1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



65 



till one liaiuUcs hives free ironi it. 



All this wooden ware costs good 

 money and new will cost more, so 

 conserve it by painting it well. To be 

 sure, some of the good men of the 

 craft have long advocated no paint, 

 but in tliose palmy days hives did not 

 cost much and the lumber was good. 

 Wonder il those people do not now 

 wish that they had kept those fine 

 Iiives well painted. 



When going over the hives for re- 

 pairs, stack the combs where you can 

 get at thetn readily and, wliile the 

 paint is drying, look critically at 

 everj' comb; discard every one with 

 many drone-cells, or stretched cells, 

 or warped, or buckled places. Scrape 

 all the propolis from the frames just 

 to facilitate handling next season as 

 well as to ensure accurate spacing. 

 Combs with only small patches of 

 drone-cells can be repaired. Cut ou 

 such places, taking out a rectangular 

 piece, scrape from the base a row or 

 two of cells about the opening thus 

 made, lay in a piece of foundation 

 and with a brushful of melted wa.\ 

 make it fast. Such repaired combs 

 are not as fine as new combs built 

 from fresh foundation, but they are 

 valuable when built combs are 

 needed. 



When discarding whole combs, cut 

 them from the frames, wire and all, 

 and re-wire with No. 26 wire, stretch- 

 ing it tight; then put in the new foun- 

 dation, embedding the wires careful- 

 ly, preferably with an electric im- 

 bedder. Xo" matter how carefully 

 you adjust the wedges at the top, it 

 is worth while to run a little melted 

 wa.x along the tip, because it pre- 

 vents an occasional slip, and the bees 

 fasten the top sooner than they 

 otherwise would. 



After all the foregoing is done, go 

 at the new goods, which bj' that 

 time should have arrived. It will be 

 found profitable to dip in linseed oil 

 all bodies, supers, honey-boards and 

 escape-boards, allowing the excess of 

 oil to drain oflf. This is quicker than 

 a priming coat of paint, and far bet- 

 ter. 



There is one other small item 

 worth mentioning: Attend to 



gummed-up bee-escapes. Drop them 

 into a boiling solution of strong lye 

 with a liberal dose of powdered soap. 

 Why the soap? Well, it helps sep- 

 arate the gum from the metal and 

 makes a cleaner and slicker job. 



Much of the foregoing sounds like 

 "old stuff," I know, but if one may 

 judge by the mess one finds in so 

 many yards, it will stand a lot of re- 

 pealing. Winter time is a slack time 

 and does not yield much cash, but it 

 can be turned into cash via time and 

 labor saved in operation during the 

 rush season. 



Providence, R. I. 



my beekeeping experience has been 

 with Langstroth hives; however, 1 

 use, both summer and winter, two 

 brood-chambers, 16 or 20 frames, and 

 think of the two combined as a hive. 



1 am in thorough accord with the 

 principles involved in the large 

 brood-chamber, as e.xeniplified in the 

 IJadant hive. 



l-"or a number of years I have en- 

 tertained the belief that the brood 

 compartment of a hive should be 

 large enough to hold a reserve stock 

 of honey, or residual honey, a credit 

 balance that would never be needed 

 except in the unusual or extremely 

 bad season. Due to the fact that the 

 bees' cluster is nearly spherical, iny 

 imagination pictured this hive as 

 nearly cubical. 



Hives have been constructed in 

 conformity with standard lumber di- 

 mensions, rather than in conformity 

 v/ith the natural requirements of the 

 bees. The lumber dealer and not the 

 bee student decides the depth of our 

 brood and surplus frames. The pat- 

 tern has been made to fit the cloth, 

 with little or no consideration for 

 the physical well-being of the wearer, 

 and with this clothing and equipment 

 the bees have demonstrated a mar- 

 velous adaptability. 



I was particularly impressed with 

 the conclusions reached in "The Da- 

 dant System" regarding the winter- 

 ing of bees, based as they are on long 

 years of patient experiment, and they 

 have my fullest indorsement. 



With no desire to be pedantic, I be- 

 lieve there are three essentials that 

 must be understood and observed in 

 order to avoid severe winter loss in 

 this climate: 



1. Quality and quantity of food for 

 winter stores. 



2. Quality of the air, or ventila- 

 tion. 



3. Protection from the elements. 

 Putting bees in packing cases does 



not appeal to me, especially those 

 cases that provide a thick layer of 

 sawdust on all sides of the hive. It 

 is based on the erroneous idea that 

 they will provide a steady warmth. 



They are in reality a small ice box, 

 the cold gets into them very slowly 

 and it is, if anything, slower in get- 

 ting out. In other words, when the 

 cold gets in, it has come to stay, like 

 an unwelcome mother-in-law, and, as 

 pointed out in the httle vo'.ume, the 

 bees are likely to miss the only op- 

 portunity for a cleansing flight; with 

 no opportunity to smooth out their 

 bed and rearrange their stores, dis- 

 ease, disaster and death are at hand. 



Assuming that these packing cases 

 do not become refrigerators, and are 

 in reality little hot-houses, then an- 

 other equally vicious horn to the di- 

 lemma is presented. We have brood- 

 rtaring out of season. 



A few winters ago, a. beekeeper 

 with 40 or 50 colonies, living in a 

 neighboring city, packed all his hives 

 individually after the ice-box plan. 

 Over half of them died outright be- 

 fore spring, and those that survived 

 were weak. Just over his fence a 

 neighbor had one lone colony of bees, 

 provided with a makeshift flat cover 

 which had blown oH early in the win- 

 ter, leaving a gunny sack as the only 

 protection above the cluster. This 

 cover stayed off all winter, and the 

 beekeeper said, in relating the cir- 

 cumstances to me, that they were a 

 strong, vigorous colony in the spring. 

 If the alternative confronted me of 

 leaving my bees with only a gunny 

 sack cover, or placing them in bo.xes 

 well lined with sawdust, I would un- 

 hesitatingly choose the gunny sack. 



Under the erroneous idea that cold 

 is the worst enemy of bees, sealed 

 covers have been provided and the 

 bees literally exist in their own efl3u- 

 via and, like a strong constitution 

 that sometimes combats ill-advised 

 drugs and a blighting disease and 

 overcome both, so the bees often sur- 

 vive pernicious but well-intentioned 

 measures provided for their wel- 

 fare. These packing-box and tight- 

 cover fellows, with no knowledge of 

 biology, will stigmatize the rest of 

 us by saying that we neglect and do 

 not provide for the comfort of our 

 bees. 



THE DADANT SYSTEM OF WIN- 

 TERING BEES 



By A. E. Burdick 



I have just finished reading the new- 

 manual : "The Dadant System of 

 Beekeeping." 



With a few exceptional hives all 



H. P. Hinds, of Wabash. Nebraska, has found his fifty colonies so profitable that he expects 

 to increase to 150 next seasbn. 



