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THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



have the honesty anil steadiness to work 

 and wait to grow in an honest and safe 

 way, t])ey liave nothing to fear. Consum- 

 ers will multiply and tlie market will keep 

 pace with increase of piodnction. The 

 effort now being made to inirodiice honey 

 in every corner of the land will save the 

 bee business and make the prospects 

 bright for years to come. Honey should 

 be brought to the tables of all the people. 

 It is not so important how it is done 

 if it is done effectively. Some beekeep- 

 ers object to "giving away" s unples of 

 honey. I suppose it hurts them to do it 

 on account of the loss they appear to sus- 

 tain at the moment they part with a small 

 sample of their honey. But the practice 

 of distril)iiting san)ples or gifts of honey 

 has been a paying business with me, be- 

 cause it has been the cheapest and most 

 effective method of advertising, not honey 

 simply and generally, but it advertises and 

 brings buyers for mil honey. Many people 

 never taste honey because it is not brcnjght 

 to their immediate attention, and many 

 such people discover that they have a 

 very keen relish for honey when they have 

 had the opportunity to partake of it. It 

 is such people that make the best of cus- 

 tomers. 



Our country is in danger on account of 

 monopoly and all sorts of trusts and 

 schemes to make the strong stronger, and 

 enable them to grow rich by crushing the 

 masses under their feet. The tendency of 

 the times is towaids a "strong govern- 

 ment," because it makes safe the hoarded 

 wealth of tiie few, gotten by the use of 

 the thumb-screw and the rack, in the form 

 of monopolies, trusts and every species 

 of ileviltry. Beekeepers belong to the 

 masses that are being preyed upon as ma- 

 terial out of which greedy monopolists 

 forge their fabulous fortunes, and it is sim- 

 ply gas and thin wind, to talk about bee- 

 keepers forming combinations to force 

 their products. A firm determination on 

 the part of the great masses whose cause 

 is One. Caitse, to throw asiile all "isms" 

 and all prejudices and return to honest 

 principles, is the only avenue opened to 

 escape from impending serfdom. I have 

 written nothing in the l>ee journals hith- 

 erto on this subject l>ecanse 1 had little 

 hope — precious little hope — that the 

 masses of our people will ever act wisely. 

 They are too mucli divided and full of 

 "isms" to be of any force collectively. 



The tiering up system, its proper place, etc. 

 I am one of the pioneers in the origin 

 and development of the tiering-up system. 

 Years ago when I used the large boxes on 

 my old styled Langstroth hives I saw the 

 advantages to be derived from tlie tiering- 



up plan. I saw that the bees would fill 

 the boxes three-fourths full in less time 

 than they would waste in completing the 

 remaining one-fourth. This led me to the 

 tiering system. 1 cut slots in both bottoms 

 and tops of the boxes so that they would 

 duplicate each other and could be raised 

 in tiers to any height necessary to accom- 

 modate the size of the working force in the 

 hive. This arrangement nearly doubled 

 my surplus yield, and improved the qual- 

 ity of my honey. In later years 1 applied 

 the tiering system by means of my shal- 

 low surpUis-comb-cases to take honey 

 with the machine, and to t;U\e comb 

 honey with n)y improved section case sys- 

 tem. The tiering system in the production 

 and taking of surplus honey gives tlie very 

 best results in quantity and quality of sur- 

 plus honey. It can never be superseded 

 in principle. But the attempt to apply the 

 principle to the brooding department of 

 the hive, as has been proposed in the last 

 few years, will prove an entire failure. 1 

 was among the tjrst to apply the tiering 

 system to the brood-chamber, and there- 

 fore can speak from experience. Others, 

 however, experimented in that direction. 

 Mr. C. J. Kobinson, now deceased, de- 

 scribed the "one divisible, separable 

 brood-chamber hive," in an article pub- 

 lished in the "Beekeepers' Magazine" for 

 1882, p. 7. And doubtless others thought 

 of applying the tiering system to the 

 brood-nest. But it matters little as to a 

 question of pi ioriry, the plan being a fail- 

 ure when thus applied. 



I still have several colonies operating 

 in the shallow tiering cases or sectional 

 brood chamber hive. My cases are nicely 

 made and the tiering is well nigh perfect 

 in mechanical construction, anil yet the 

 bees persist in cramming bits of comb be- 

 tween the seeiional parts, and the cells 

 are not unfrecjuently filled with larva, 

 which is necessarily torn to shreds wlien 

 the sectional parts are separated. And at 

 swarming time the bees utilize the bee 

 space between the sectional parts to hang 

 queen cells in, and when the cells are 

 wanted for <ineeii-reariiig they tire most 

 likely to be torn or battered out of shape 

 when the sectional parts are separated. 

 The claim that the bees can be shaken out 

 of the shallow cases is mere theory; it is 

 a humbug, in fact. Only a part of the old 

 bees can be dislodged in that way: the 

 very young bees, the most uimiaiuiiieable 

 part of the colony, will be left behind. 

 To capture the (jiieen in such a hive is a 

 distigreeable and uncerlain undertaking. 

 It is said that she can be smoked out 

 and picked up from among the bees that 

 cluster outside to avoid the smoke. This 

 can sometimes be done, but oftener not. 



