50 



1HE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



great. You can figure out the profit 

 at your leisure. This is the maiu 

 consideration. No one denies that the 

 box hive has some advantages of its 

 own; but it does not lend itself to 

 rapid work in the production of first- 

 class honey. Or do you intend to 

 take the short cut, and carve out honey 

 with a cheese-knife fro:n the main 

 hive? Then on arrival in market, 

 and finding that neither love, logic 

 nor law can make any dealer in the 

 city even touch it with a pole — what 

 an excellent chance you'll have to 

 learn to be a generous man! 



There is another consideration 

 which sometimes weighs quite heavily. 

 Half our producers of honey find it to 

 their advantage to produce the ex- 

 tracted article; and with the box you 

 cannot do that. You might indeed 

 produce a sort of strained honey by 

 the native Cuban cut-and squeeze 

 method; but the brethren would be 

 getting after me with clubs and things 

 again if I advised you to do that. 

 And you , on your part, would find 

 you had forfeited the best feature of 

 the box hive (good wintering qualities) 

 by such an outlandish course. Fur- 

 thermore it requires more correct 

 judgment, and more intimate knowl- 

 edge of bees, to get along with box 

 hives and make them prosper than 

 frame hives require. But while you 

 stick to box hives you are never going 

 to get the inside knowledge of bees — 

 and I fear that's what ails you, children 

 dear. 



Richards, Ohio. 



In successful bee-keeping a vigorous 

 strain of bees is a prime necessity and a 

 watchful and thorough spring man- 

 agement is next in importance. 



An Experiment. 



BY T. K. MASSIE. 



Last month I promised to give my 

 experiments with two colonies the past 

 season, managed on a plan similar to 

 friend Demaree's plan of "Concentra- 

 tion of Forces," as given last month, 

 and in fulfillment of that promise, I 

 now proceed to do so. 



I took two average colonies in Dr. 

 Tinker's hive, (right here I want to 

 say that Dr. Tinker's Nonpariel hive 

 is a most excellent hive for this plan 

 of management) and placed one frame 

 with queen on it in the center of one 

 division of the brood chamber, and 

 filled out with empty frames contain- 

 ing large starters of medium heavy 

 foundation, and put on the queen 

 excluder. On the queen excluder I 

 placed the super of sections and on 

 the super I put the two divisions of 

 brood chamber, containing all the 

 brood, except the one frame below 

 the excluder that the queen was on. 

 This was on the 25th of June. At the 

 end of honey flow, July 25th, I re- 

 moved the sections and extracted all 

 the honey from the brood frames in 

 the two divisions of brood chamber 

 above the sections. I then set the 

 division below the excluder containing 

 the queen to one side and in its place 

 I set the two containing the empty 

 combs from which I had just extract- 

 ed the honey. I again took the frame 

 containing the queen and placed it in 

 the center of the upper division of 

 these two brood chambers, placing the 

 empty comb in place of the one remov- 

 ed with the queen. On the top of the 

 second brood chamber I placed the ex- 

 cluder and on it put the division con- 

 taining the brood, thus giving the 

 queen full liberty of two brood 



