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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



from the use of a shallow hive, ten inches high, 

 fourteen wide, and eighteen inches long iuside; 

 both sides opening with double aud treble wall, 

 with intermediate air- chambers, securing uni- 

 form temperature through the extremes of 

 weather. And, lo ! it is a patent hive, patented 

 by A. H. Hart, of Stockbridge, Wisconsin, in 

 1867, and known as the Excelsior Hive. If 

 any of our bee-keeping brothers or sisters 

 wishes to know more about the description and 

 working of this hive, send postage stamp to the 

 patentee and obtain his pamphlet and circular. 



The above-mentioned extensive breeding 

 leads me to conclude that the objections of 

 friend Dadant against the Langstrothor shallow 

 hive cannot be well founded, unless he can show 

 that the square hives have excelled in some par- 

 ticulars. Forty years' experience has not taught 

 me to believe that. As the brother says, on 

 page 91 of the November number, that the 

 habits of the queen are such that she always 

 commences in the centre of the comb, and con- 

 tinues her laying in regular circles; if she comes 

 in contact with the bottom or top of the frames 

 she is thrown out of employ, and that this losing 

 so much time constitutes his principal objection 

 to the shallow hive. It seems to me from the 

 view the brother has of the queen's habits, that 

 a cylindar hive lying horizontally and filled 

 with circular frames would come nearer his 

 idea of a good breeding hive than any other. 



I think there are quite a number of conditions 

 requisite in a hive of bees to have brooding go 

 on rapidly, which I shall not now enumerate. 

 Practical bee-men understand tliGm. One very 

 essential quality I consider is a hive that will 

 keep as near as possible a uniform temperature 

 during the breeding season. 



It hardly seems necessary for bee-men to dif- 

 fer about the exact height of a hive, as we have 

 good results from both high and shallow. I 

 am acquainted with a bee-keeper living within 

 twenty miles of me, who has secured better re- 

 sults with the old box hive last season than any 

 other in the circle of my acquaintance. He 

 has taken about nine hundred pounds of sur- 

 plus honey from about eighty swarms; while 

 others with a hundred and more swarms, in im- 

 proved hives, have not obtained half that 

 amount. If I should not explain our doubting 

 Thomases would say, " the old hive after all is 

 as good as any." I was surprised to hear of his 

 success this dry season, and went to visit him. 

 I found that he had been benefitted by a very 

 large amount of buckwheat sown around him. 

 How his bees are off for winter stores I am not 

 able to tell, but a very large percentage of 

 swarms in this county this fall will be minus 

 next spring. A. H. Hart. 



Stockbridge, Wis. 



Spiders seem hardly to deserve being ranked 

 among the enemies of bees, because their webs 

 are mostly too weak to entangle a bee. 



Millepedes or wood lice are most destructive 

 enemies of bees. They enter the hive during 

 the cold of the winter and spring, cat the honey 

 and destroy the combs. — Wi/dmar. 



Bees and Blossoms. 



Paragraphs like the following show that fruit- 

 growers are beginning to be aware of the folly 

 of denouncing the honey-bee as an enemy 

 against which the stern resolves of annual town 

 meetings are to be enlisted. Is it not aboul 

 time for the good people of Wenham to recon- 

 sider their late decision, and not persist in the 

 endeavor to hold the world to a retrograde 

 movement ? : 



Bees. — A writer in the American Journal oj 

 Horticulture advocates the keeping of bees as a' 

 means of making fruit trees productive since 

 they are great fertilizers of plants, carrying pol- 

 len, which in many instances without their aid 

 would never become distributed. He says : "A 

 relative of mine has for upwards of twenty 

 years lived near the city and has all the time 

 kept a great many bees. Since he has kept 

 them the orchards in the vicinity have borne 

 from two to three times the quantity of fruit 

 that they did before ; and some of the neighbors 

 say that should he dispose of his swarms they 

 would be obliged to keep bees themselves toob- 

 tain a paying yield of fruit." He thinks that 

 those people who are about to banish bees from 

 their neighborhoods, in the belief that they do 

 injury to plants and trees, had better study up 

 the subject before they take a step which sooner 

 or later they must regret. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



E. Gallup on Wintering Bees. 



Mr. Editor : — As I have a great many in- 

 quiries in regard to wintering bees, I propose 

 to give my answer through the Bee Journal, 

 and in that answer may criticise a trifle, but 

 with no intention to stir up such a mess as I did 

 by the shallow hives. By the way, I suppose 

 that I ought to thank Mr. C. S. Payne for his 

 article in the October number, and Mr. Chas. 

 Dadant for his article in the November num- 

 ber. So here goes — " Thank you, gentlemen !" 



To begin: Mr. Quinby recommends a barn 

 cellar, and he gives a description of his in his 

 book. Well, but Ave do not all have such cel- 

 lars. Never mind, the principle is what we are 

 after. Mr. Robert Jones, of Cedarville, Ills., 

 in the September number, describes a very 

 cheap house to winter bees in. Mr. H. Rosen- 

 stiel, of Lena, Ills., in the October number, 

 gives us a discription of another cheap house 

 for the purpose. Mr. P. Lattner, of Lattner's, 

 Dubuque county, Iowa, furnishes another. I 

 think ten or twelve inches of sawdust would 

 be rather better than six for our Northern cli- 

 mate. The bees would not feel the effects of 

 the warm sun so soon, at least in the spring; 

 and I am not sure that it would not be better 

 further South. I think it would. Mr. H. M. 

 Thomas, of Brooklin, Canada, on page 224, 

 vol. 3, gives us another cheap plan. His wire 

 cauze is an actual injury, and his corncobs are 

 unnecessary where the cellar is properly venti- 

 lated, and the requisite ventilation is cheaper 

 than the cobs. Mr. B. S. Hoxie, of Cooksvillc, 

 Wisconsin, in No. 11, vol. 3, describes another 



