ov. 22, 1906 



963 



American Ttee Journal 



(jonfrsbufed 

 Articled 



Bee- Keepers Making Their 

 Own Hives 



BY G. C. GREINER 



With the close of the honey season, 

 and the finishing of the necessary fall 

 work — such as uniting weak colonies, 

 feeding up where necessary, and finally 

 the packing for winter — all outdoor 

 work in the apiary ceases. This gives 

 the bee-keeper an acceptable oppor- 

 tunity to improve the cold and stormy 

 days of the coming winter by planning 

 and preparing for next season's work ; 

 and as the manufacture of our hives 

 generally forms one of the main fea- 

 tures at this time, a few hints in re- 

 gard to this part of our pursuit may 

 not be out of place. 



Ever since the appearance of Mr. 

 Latham's article, on page 74, giving 

 his advice and instructions how to 

 manufacture bee-hives out of cast- 

 away grocery boxes, I have been won- 

 dering what portion of all the bee-keep- 

 ing fraternity agreed with Mr. L.'s 

 ideas, and managed their supply busi- 

 ness in the same way. I expected that 

 some one of the older comrades would 

 say something as a reply to that arti- 

 cle, but having failed to notice any- 

 thing of the kind in any of the bee- 

 papers, I will therefore take it upon 

 myself to make a few comments by 

 way of a friendly criticism on the above- 

 mentioned article. 



Mr. Latham's literary abilities and 

 sound judgment in general constitute 

 him a terrible foe to fight against, and 

 I would not dare to contradict him, un- 

 less I had all the argument and at least 

 nine-tenths of all the beekeepers on 

 my side. But this being the case, as I 

 believe, I will venture to present the 

 matter in its true light, as seen from 

 different standpoints. 



In former years I dabbled a little in 

 the supply business, manufacturing 

 hives and selling on the road in num- 

 bers ranging anywhere from 1 to 15 

 and 20 hives at a time. At other times 

 conditions were such that I found it 

 advisable to purchase hives in the flat 

 from our regular bee-supply establish- 

 ments. I am thus enabled to draw an 

 unbiased conclusion, based on actual 

 experience and observation. 



To the experienced beekeeper Mr. 

 L.'s advice has little weight ; so has 

 mine; but to the beginner, or the con- 

 templating aspirant, who may be led 

 astray by Mr. L.'s questionable advice, 

 I would say : Don't, don't follow his 

 advice, for you will surely come to 

 grief ; endless annoyances will be your 

 lot if you do. 



It seems Mr. L. does not take the 

 right view of economy, and overlooks 

 uniformity of all our bee-supplies en- 



tirely. These are the two main fea- 

 tures which the bee-keeper should take 

 into consideration when buying or 

 manufacturing his supplies. 



During my lifetime of 60 years or 

 over, I have demolished many, very 

 many, grocery and dry-goods boxes ; in 

 fact, I keep some of such material on 

 hand all the time. For some certain 

 purposes — hen -coops and f eed-boxes,f or 

 instance — it is all right, and can be 

 used to good advantage ; but for bee- 

 hives — never ! I can not see one favor- 

 able point in using such boxes for bee- 

 hives. I may be a little deceived, but 

 I always flattered myself with being 

 endowed by Nature with a somewhat 

 mechanical turn of mind. I always 

 took pride in doing mechanical work in 

 workmanlike manner, but I am not 

 mechanic enough to make something 

 out of nothing, and trying to trans- 

 form grocery boxes into bee-hives 

 comes the next thing to it. 



While writing this, I am looking at a 

 number of chaff-hives in front of my 

 honey-house, near the center of my 

 apiary. They were made by hand 

 many years ago, out of dry-goods boxes. 

 Having been kept well painted, and 

 well made in the beginning, they are 

 now in a prime state of preservation, 

 and the passer-by would, without mak- 

 ing a close examination, take them to 

 be regular factory-made goods ; but if 

 I had to do that work over again, I 

 would use new, dressed lumber, and 

 have it fitted by machinery. I would 

 make this change, not so much because 

 I would get better hives, but as a mat- 

 ter of economy. It does not pay to 

 spend our time fitting, measuring, siz- 

 ing, etc., such lumber as these boxes 

 furnish. Taking boxes to pieces, draw- 

 ing nails and getting the material 

 ready to use, is a long, tedious job, and 

 when we get it, it is of all lengths, 

 breadths, and thicknesses, always 

 wasting more or less in cutting up. To 

 tinker up a very limited number of 

 hives, as Mr. L. outlined, might do for 

 an experiment, but to manufacture 

 them by the 50'sor 100's in a profitable 

 way, we should have to employ more 

 systematic and businesslike means. 

 Even if I intended to make only a few 

 hives, I would purchase new lumber 

 for them ; the work can be done much 

 quicker and better, and, when it is 

 done, will be more respectable in ap- 

 pearance. The many photographs 

 which have been presented to us lately 

 by the various bee-papers, are sufficient 

 proof that the great majority of bee- 

 keepers consider appearance a desir- 

 able feature. 



The second point — perfect uniformity 

 of all our bee-fixtures — is of great im- 

 portance. Every bee-keeper who has 

 had for any length of time large num- 



bers of colonies under his care, knows 

 how necessary it is that, for speedy 

 and convenient management, every- 

 thing in the line of hives and appli- 

 ances must be of exact uniformity. It 

 is not sufficient that every brood-frame 

 should fit every hive, but every adjust- 

 able part that helps to make up the 

 complete hive should be an exact coun- 

 terpart of every other one of its kind, 

 and this can only be accomplished 

 when every single piece used in the 

 construction of the hive is as nearly 

 like its mate as measurement can 

 make it. 



In speaking on this subject, a friend 

 said in one of our bee-papers some time 

 ago : " We must do our work within 

 1/32 of an inch." This is all right as 

 far as it goes, but it doesn't go far 

 enough ; it may answer in some cases, 

 but in many instances we have to come 

 within a hair's breadth, if we expect to 

 have our work give satisfaction. 



The fundamental principle in all our 

 hive-making is to adopt a standard 

 thickness of our lumber, and then stick 

 rigidly to it year after year. Our com- 

 mon country planing mills, where 

 mostly building lumber is dressed, do 

 their work seldom, if ever, precise 

 enough for hive-making. To get lum- 

 ber dressed as ordered, we have to call 

 on some of our bee-supply factories, or 

 some establishment where machinery 

 is required to do close work. In test- 

 ing the thickness of lumber I am not 

 satisfied to measure one single board. 

 If, for instance, }i inch is required, I 

 take 4 boards, squeeze them tightly to- 

 gether and measure, and if the 4 meas- 

 ure exactly 3 inches, I call them cor- 

 rect thickness. If we then adhere to 

 the various sizes and dimensions other- 

 wise, we can reasonably expect that 

 passable uniformity will be the result. 



As an illustration, that uniformity of 

 all our bee-fixtures is not only a no- 

 tional gratification to the eye, but an 

 actual saving of time, I will give only 

 this one instance : 



Suppose we have 2 rows of hives 

 which we wish to examine, one after 

 another, as we frequently do during 

 spring management. Commencing 

 with the first hive of the front row, we 

 take its cover and set it against the off 

 side of the hive. When ready for the 

 second hive, we take its cover and 

 place it on the first hive to take the 

 place of the first cover. The third 

 cover is placed in the same way on the 

 second hive, the fourth cover on the 

 third hive, and so on all along the line, 

 until the last hive is reached. Then 

 we step back to the second row and 

 take its first cover to the last hive in 

 front. This prepares the way for the 

 exchange of covers on the second 

 row, and by the time the last hive is 

 reached, which brings us back to our 

 starting point, we simply let the first 

 cover make up the deficiency on the 

 last hive of the second row. In this 

 way every cover, except the first one, 

 is handled only once, saving not only 

 precious time, but many motions of 

 the operator. 



Now, Mr. Latham may say : " Pretty 

 small affair to use as an argument." I 

 admit it is a very small affair when 

 handling one or two hives, but where 

 we have to do the work for hundreds, 

 perhaps thousands of colonies, that 



