142 



AMERICAN BEE JOURlMAi^. 



Report of tlie IVortli American 

 Bee-Keepers' Convention. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



(Continued from page 114.) 

 Next came an essay by Mr. E. 

 Root, of Medina, Ohio, upon 



Self -Hi vers and Their Use. 



R. 



Up to about a year ago I took but 

 little interest in self-hivers. They seemed 

 to me to be too complicated, too expen- 

 sive, too everything, in fact, to be avail- 

 able and practical for bee-keepers. So 

 far, they vi'ould hive only a third or a 

 half of the bees, and they were, there- 

 fore, but little better than a complete 

 failure, for nothing is a success that is 

 only half a success. 



At the previous meeting of this asso- 

 ciation, however, which assembled at 

 Albainy, Mr. E. L. Pratt, of Marlboro, 

 Mass., after one of the sessions, drew 

 me to one side, and showed me specifica- 

 tions of his new automatic hiver. Un- 

 like all previous arrangements for the 

 purpose, the bees entered into anew hive 

 on returning from the air, the entrances 

 to which they had long been accustomed. 

 This struck me at the time as being a 

 vital point, and possibly the key to 

 future success. The trouble with the 

 former self-hiving devices that had been 

 brought out was, that the bees on re- 

 turning, if they followed their queen, 

 which it seems most of them did not, 

 would have to go to a new entrance and 

 to a new hive. 



Those of us who have had experience 

 in handling swarms with clipped queens' 

 wings, will remember how readily the 

 bees will return to the hive on discover- 

 ing the absence of their mother; and it 

 is nothing strange that they should rush 

 pell-mell into the old entrance, thinking, 

 of course, that she must still be in the 

 hive. It would not matter particularly 

 whether the queen had gone through 

 the perforated-zinc passage-way to 

 another hive — the majority of bees would 

 go to the old place, just the same. 



Mr. Pratt, realizing the above fact, 

 placed a new hive that was to receive 

 the swarm, in front of the old one, in 

 such a way that the bees going to and 

 from the field would pass through the 

 new hive into the old one. A set of 

 combs was placed in the former, and a 

 sort of bee-escape was arranged in con- 

 nection with the perforated zinc in such 

 a way that the queen could readily pass 

 into the new hive, but not back again ; 

 and when in the new hive she would be 

 debarred from passing out at the en- 

 trance by the perforated zinc. Thus, 

 when a swarm should issue, the bees 

 would fly out in the usual way, and the 

 queen, following or preceding, would 

 enter the new hive, and there be en- 

 trapped. The bees remaining out for a 

 few minutes would soon discover the 

 absence of their queen, and return to 

 the old entrance, and, behold, the queen 

 would be in the new hive. From some 

 preliminary trials that Mr. Pratt had 

 been able to make the previous season, 

 he found that the plan worked success- 

 fully, and that all of the bees remained 

 in the new quarters. 



I told Mr. Pratt, at the time, that this 

 was the only self-hiver that I ever took 

 any fancy to, and that I believed the 

 principle of having the bees go back to 

 an old entranoe, and to which they had 

 long been accustomed, was the key to 

 success. 



The following summer, we rigged up 

 some 10 or 15 hives, on the principle 

 before stated ; and although I was san- 

 guine of success in the very beginning, 

 the result greatly exceeded my expecta- 

 tions. If I remember correctly, there 

 was not a single failure. The colonies 

 were not only automatically hived In 

 every case, but they went to work In 

 their new quarters, building comb, stor- 

 ing honey just as they would have done 

 had they been hived in the old-fashioned 

 way in a new location. 



By way of experiment, some of the 

 colonies were left from three weeks to a 

 month, to see what the final result would 

 be. Young bees hatched in the parent 

 colony, and finally began to add their 

 numbers to the swarm. The latter, in 

 the mean time, went to storing honey to 

 the extent of 50 or 60 pounds in two or 

 three instances ; and one in particular 

 had stored itjto the phenomenal amount, 

 for these poor seasons, of 150 pounds. 



Most of the colonies mentioned above 

 were arranged a little differently from 

 what Mr. Pratt originally designed, but 

 not so as to change the essential princi- 

 ple of allowing the bees to go to an en- 

 trance to which they had long been ac- 



