged so that they point towards 

 each other an effectual queen and drone 

 trap will be formed. By the way, this 

 is very similar both in appearance and 

 construction to Alley's Swarm Hiver. 

 We do not know which claims priority 

 of invention. 



