a58 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov 



brood wore sealed, the surfaces were " as flat as a 

 board." But that fact did not deter the bees from 

 filling the outer frames with honey early in the 

 peason, nor from occupying a narrow strip of the 

 upper part of every brood-frame with stores. As 

 soon as the bees began work in the sections 1 un- 

 capped these stores in the brood-nest, and the two 

 sections of the brood-chamber were inverted and 

 intercharged. According to the theory of close 

 spacing, this honey should have gone into the su- 

 pers, but it didn't. Those contrary bees quietly 

 gathered it off the bottom-board and put it back 

 into the very cells it came out of, even replacing it 

 below the brood. This is at variance, too, with the 

 reversing theory; and since my experiments 

 through two summers have invariably led to the 

 pame results 1 am forced to believe that neither of 

 these plans of management will give us absolute 

 control of the production of brood. Although we 

 may succeed partially in overcoming that instinct 

 of the bees that prompts them to surround their 

 young with an abvindance of food, we can not whol- 

 ly control it. 



Quite a number of the hives in my apiary are 14^8 

 inches square inside, and hold frames ten inches 

 deep. In some of these hives there are ten frames; 

 in others nine. At no time in the season can I de- 

 tect any difference in the brood area of a frame 

 from a hive of ten frames, as compared with one 

 from a hive of nine. The proportion is the same in 

 both. But, of course, the ten-frame hive will have 

 the advantage in the total area of brood, and only 

 in that respect will it meet the conditions of Mr. 

 Pond's theory. From these facts it will be seen 

 that nine combs, closely spaced, will give no more 

 brood than nine frames further apart; but there is 

 one thing very evident: With combs wide apart, 

 the bees will loaf in the brood-chamber all summer. 

 This I have proven to my sorrow; but when the 

 frames are crowded close together in the honey 

 season, the bees use no ceremony in entering the 

 supers. For placing this plan so plainly before bee- 

 keepers, friend Pond is entitled to the thanks of 

 the entire fraternity. Z. T. Hawk. 



Denison, Iowa, Oct. 12, 1886. 



Friend H., your experience is just about 

 the same as ours has been ; and I always 

 had an opinion that loating-room anywhere 

 inside of the liive was a bad thing.— I em- 

 phatically favor crowding the bees up into 

 the sections, or outside ; that is, when honey 

 is to be had in the fields plentifully. 



CASE FOR SECTION AND SEPARATOR 

 COMBINED. 



SOMETHING THAT HAS AT LEAST THE CLAIM OF 

 NOVELTY. 



WILL send you by mail one of our section box- 

 es. We should like to have your opinion on it. 

 You will see, on taking it apart, that it is in 

 three pieces. The inside is like a common sec- 

 tion, except that the bee-space is all on one 

 Side, and only on the bottom. The other two parts 

 are covers to slip on over the shell. One is a little 

 wider than the other. 



To use the box, the narrowest cover is taken off 

 and put away. Then they are a section closed on 

 the back, and they can be entered only at the bot- 

 tom, when they are on the hivts when they arc 



on the hive, the back of one row, it will be seen, an- 

 swers as separators to the row behind it. When 

 they are to be removed from the hive, lift them out 

 of the case and remove the shell from its cover, 

 and turn it over and replace it so that the part that 

 the bees have not soiled with propolis comes on the 

 front; put on the other cover that was laid away, 

 and it is done. 



I think I can see two objections that will be put 

 down at the end of this. One is, that the bees will 

 not enter them readily. We have given them a 

 pretty fair trial this year with blacks, Italians, Syr- 

 ians, and a strain called the Bellinzona strain of 

 Italians (but we think they are Cyprians), and we 

 have put open and closed boxes on the same hive, 

 and we could see no difference in the way the bees 

 entered them; and in some cases the closed boxes 

 were filled first. The cost is $1.5.00 a thousand, or 

 1^2 cents each. Now you will say they cost too 

 much. Let mo give you a few figures. Common 

 sections cost about $.5.00 per 1000. Separators cost 

 il..50 per 100. It will take about 200 if they are used 

 with the Root cases, which will amount to $3.00. 

 The cost of pasteboard boxes to hold sections of 

 honey is $9.00 per 1000. Add this up and you will 

 have $17.00. Our box answers the pui-pose of all 

 three; besides, they come all put together. Besides 

 that, honey in old-style sections sells at 20 cents, 

 and honey in these boxes sells readily at 22 cents. 

 This more than pays for the difference in the cost 

 of the box. We get double Mrs. Chaddock's prices 

 here for honey— 20 cents per crate; 25 cents per box, 

 open boxes. Ralph E. Gould. 



Lisbon, Me., Sept. 26, 1886. 



We can better explain to our readers the 

 above invention by means of the cuts shown 

 below. The whole thing is the well-known 

 Ilutchins' patent, dated 1874; but the box 

 is made for a packing-box, and not for a 

 honey-box at all. Many of our old readers 

 will remember that it has been several times 

 mentioned before. It is made exactly as our 

 one-piece sections are made, folded by a V- 

 shaped groove, dovetailed at the corners. 



GOULD'S ARRANGEMENT FOR COMBINING A SEC- 

 TION CASE AND SEPARATOR. 



The lower figure on the right-hfind.side 

 represents the packing - box as made by 

 Ilutchins since 1874. The two upper figures 

 show the same with the cover removed. 

 Now, the only change needed to make it 

 ready to go on the hives is to cut out a por- 

 tion of one side as represented in the cut, so 

 as to make an entrance for the bees. The 

 covers, which are a little shallower than the 

 lK)ttoin, are to be laid awjiy when the sec- 



