144 



FITTING THE ALEXANDER 

 FEEDER 



By John Protherue 

 I have always been a firm believer in 

 the advantages of the Alexander 

 feeder. To me the bottle eivtrance 

 feeder is an abomination. It has many 

 objectionable characteristics. It is the 

 cause of nine-tenths of the outbreaks 

 of fighting in queen yards, where feed- 

 ers of one sort or another have to be 

 almost constantly employed. It is in- 

 curably messy; the best that one can 

 do with it is to dip it in a bucket of 

 water after filling, dry carefully, and 

 wipe around the neck with a kerosened 

 rag — a lengthy and tiresome opera- 

 tion. Theoretically, the wooden 

 holder should always be dry and 

 clean ; practically, owing to some of 

 the holes being a fraction too large, 

 they manage to get into a puddly con- 

 dition. The "shiny professionals" 

 know all about it; wherever there is a 

 leak or a messy bottle, there do they 

 congregate, furtive, hairless, sneaking, 

 parasitic rascals; starting up trouble 

 and demoralizing respectable bees. 

 The best that one can say for the bot- 

 tle feeder is that with a large three- 

 pint bottle and holes of exactly the 

 right size you can get a continuous 

 flow of small volume, instead of small 

 regular doses given in the Alexander. 

 In the case of hot sunshine the bottle 

 is also liable to develop fermentation. 

 Nectar naturally comes in doses, and 

 not in a steady flow all night, so 

 that the process is not copying nature. 

 Nectar naturally comes with a rush 

 in the morning and then gradually 

 tapers off to nothing. If you wish to 

 copy nature, that is how you should 

 feed. So don't produce the "nature" 

 argument against the Alexander. 

 When preaching the advantages of 

 the Alexander feeder, I have usually 

 been met with the objection, "It is so 

 unsatisfactory to fit. You cannot get 

 the hive to rest evenly over the 

 feeder.". Now, that is just exactly 

 what you can do; that is the strong 

 point of the Alexander. It is possi- 

 ble to use it year in, year out, without 

 spilling a drop. It is the cleanest and 

 most easily refilled of all feeders, and 

 undoubtedly the warmest for feeding 

 in the cold weather of early spring. It 

 can be used for rapid feeding in the 

 fall, a purpose for which the bottle 

 feeder is most inefficient. It can be 

 used for getting reserve combs filled 

 with syrup and sealed during slack 

 times — a dangerous process for whicli 

 you require an isolated, bee-tight 

 feeder and no open covers. The large 

 Canadian tank feeder is serviceable 

 only for rapid work in the fall; fur- 

 ther, it entails removing the hive 

 cover, as does also the Doolittle 

 feeder (with its soup of drowned 

 bees). Taking it all round, there is 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



no feeder like the Alexander. It lies 

 snugly under the brood-nest, far from 

 temptation to entrance robbers. When 

 properly applied, it is absolutely clean 

 and bee-tight. 



The advantages of having hive- 

 stand, floor-board, alighting-board, 

 and feeder combined are obvious, so 

 I make no apology for pointing out 

 the merits of my design. European 

 hives nearly all incorporate hive- 

 stand, floor-board, and alighting- 

 board in one piece. Americans have 

 hitherto insisted on portability, and on 

 the reversible feature of the floor- 

 board — to my mind unnecessary— 

 seven-eighths inch, with contracting 

 device is perfectly good enough. .And 

 is it not a fact that manufacturers 

 have paid too e.xclusive an attention to 

 the needs of the cellar wintering com- 

 munity, to the disadvantage of those 

 to whom portability is not as neces- 

 sary as other features? The spread 

 of large-scale beekeeping through the 

 southeast makes it curious that the 

 pattern supplied by dealers is still that 

 deisigned for the cellars of the North. 

 The-combined hive-stand and alight- 

 ing-board supplied at present as an 

 extra is a poor sort of compromise. It 

 certainly does not go with the reversi- 

 ble feature; it cannot fit both sides. 

 It is not a close fitting, and it is liable 

 to be jolted out of place; there is an 

 objectionable gap just at the hive en- 

 trance. In my design you lose the 

 three-eighths inch feature; butfor'the 

 trivial sacrifice you gain the advan- 

 tage of having permanent hive-stand 

 with alighting-board, floor-board, 

 and the most efiicient feeder concen- 

 trated into one close-fitting hive part. 

 The design speaks for itself. The 

 floor slides into grooves cut in the 

 sides (as in the present reversible 

 pattern). The feeder is held on the 

 back projection either by a couple of 

 upright metal strips nailed to the 

 ends of the side pieces or by a board 

 across. The board has one advantage 

 in that when drawing the hive back 

 over the feeder less accuracy is neces- 

 sary. 



There is an alternative to the de- 

 sign I enclose. In this the feeder is 

 thrust through holes in the sides of 

 the stand just large enough to admit 

 it, the top of the feeder being flush 

 with the surface of the floor and 

 forming pant of it. There are objec- 

 tions to this which make preferable 

 the design that allows the hive to be 

 slid back and forth over the feeder at 

 will. 

 Virginia. 



(While the Alexander feeder will do 

 very well for stimulative feeding 

 where queen rearing operations are 

 under way, as described by our cor- 

 respondent, a friction top pail with a 

 few holes punched in the toii, turned 



April 



upside down in the super is far better 

 for ordinary purposes. — Ed.) 



HEARTSEASE 



Would Mr. Pellett care to describe 

 why "heartsease" is known otherwise 

 as smartweed, while "hearts-ease" is 

 a violet or pansy? 



It seems to me that there is more 

 than a hyphenated difference between 

 smartweeds and pansies, at least when 

 considered from a honey-yielding 

 standpoint. The poetical version of 

 the word makes it a good name for a 

 farm and I have been considering it 

 for such, but first I want to know 

 which is the more generally accepted 

 meaning of the term; whether it 

 would signify peace and tranquillity 

 or merely a place overrun by a cer- 

 tain rather noxious weed. 



Illinois. 



Heartsease indicates peace and 

 tranquillity, but just why the common 

 smartweed or lady's thumb should 

 be called by that naine I could never 

 quite understand. There is no ac- 

 counting for common names. Some 

 common plants are known by a dozen 

 different names, while the same name 

 is applied to as many different plants 

 in different localities. 



The pansy (Viola tricolor) has long 

 been known as heartsease, or prefer- 

 ably heart's ease, written in two 

 words. As far as the hyphen is con- 

 cerned, there seems to be no regu 

 larity in its use. The name is written 

 as one word and as two words as 

 above, and also with a hyphen, as ap- 

 plied to either plant. 



In addition to the pansy, the name is 

 applied to the wallflower. In Austra- 

 lia it is used in connection with still 

 another group of plants, the Gratiola. 



Among -beekeepers "heartsease" 

 means the lady's thumb, or smart- 

 weed Polygonum persicaria. Weed 

 though it be, it yields an abundant 

 supply of fair quality honey. A good 

 crop of honey tends to the peace and 

 tranquillity of the beekeeper. In any 

 case, it would seem that "heartsease" 

 would be a very appropriate name for 

 a farm home, especially if it be occu- 

 pied by a beekeeper. — F. C. P. 



Prother's method of attaching the Alcxamlcr feeder to hive hottom. 



KEEPING COLONY RECORDS 



A subscriber asks for information 

 regarding the system of records kept 

 by M. H. Mendleson, who is one of 

 the most extensive producers of 

 honey on the Pacific Coast. This 

 query was submitted to Mr. Mendle- 

 son, who replies as follows: 



"My records are kept something like 

 the following: 



Date of examination, health first ; 

 No. of colonj', queen, age of, amount 

 of brood if any, strength ; amount of 

 honey; a colony for swarms, etc. If 

 I run for comb honey we cannot pre- 

 vent swarming, and my locations are 

 great for swarming, as a wet winter 

 is followed with a long spell of stimu- 

 lation before the honey flow com- 

 mences. I have a column for record 

 of date of swarms and to what ter- 

 race and number the swarm is located 

 in the apiary. By so doing I know 



