American bee journal. 



373 



have J4 inch space above the brood- 

 frames, and % of an inch should be 

 allowed between the ends of the frames 

 and the ends of the hive, or the frames 

 should be H of an inch shorter than the 

 inside length of the hive. By using two 

 division-boards as " followers," a bee- 

 space will be had on every side of the 

 brood-chamber. This is not necessary 

 unless desired for a double-walled hive 

 for wintering out-of-doors. It also allows 

 space for packing with pasteboard or 

 paper above and around the brood- 

 chamber for economizing warmth in 

 building up weak colonies in the spring. 



HOW TO HANDLE THE FRAMES. 



First, the brood-frames should be 

 tightened or compressed with a "fol- 

 lower" and wedge, or thumb-screws. If 

 a "follower " and wedge be used, both 

 must be made tapering ; that is, the 

 "follower" should be (say) H of an 

 inch thick at the bottom, tapering to 

 K of an inch at the top, or nearly so. 

 The wedge must be made in shape like a 

 rail-splitter's wedge. I think thumb- 

 screws the more preferable, doing away 

 with division-boards. 



Suppose I wish to find the queen in 

 hive No. 1. I go to the hive and pick 

 out one of the middle frames. Some- 

 times she will be found on the first comb. 

 The frames can be slid either way on the 

 tin rests. In returning the frames to a 

 hive, smoke the bees to one side of the 

 hive ; when you get a few frames in 

 place, the bees will scramble back to the 

 other side of the hive, leaving the side 

 free from bees in which to place the last 

 comb. 



A more rapid way to handle the 

 frames is to turn the brood-chamber 

 upside down, and the whole body of 

 frames will slip out together, and can 

 be separated with knife in halves, pairs 

 or trios, as may be desired, and placed 

 in the hive while the bees are outside, 

 and the whole hive slid back on the bot- 

 tom-board again. 



In using this hive for the extractor, 

 the whole set of frames can be extracted 

 and replaced in the hive without a bee 

 in the way to replace the frames ; and 

 this body of frames exchanged with the 

 body for the upper story of the next 

 hive, and the operation repeated 

 throughout the whole apiary. 



The end projection of the top-bar to a 

 hanging frame is always in the way to 

 use rapidly in the extractor ; with my 

 frame, this objection vanishes. With 

 the suspended frame the combs are 

 seldom built to the bottom-bar, leaving 

 a good lurking place for the queen, and 



wiring brood-frames is often resorted to 

 in hot climates. 



With the closed-end frames as I used 

 it, this is all unnecessary. 



Perhaps I had better here state that 

 for the extractor use, the end-bars 

 should be all made IK inches wide ; for 

 comb honey they need not be spaced 

 quite so wide. I prefer one of the long 

 bars to be made triangular, as the bees 

 will build the combs truer out to the 

 end-bars, and foundation can be fast- 

 ened more easily and better. My frame is 

 173^ inches long, and 9 inches deep, out- 

 side measure. The bars are % of an 

 inch thick. If the end-bars be made of 

 poplar wood, they will not swell like 

 pine; but pine will not swell so much 

 after used a year or two. 



La Porte City, Iowa. 



Some Successes and Discourage- 

 ments In Bee-Keeping^. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY A. E. BRADFORD. 



Last season was one of the hardest on 

 bees that we have had in a number of 

 years, so the old bee-keepers tell me that 

 live in this county. I am young at the 

 business, if not in years. 



I commenced in the spring of 1889 

 with 20 colonies, and took off over 3,000 

 pounds of comb honey in one-pound sec- 

 tions, besides an increase of 20 colonies. 

 Being anxious to get 100 colonies, I 

 saved all the swarms, and about one- 

 half were second swarms. In the spring 

 of 1890, all the second swarms that I 

 had wintered, emigrated — some to the 

 woods, but most of them went into other 

 hives that had plenty of bees and honey, 

 and when the honey-flow came I had 30 

 colonies left, and half of them were rob- 

 bing. I used to sit and bet which hive 

 would get the most honey, and they kept 

 it up all summer, for they did not have 

 anything else to do, as there was no 

 honey in the blossoms to amount to any- 

 thing, for I only took about 200 pounds 

 of comb honey and no increase, or five 

 swarms, which gave me 30 colonies to 

 put into the cellar. 



I decided to try a new " kink " in put- 

 ting my bees out in the spring, so after 

 it had got nice and warm in the spring 

 of 1891, I put my bees out — not in the 

 daytime, but at night, and I only took 

 out 10 hives and set them 16 or 20 feet 

 apart. 



The next night I put out 10 hives 

 more, and that way I kept on until I had 



