266 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



is exerted on the extreme end. Though 

 friend C. does not say so, it occurred to me 

 that he probably liad his chain loug enough 

 so that there would be a little surplus, or its 

 entire length as loug as the tallest jar. 13y 

 means of the hook in tlie board, and the sep- 

 arate links, the chain can be hitched so as to 

 be adapted to any desired height of bottle. 

 The same principle can be tried by placing a 

 jar in a suitable position upoii a bench. 

 Next nail a cleat at the proper height in the 

 siding of the work-shop over the bench, and 

 then with a suitable lever (one end of which 

 is placed under the cleat) the cork can be 

 pressed into the bottle. For different 

 heights of bottles, cleats can l)e nailed at va- 

 rious elevations. Perhaps the latter plan 

 would be found preferable by reason of the 

 greater stability. Ernest. 



CONFINING THE HEAT OF BEES IN 

 THE HIVE. 



A KNIFE FOR CUTTING SEED POTA- 

 TOES. 



SOMETHING ON THE PLAN OF TERRY S ONE-EYE 

 SYSTEM. 



«ERY likely many of the friends tested 

 Terry's system of cutting his potatoes 

 to one eye last season. The advan- 

 tages are, briefly, that we are by this 

 means enabled to have one good strong 

 stalk in everyplace, and no more. If you 

 let ten or twelve stalks of corn grow in a 

 hill, you certainly woidd not get a crop of 

 nice ears. Where you plant a whole potato, 

 and the whole of the eyes grow, you get a 

 lot of small potatoes, just as you would have 

 a lot of small ears of corn. Well, when we 

 have got our potatoes so as to have one eye 

 in a piece, we want as much potato around 

 this eye as we can have ; that is, we want to 

 divide up the potato in such a manner as to 

 have the eyes all separate, and a chunk of 

 potato around each eye. If there are too 

 many eyes in the potato to give each one 

 this good chunk, select the best of them, and 

 throw the rest away. To do this to advan- 

 tage, we want medium or large potatoes. 

 We also want the knife figured below, to 

 cut it just right. 



HUMPHREY BROTHERS' IMPROVED POTATO-ICNIFE* 



'J'he saving in seed is quite an item. But 

 our friends should remember that this plan 

 of potato- growing requires good soil. If you 

 take away the potato that gives the young 

 plant nutriment, there must be rich groiuid 

 or manure to take its place as soon as the 

 young plant has used up the supply of food 

 that starts it. We can furnish these potato- 

 knives for an even 25 cts., packed in a neat 

 little box, with printed instructions. f 

 wanted by mail, add 3 cts. each extra. 



IS IT NECESSARY TO REDUCE THE SIZE OF THE 



HIVE TO THE SIZE OF THE CLUSTER FOR 



WINTER? 



0F late years, many seem to suppose that it is 

 necessary to confine the bees ou as few 

 I'raraes as possible during winter lor their 

 safe wintf-ring, basing said supposition on 

 the idea that what is needed is the confining 

 of the heat from the bees in as small a compass as 

 possible; reasoning from this, that the cluster of 

 bees will be kept warm. The line of argument gen- 

 erally presented is, that ventilation, upper absorb- 

 ents, a vacant space above and around the bees, 

 etc., ventilates the bees to death, ou the principle 

 that warm air seeks the top of a room, and that, un- 

 less held thereby a tight ceiling, the room will not be- 

 come neai'ly so warm as it might otherwise do. Now, 

 while there is reason in this, regarding the room, 

 the same can not be fully applied to the bee-hive, 

 else many colonies of bees would die which now live. 

 Who docs not remember, in back volumes of 

 Gleanings, how often it has been given that the 

 only colony surviving a hard winter in a large api- 

 ary would be one in an old box hive, which was 

 split from bottom to top, so the snow could blow in 

 on to thcbees?orthatthec3lony whichlived was the 

 one the owner had overlooked and left all the surplus 

 receptacles on, the same os used in the summer? 

 According to the views expressed by some, these 

 colonies should have died, and those carefully pack- 

 ed, contracted hives should have preserved their 

 beef, alive. But the facts in bee-keeping often put 

 fine-spun theories to flight. I have often noticed 

 that in box-hive apiaries the best colonies of bees 

 in the spring would be those in a tall or large hive, 

 especially if the tall hive had stores enough in it to 

 crowd the bees down to the bottom-board, and keep 

 them near it all winter; yet, according to late 

 theories, these colonies should have died or been 

 the poorest. Here the bees were at the bottom, 

 while, if the late theories are coriect, the heat 

 would have been at the top. 



Years ago, when I was a boy, father used to put 

 pails on his box hives in the fall, after he had taken 

 the honey-boxes off. These pails were simply plac- 

 ed on the hive, and the holes leadin through the 

 top, with no covcriugof any kind over them; yet 

 such colonies always wintered well. Accoi'ding to 

 theorj-, the heat should have been in these pails, 

 and not about the bees below; but I often 

 found, by looking in them ou moderate days, 

 that nothing of the kind was thei-e: but instead, the 

 pails were full of frost, that did not melt until the 

 weather became warm enough to melt it from the 

 outside temperature. Again, I once cut a bee-tree, 

 the combs of which showed that bees had lived in 

 them for years. These combs were six feet long, but 

 the bees had built ?.nd filled them with honey the 

 first year, for brood had not been reared in the up.- 

 per half of them, so that during the winter they 

 had always had three feet of air-space above them, 

 yet they did not die. AVhy was this, if there is 

 truth in this small air-tight-hive principle? Well, I 

 will try very briefiy to explain my ideas regarding 

 the matter. 



A LIVING HIVE. 



If we hive a natural swarm of bees in a large box, 

 and closely watch them work, we find that they 



