THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



77 



though always unwieldy to handle 

 right in the middle of the honey 

 harvest. But certainly any plan 

 which requires the^giving to bees so 

 much room all at once, especially in 

 the early part of the secson is the 

 worst kind of misconception. 



In my opinion any S3'stem of pro- 

 ducing either comb or extracted 

 honey, which does not admit per- 

 fect control over the amount of 

 room to be given the bees at the 

 best judgment of the apiarist, will 

 never be satisfactory in a large 

 apiary. 



I found out years ago that I 

 could produce a larger quantity, 

 of better quality of extracted hon- 

 ey by using frames just half the 

 depth, and of the same length of 

 my brood frames, working tliem 

 in shallow cases similar to sec- 

 tion cases, and tiering them up as 

 fast as the bees require the room. 



These shallow frames need no 

 wire to support the foundation. 

 They never break down when ex- 

 tracting, and can be uncapped by 

 one long stroke of the knife. 

 With a full outfit of this kind, any 

 brisk apiarist can manage an apiary 

 of two hundred colonies run for ex- 

 tracted honey without any help ex- 

 cept when the extracting is done, 

 which maybe deferred till towards 

 the close of the season, and then 

 all under one job. If there is any 

 plan that will so completely' sup- 

 press all desire to swarm as this 

 method of s^'stematically giving 

 the bees all the room they can pos- 

 sibly utilize, just as fast as they 

 need it, and no faster, I have never 

 heard or read of it. I make the 



cases the size of the brood depart- 

 ment, and just deep enough to take 

 the shallow frames, allowing when 

 cutting the rabbets, the usual air 

 space of ^ of an inch. They are 

 made to sit with a square joint on 

 the brood department, and on each 

 other when tiering up. I use a 

 common bee quilt to cover the top 

 case, and over this the cover of the 

 hive. 



Sometimes the queen will visit 

 the cases and deposit eggs, and a 

 lot of brood will be reared. But 

 this trouble is less liable to occur 

 in the shallow cases, than when 

 full sized combs are used, for the 

 reason that the "tiering" of the 

 cases keeps up to manj^ changes 

 for her ladyship's nice ideas of pro- 

 priety. 



Christianshurg^ Ky. 



A GUIDE TO 



THE BEST METHODS OF 



BEEKEEPING. 



By J. L. Christ. 



{Continued from p. 13, Vol. II.) 



CHAPTER I. 



In every colony you will find 

 three kinds of bees ; the queen, 

 called by the ancients Weisel; the 

 common or worker-bees, which are 

 also called the neuters, but which 

 are this only by accidental condi- 

 tion ; and the drones (improperly 

 called the brood-beesi), but the 

 latter are not to be found therein 

 at all times. 



1 This is retHlerecl Brutbienen in tlie orig- 

 inal.— Ed.] 



