PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE W. T FALCONER MANPG CO 



VOL. VII. 



SEPTEMBER, 1897. 



NO. 9. 



Hives and Comb Honey. 



BY G. M. DOOTJTTLE. 



Several wish to know about the 

 hives I have used and how I work 

 them for corab honey, so, with the 

 editor's permission, I will give a brief 

 article on the subject. In order to 

 make all p'ain, I will say that the 

 hives used, and giving the yields re- 

 ported in the past, are 24 inches long, 

 12 inches wide and 12 inches deep, 

 having an outer shell of four inches, 

 front and rear, which is kept packed 

 with chaff ail of the time, summer 

 and winter. As the frames are but 

 11^x11^ square, they must of course 

 go the short way of the hive. Five 

 inches from either end of the hive is 

 placed a slotted division board, J of 

 an inch thick, the slots being so ar- 

 ranged that this board takes the place 

 of the separators used on the wide 

 frames of sections, on the hive side, 

 as these 5 inch spaces are partitioned 

 off for sections chiefly. This leaves 

 a space 12xl2xl3| inches for the brood 

 chamber or hive proper, in which is 

 placed 9 Gallup frames of the size 

 above given, outside measure. When 

 the bees'are being prepared for winter, 

 the sections are out and a strip of cot- 



ton cloth spread over the frames and 

 down each side over the slotted di- 

 vision boards. The five inch spaces 

 are now filled with chaff, and a chaff 

 or sawdust cushion placed over the 

 frames. Thus the bees are virtually 

 iu a chaff hive during the winter and 

 spring months. When spring arrives 

 the bees are in a condition to breed up 

 fast, especially if stimulated by a lit- 

 tle feeding or by spreading the brood, 

 which stimulatiun is kept up till the 

 nine frames are filled with brood. As 

 the weather is always changeable in 

 the spring and early summer, the chaff 

 packing is a great help to the bees by 

 way of enabling them to maintain an 

 even temperature, and thus these 

 chaff hives are filled with brood a lit- 

 tle earlier in the season than they 

 otherwise would be. As it is still toa 

 early for swarms to issue to the best 

 advantage for the production of honey 

 and desiring all the bees possible to 

 take advantage of the honey flow, 

 (the bees in reality are our crop of 

 honey.) 1 now remove the chaff and 

 cotton cloth from one of the five inch 

 spaces and place three frames of brood 

 taken from the brood chamber, be- 

 yond the slotted division board, plac- 

 ing empty combs in the brood nest in 



