1901 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



87 



of tho city of Providence, R. I. 



Next comes the economy part of " a 

 thin coat of paint each fall being 

 cheaper than a new hive every little 

 while." By turning to Falconer's cata- 

 lo.^ue for 1901, I find that an eight-frame 

 hive body costs twenty-eight cents and 

 a cover for the same twenty cents, that 

 making forty-eight cents for both. I 

 have unpainted hives in my yard that 

 have been in constant use for twenty 

 years, and from all appearances they 

 are good for twenty years more. But 

 not to carry it beyond the present, we 

 will say that forty-eight cents' worth of 

 unpainted hive is good for twenty 

 years. A gallon of paint is said to cover 

 two hundred square feet of surface with 

 two coats: but it rarely does it with me. 

 That gallon of paint costs anywhere 

 from !»1.()0 to S3. 00, according to quality, 

 ("all it .^l.SO. It takes about thirty 

 hives to give two hundred square feet 

 of surface, and that gives a cost for 

 paint of six cents for two coats or three 

 cents for one. per hive. So the cost of 

 paint alone for the first two coats and 

 one coat each fall for nineteen more 

 years, would amount to sixty-throe 

 cents. Then when I have hired hives 

 painted I had to pay fifteen cents an 

 hour for the labor, and the man painted 

 six hives an hour, or at the cost of 2}4 

 cents per hive. Twenty-one times that 

 equals fifty-two cents, and that added 

 to the sixty-three makes $1.1.5 as 

 as the cost of painting as against forty- 

 eight cents' worth of hive. Did Brother 

 Miller stop to figure when he gave us 

 that economy part '? 



Next, we come to the economy part as 

 regards ''stores and vital force of the 

 bees." which is tlie real point of the mat- 

 ter which is between us — or at least 

 should be. It was just at this point that 

 I broke away from painted hives. Witii 

 painted hives I found the combs all 

 covered with frost and ice in winter, 

 after a spell of zero weather ; often 

 reaching clear down to tlie cluster of 

 bees, while, with the unpainted hives. 



very little frost was found except at the 

 extreme corners of the hives. Then 

 when a thaw came, the frost and ice 

 would melt in the painted hives and run 

 down over the bees and combs, often 

 wetting them so that when a freeze came 

 suddenly on, the result was the death 

 of the colony, or the vital force of the 

 bees very greatly diminished, so that 

 when spring came I had mouldy 

 combs and spring dwindling to an ex- 

 tent which was very nearly ruinous ; 

 while the bees in the unpainted hives 

 came out with clean combs, bright bees 

 and strong colonies, and early spring re- 

 sults with cellar-wintered colonies were 

 little better. 



And Brother Miller would try to prove 

 me wrong by having me put on a rubber 

 coat over a dry over coat, under coat, 

 vest, shirt and an under shirt. And 

 light here is brought out that Brother 

 Miller has set up a " man of straw " and 

 proceeded to knock it down, by not care- 

 fully reading what Doolittle has written 

 during the past. If Brother Miller will 

 take off all of his clothing but his shirt, 

 drawers and socks, and then go out into 

 the rain, snow and zero weather with 

 his rubber coat on (yes, and he can leave 

 it open at the bottom so that he may 

 have plenty of bottom ventilation) I do 

 not think that he will plead any longer 

 for painted hives, the same being only 

 single walled, made of seven-eighths 

 inch lumber. In my past writings I have 

 made it plain that it was only single- 

 walled hives that I was opposed to paint- 

 ing, and have always advocated painting 

 chaff hives or those with double walls; 

 and this for two reasons : First, that 

 the chaff walls or dead air space would 

 allow the moisture from the bees to pass 

 oflf and out : and that, second, the chaff 

 hive being so much more costly, would 

 perhaps pay in the end for painting, on 

 account of its longer lasting. The last 

 part of Bro. Miller's article shows that 

 he uses only double-walled hives, and 

 thus has had no experience with such 

 hives as I have recommended left un- 



