THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



65 



strips of perforaled zinc, the zinc 

 being supported in saw kerfs in 

 the edges of the slates. The for- 

 mer has met with some favor but 

 has mai)}' objections, the worst be- 

 ing in ni}' opinion, that these plain 

 zinc boards are a hindrance to the 

 workers, esi)ecially in a strong 

 colony. The dilficiilty is not an 

 inability to pass through the per- 

 forations but in the time it takes to 

 get through. The zinc being 

 smooth and the perforations far 

 apart, the bees fni(l no foothold to 

 draw themselves up and through 

 the perforations readiU'. 



It seems to me if beekeepers are 

 to use these boards with profit they 

 must be constiucted in a way to 

 overcome all hindrances to the 

 workers in passing through them. 

 Fortunately, this can be success- 

 fully accomplished by the use of a 

 pro[)erly constructed wood and 

 zinc honey-board. As generally 

 constructed, even these are little, if 

 any, better than the plain zinc 

 boards, except that they are less 

 trouble for the beekeeper to use. 



In the first boards constructed, 

 I used strips of zinc having only 

 one row of perforations but finding 

 that such boards did not give 

 enough spaces for the bees to pass 

 freely, I began to use strips having 

 two and three rows of perforations. 

 They answered better but still 

 were not satisfactory. I noticed 

 that where the perforations in the 

 zinc came near the wood that the 

 bees were able to get a foothold 

 on the wood and so pass up 

 through the board as readil}' as if 

 it was not in their way. Acting 

 upon this hint, I constructed boards, 

 with narrow pieces of zinc {^ inch 

 wide) having two rows of perfor- 

 ations and let the zinc into the 

 wood, so the edge of the perfora- 

 tions came within -^ of an inch of 

 the wood. For an eight frame 

 hive I used eight slats and seven 

 of the strips having the two rows 



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of perforations. This gave about 

 300 perforations, through each one 

 of which three bees could easily 

 pass at once. The operation of 

 these boards was perfect and al- 

 together satisfactory. 



English beekeepers used tUe 

 zinc honey-boards before they were 

 used in this country, but the gen- 

 eral verdict was against them and 

 they were finally discarded as be- 

 ing a hindrance to the workers. 

 Now I venture that their boards 

 were not properl3^ constructed 

 as they never used a wood and 

 zinc honey-board. I do not re- 

 gard their tests as affecting in any 

 way the merits of perforated queen- 

 excluding zinc. 



Now as to the use of these 

 boards. First, they are indispens- 

 able whenever we contract the 

 brood-chamber in working for 

 comb honey. This procedure, al- 

 though it has often been carried 

 to extremes, is without doubt a 

 practical and profitable one. It is 

 not best to contract an average 

 colony to a space less than six 

 Langstroth brood frames or about 

 800 square inches of brood comb. 

 With a space equal to only four or 

 five L. frames, I find it impossible 

 to get comb honey without more 

 or less bee-bread in it and that 

 renders it unfit for market. 



The other use to which these 

 boards have been put is in pro- 

 ducing extracted honey. In sto- 

 ryfying brood-chambers the queen 

 can be confined to the lower one 

 and all extracting done from the 

 upper ones; when, if a queen-ex- 

 cluding honey-board is not used, 

 the queen often carries on her work 

 through two and three brood cham- 

 bers. As it seems to be generall}' 

 admitted that a first-class article 

 of extracted honey cannot be taken 

 from combs containing unsealed 

 brood, the value of queen-excluding 

 honey-boards becomes fully ap- 

 parent. 



