48 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Jan. IS, 19(6 



were stapled on the bottom before the hive was nailed up. 

 My top spacers were also wire, and made as No. 2, and all 

 the preparation I ever made in the rebate at the end was a 

 light saw-kerf, and in all hives a heavy scratch with a pair 

 of dividers, to receive alternate loops of the spacer. The 

 reason for running alternate loops down on the end-wall of 

 the hive was to get more spring to the wire. It is true that 

 the wire could be bent exact enough to suit a set of frames 

 made at one time, or at one place, but I find some difference 

 in two men's % of an inch, and if a little cold propolis hap- 

 pens to be on the projection of an old frame that you wish 

 to enter, it may only throw that frame out of center a little, 

 but it will enter without delay. Parkersburg, W. Va. 



Hives, Frames, and Excluders 



BY W. G. ASKEW 



THE regular 10-frame hive is 14J4" inches wide, inside 

 measure, by 20 inches long. Now when you put in 10 

 frames 1% inches wide this takes 11, '4 inches of space 

 at once, leaving only 3 inches of space without an excluder. 

 Now put on the excluder and how much space is left for the 

 bees to go up into the super ? The frame, being 1 ■ s inches, 

 is too wide, the hive too narrow, and yet the hive is too wide 

 for an excluder, which is only 14 inches wide. One-fourth 

 of an inch difference in the hive and excluder gives the 

 queens a chance to go up, which they will often do. Then 

 the excluder does harm. 



Now for extracted honey one must use the excluder, but 

 it should fit the hive within % and not )i inch; as it is now 

 made I have to bush mine on two sides. I have about 500 

 of the 14, '4 -inch hives, all of which I expect to use as supers, 

 and make hives 14' s inches for brood-chambers, which are 

 all right for 1%-inch spacing, whether the frames be 1 inch, 

 1/4, or Ji inch wide. With J4 inch frame, )i inch full can 

 be left between frames; with 1 inch, a ,'j-inch space; and 

 with l! s inch frame, % inch can be left between frames. 

 Now which of these three widths of frames is best to use as 

 brood-frames when the excluder is used ? And no up-to-date 

 bee-keeper can think of doing away with excluders, but one 

 does not wish to exclude the worker-bees from the super, 

 but queens, so as to rear as few drones as possible, and in 

 the right place, and to take off the honey rapidly when the 

 time comes, avoiding patches of brood in extracting frames 

 and misplacing of queens. 



When no excluders are used no doubt enough extra 

 drones are reared in one season to consume enough honey 

 to pay for excluders, but the excluder as now made does not 

 fit the hive as it should. The hive should be 3s inch nar- 

 rower, or preferably the excluder } & inch wider. 



How about a hive 15 inches wide, frames 1 inch wide, 

 brood-frames spaced l'i inches, and the excluder exactly 

 lAyi, inches wide ? A spacing of l^s inches is not quite 

 wide enough for bees to cluster in sufficient numbers in 

 winter for the best results, nor to allow for sufficient storage 

 room. Nothing is lost in allowing them more than enough 

 stores for winter. Riviere, La. 



Another Defense of the Sparrow 



BY WM. STOLLEY, SR. 



I often read stuff in bee-papers that seems to reciuire 

 refutation, but what is the use? Like Prof. Wiley's pleas- 

 antry about the manufacture of comb honey, it always is 

 sure to bob up again. So, on page 806 is found an attack 

 on the much unjustly abused sparrow, and this bird is 

 charged not only with doing all the damage done to grapes, 

 but also with a number of other crimes, such as destroying 

 peachbloom, peas, lettuce, etc. Several times I have writ- 

 ten in defense of the sparrows, years ago, and I do not 

 think it will avail much to do it again, for, like the Wiley 

 lie, it will bob up again. 



But then, truth cannot be repeated too often. 



Now, it is not my desire to deny that the sparrow is 

 guilty of doing "his share" in damaging ripening fruit, and 

 appropriating some grain to his own use, but close obser- 

 vation will prove that the sparrow is by no means the 

 worst of the depredators. I am also a grape and fruit 

 grower in a small way, and a great lover of all birds, and 

 I have been so for a meat many years, but my verdict of 

 the sparrow differs, as compared with other birds, which 

 cut a great figure in injuring and destroying fruit, and 



which, respecting the destruction of injurious insect life, 

 do not begin to compare favorably with the beneficial work 

 of the sparrow. 



My long years of observation proved to me that away 

 ahead of the sparrows, all the thrushes, but in particular 

 the brown thrush and the catbird, are the greatest de- 

 stroyers of all kinds of fruit. The blue-jay and the oriole 

 come next. But the thrushes are more destructive than 

 all the other birds, because they nearly always give the 

 grapes, and other fruit also, but one or two whacks with 

 their beaks, and if the taste does not suit their palate they 

 go on, without eating the fruit they have injured, until 

 they find a sweet, nice morsel, thus destroying large quan- 

 tities in a short time. 



Moreover, all thrushes are sneak-thieves, and always 

 keep well under cover when they are out on their raids in 

 the vineyard or fruit-orchard, long before the sun rises, 

 and they keep at it most of the day. Now, the sparrow is 

 no sneak-thief. He goes after his meal open and above 

 board. With his stubbed and short little wings he flies in 

 flocks in the open, so that everybody can see where he is 

 goin<* and what he is after; and he always makes noise 

 enough so as to be located without much hunting for him. 



Another peculiarity of the sparrow is that he eats 

 clean what he injures, and he rather partakes of already 

 injured fruit in preference to fruit not touched yet. lne 

 sparrow is not guilty of picking fruit here and there, and 

 everywhere, like thrushes and catbirds, thus wantonly de- 

 stroying large quantities of fruit. 



The sparrow is more fond of cherries than of grapes 

 and will have "his share" of fruit at the proper season. 1 

 suppose because he thinks himself fully entitled to it, and 



1 t Of al'^thc birds we have, the sparrow destroys more 

 insects, worms and caterpillars than do any other kmdofbtrds^ 

 During breeding time, which begins with the sparrow 

 quite early in the spring (when almost all other birds are 

 st in warmer climes) and holds out till late into sum- 

 mer the sparrow feeds nearly exclusively on insects and 

 worms-the young birds live exclusively on tha diet-and 

 since no other bird is as prolific a breeder as is the spar 

 row (3 to S broods, each of 4 to 6 young birds), it is self- 

 evHlent that the destruction of insect life by a single > pair 

 of sparrows must be simply immense during a breeding 



SeaS The sparrow is much better than is its reputation. Of 

 all our birds he shows the most religious inclination or 

 he does his level best to live up to the command of his 

 Maker i being fruitful and replenishing the world all 

 oter wit his kind. No other species of birds in this coun- 

 trv can cone with the sparrow in this respect; and I think 

 Pi esTdent Roosevelt will find no fault with the sparrow. 

 After hfs ardent work (on this line) is done, and after he 

 has destroyed so much of injurious nsect life, why of 

 course he needs recuperation to fit himself for the next 

 umme's 6 "ampaign! ? A change of diet is ; very ^ naturally 

 the next thing in order with him. And so he goes, open 

 and above board' (but not as a miserable sneak-thief) to 

 the fru£-patch, and partakes of what he has helped to pro- 



^Wfy? tho^lnUtrblante the sparrow Jo, -taking 

 Si ^w^^?oreS^™1ot^^,^a^t\at I c^e S aid 

 in favor 'of the sparrow, but I will say one or two things 

 more, and be done: ... ■ . 



When the actual and mainly responsible miscreants— 

 the thrushes and other birds named— have had their fill 

 and settled their misdeeds on the comparatively innocent 

 sparrow, they make up their minds (with the approach of 

 cool weather) to go South. These weaklings cannot stand 

 the r gor of our Northern winter. After they have stolen 

 our fruit, they turn their back upon us, and soon our wood- 

 lands are deserted. The sparrow on the contrary is of a 

 different make-up. He does not desert country and home 

 He faces the winter storm like a brave little man is always 

 cheerful, and is the only bird of our own which enlivens 

 our winter landscape with his merry twitter caroling in 

 shrubs and trees, and around the house and barn, as well 

 as in the streets of the city. 



In winter, when food is scarce and hard for him to 

 get, he knows how to economize, and the fresh droppings 

 of a horse go a great way with a whole lot of them. 



Now, why is it that the sparrow is abused and de- 

 famed so unjustly, even by some professors of our State 

 universities, whose reports sometimes are not_ worth the 

 paper they are written on, when it comes to judging the 



