THE AMERICAI^ APIGULTURIST. 



113 



NOTES FROM THE BAY 

 STATE APIARY. 



IlENKY Alley. 



PKKKOKATKD METAL. 



Perkokatkd zinc is coining into 

 such general use in the ai)iary I 

 think that a tlescription of the iliffer- 

 ent kinds nianiifactMred will interest 

 the readers of the Api. The first 

 year tliat I kept bees I saw tlie 

 need of some sort of a device for 

 destroying a large number of the 

 drones reared in the apiary. I at 

 once devised a trap that worked 

 very well and one that did the 

 work effectively, j^et it was not 

 such an arrangement as could be 

 applied to any style of hive in use, 

 and so I used it in my own apiarj' 

 and offered none for sale until per- 

 forated zinc was brought to my 

 notice. Then 1 saw at once that a 

 drone- and- queen trap and a thor- 

 oughly pracLicul one, too, could be 

 arranged that might be used at the 

 entrance of any style hive and I 

 soon devised one. 



The first perforated metal I ever 

 saw^ came from England, and is il- 

 lustrated in fig. 1. The cut repre- 

 sents the exact size of the perfo- 

 rations. 



wr 



Fig. 1. Neighbor's perforated metal. 



This metal was the best that 

 I ever used or saw until Dr. G. 

 L. Tinker sent me a specimen 

 of that manufactured by him on a 

 machine of his own construction. 



The second variety of perfo- 

 rated metal and illustrated in fig. 

 2, came from the factory of A. 



10 



I. Root, though it was not manu- 

 factured l)y him. The perforations 

 in this sample are a little too small 

 for the easy passage of a bee through 

 them. Had the perforations l)een 

 as large as those shown in tig. 1, 

 it would have been all that we 

 desired or needed, therefore this 

 metal had to be discarded. 



Fig. 2. Root's perforated zinc. 



Mr. Root now manufactures per- 

 forated metal similar to that shown 

 in fig. 1. It can be purchased of 

 him at a very low price and will do 

 very well for queen-excluding hon- 

 ey-boards, but the perforations are 

 not as perfect as they should be to 

 use in the drone-and-queen traps. 

 I see no reason why A. I. Root 

 cannot perfect a machine that will 

 do as nice work us Doctor Tinker's 

 will. 



The next perforated metal I 

 tested came from Chicago, and is 

 like that shown in fig. 1, and was 

 in every way as good as the im- 

 ported metal ; until, 1887, when the 

 great demand for such goods seemed 

 to make the manufacturers careless, 

 and on account of the imperfec- 

 tions of the perforations I had to 

 discard its use. 



Well, now we have the "Falco- 

 ner" brand of perforated metal 

 which is perfection, except in one 

 point. There are not as many 

 perforations, by two rows, as there 

 should be in a piece of metal two 

 inches wide by ten inches long. 

 Yet this metal is the best I can 

 find that can be purchased at a 

 reasonable price. The "Falcone." 

 metal is the same as described and 



