128 



Feb. 14, 1907 



American Hee Journal 



make them out of a worn-out cross- 

 cut saw. Grind them on the grindstone 

 occasionally and have the edges straight 

 and square. I want half a dozen of them 

 in the honey-house, then when we are 

 ready to prepare supers for another sea- 

 son, we make "a job" of it. Boys and 

 girls, and other cheap help, can be set 

 to work at once, and in a very few 

 days we have everything clean. Wood- 

 separators may be cheap, but they may 

 be cleaned much cheaper, and are fully 

 as good then as new ones. 



Now, while I think the cabinet- 

 maker's scraper is a good thing, it is of 

 no use to me when fitting honey for 

 market from wide - frame supers. A 

 sharp knife answers much better, al- 

 though I have tried other devices as they 

 have come up from time to time. I 

 must, however, confess that I can not 

 come up to Miss Wilson. I consider 

 20 to 25 cases (of 24 sections each) a 

 fair day's work, putting in 10 hours a 

 day. I think if Miss Wilson had wide- 

 frame supers, she might clean and crate 

 in the neighborhood of 5000 sections per 

 day, working with the same swiftness 

 and putting in as many hours as she 

 does. 



If I were to use supers which did 

 not protect the sections " all around," 

 I would surely make use of a sand- 

 paper-belt or machine, because no mat- 

 ter what other tool is used in freeing 

 filled sections from bee-glue, it is riot 

 possible to make them look very nice 

 when they are as badly daubed as a 

 large portion of mine are, or have been, 

 while I had them in use. 



I have always wondered why the tops 

 and the bottoms of bee-way sections 

 were made as narrow as they are. I 

 fail to see why they were not made as 

 wide as possible, and still give ample 

 room for the bees to enter them. Sup- 

 pose we make them just %-inch nar- 

 rower than the sides, there would be 

 %-inch plus the thickness of the sepa- 

 rator between them. If we now let the 

 separator come within -^-inch of the 

 upper surface of the bottom and lower 

 surface of the top of the section, no 

 matter what the thickness of the sec- 

 tion may be. there will be sufficient 

 room for the bees to pass and enter 

 without any danger of the bees building 

 through under or over the separators. 



A wider bottom of the section than is 

 ordinarily given protects the honey in 

 the shipping-case and while handling it, 

 and also acts as a queen-excluder — not 

 absolutely, but it tends that way. 



Mr. .Armstrong misunderstood w^hat I 

 meant by "bees crowding bee-glue in 

 between the top-bars and sections." 

 While this is a bad feature of the wide 

 frame, I want every one to understand 

 both the bad and good features. Dr. 

 Miller knew well what was meant, 

 which is apparent from his answer, but 

 Mr. A. has not used the regular wide 

 frame. 'What I referred to is this: 



When the sections sag a bit, as they 

 do sometimes with weak bottom-bars, 

 they drop away from the top-bar of their 

 holder and there the bees chink the glue 

 into the space thus formed. This sag- 

 ging has as a sequence "diamond"-shapcd 

 section honey. Under no consideration 

 would I attempt to "square" them to 

 make them go into the shipping-cases, 



no matter how "warm" they might be. 

 No, don't try it! Crate them as they 

 are. Make room for them in a ship- 

 ping-case, somehow. 

 Naples, N. Y. 



Home Made Hives, Supers.Etc 



BV EDWIN BEVINS. 



With an experience somewhat like, 

 but in many respects diiiferent from 

 that of Mr. Greiner's, I feel constrained 

 to enter a protest against the tone and 

 intent of his article on page 963. The 

 article was evidently written with a view 

 to discourage all but a very limited few 

 from the attempt to make their own 

 bee-hives out of any material, and es- 

 pecially out of the material to be found 

 in dry-goods and grocery boxes. It is 

 no doubt true that there are many bee- 

 keepers, and others who would like to 

 become such, who would do well not 

 to try to make their own bee-hives. I 

 will not do any one of this class the 

 possible injustice of supposing or insinu- 

 ating that the reason why he should 

 not try is because of a lack of intelli- 

 gence. There are other reasons, which 

 the imagination can easily supply, why 

 some men should not try to make their 

 own bee-hives. 



But there is a large class of bee-keep- 

 ers who ought to make their own bee- 

 hives, and should be encouraged to do 

 so, because they can save themselves 

 much money if they are needing many 

 hives, and have some time not taken up 

 by other pursuits. It is for this class 

 of bee-men who are using the single- 

 wall hives of the 8 and 10 frame dove- 

 tailed size, that this article is most par- 

 ticularly designed. Many of the sug- 

 gestions and much of the advice I think 

 may be found of use to the users of 

 many other kinds of hives. 



Since the commencement of my bee- 

 keeping days in the early '90's, I have 

 made more than 200 hives and the sup- 

 ers for same. When I began to make 

 my own hives, I bought lumber at the 

 near-by lumber yards, but since making 

 the acquaintance of the much-despised 

 grocery and dry-goods box, I rhake use 

 of it altogether, not only for hive-bodies, 

 but supers, covers, bottom-boards, ship- 

 ping-crates, and many other purposes. 



I believe that Mr. Greiner belittles his 

 own ability when he says that he can 

 not make " something out of nothing.'' 

 which, interpreted, means that he can 

 not make a good bee-hive out of groc- 

 ery and dry-goods boxes. I feel quite 

 sure that Mr. Greiner can do it if he 

 will. I kttow that I have done it my- 

 self, and what I have done I am rea- 

 sonably sure that lots of other men can 

 do. I have hive-; made from the ma- 

 terial found in goods boxes, that are as 

 good as any of their kind that ever 

 came from any factory, and at much 

 less cost than the factory-made hive. 

 Some hive-bodies have been made at a 

 cost not exceeding 5 cents each for ma- 

 terial. 



Mr. Greiner lays great stress upon the 

 difficulty experienced in getting lumber 

 of uniform thickness out of that sup- 

 plied bv the store-box. How much of 

 the lumber in a hive needs to be of 



uniform thickness? The hive-bodies and 

 supers. I never found any difficulty in 

 finding enough of uniform thickness for 

 these. A few shades difference between 

 the thickness of lumber for these and 

 that for bottom-boards and covers cuts 

 no figure. Reasonable accuracy in the 

 make-up of a hive is desirable and nec- 

 essary, but the bees will be no more 

 comfortable and will store no more 

 honey in a hive, the architecture of 

 which is ideally perfect. 



I make a good many hive-covers for 

 8 and 10 frame hives that are of one 

 solid piece of board with cleats pro- 

 jecting downward at each end, and have 

 no reason to find half so much fault with 

 this kind of cover as Dr. Miller does. 

 Anyhow, I will venture to advise the 

 man who finds some good boards in his 

 store boxes that are wide enough for 

 the purpose to utilize them for hive- 

 covers. He will often be surprised at 

 the little they have cost him. In the 

 absence of this kind of cover, obtained 

 from the source mentioned, I would 

 make covers with dead air space as men- 

 tioned in the book. "Forty Years Among 

 the Bees." with this difference; I would 

 have cleats at each end projecting down- 

 ward. These cleats are an abomination 

 to the Doctor. The absence of them 

 is an abomination to me. I can handle 

 covers just as fast with them as without. 

 I do not have any covers blow off, and 

 I do not have to hunt up weights to 

 hold them on. The material for these 

 covers is generallv to be found in store 

 boxes, as much %-inch thick lumber is 

 used to make the sides of the boxes. 

 As the material for such covers does not 

 cost any appreciable sum. one can well 

 afford to cover them with tin or zinc. 



Dummies, division-boards and tele- 

 scope covers may also be made from the 

 box-lumber we are discussing. Read 

 "Forty Years .\mong the Bees" and 

 learn how to make a dummy. The 

 dummy or division-board we get from 

 factories is too frail a thing ever to 

 have been born into this rough-and- 

 tumble world of ours, and should be 

 relegated to the rubbish heap along with 

 the V2 -inch square bottom-bar, and some 

 other things easv to mention. I make 

 manv dummies out of ys-inch lumber 

 sawed with projections at the upper 

 edge for the support of the dummy. No 

 need to nail on a top-bar. 



Box-lumber can also be used very sat- 

 isfactorilv for shipping-crates for comb 

 honey. Get the measure for your crate 

 in this wav, if you want a crate for 8 

 shipping-cases: Place 4 cases on a level 

 surface and another 4 close beside the 

 first 4: measure length, width, and 

 height; make allowance in height for at 

 least 4 inches of hay in the bottom; 

 make allowance in measurement for top- 

 frame to take in boards used for sides 

 and ends of crate. I crate my honey 

 so that no glass is exposed, and find it 

 gives best satisfaction. 



What I have written has reference to 

 bee-keeping and bee-keepers as they are 

 found under existing conditions. I will 

 modifv that by saying that I have writ- 

 ten not for the specialist, but for the 

 man with a few colonies, and from that 

 to the 100 and 200 colony man. What 

 I have written is not intended for the 

 age of bee-keeping when the pursuit 



