1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



151 



front of the box, and two rows on the top, through 

 which the workers can pas3 in and out. This zinc 

 guard is set up against the entrance; and while the 

 workers can go in and out through the perforations, 

 the queen can not get out, neither can the drones. 

 Now it seems to me, a guard made on this principle 

 has some uses, and it also has some defects. It 

 could easily be slipped over the entrance after the 

 drones are on the wing, and compel the luckless lub- 

 bers to cluster on the alighting-board outside to 

 await execution. By putting it on, day after dd3', 

 after the drones have mostly come out of the hive, 

 they can be gradually exterminated from any par- 

 ticular hive, by preventing their entrance again. 

 And after the drones have been thus exterminated 

 from a hive, this guard could be put on to c itch the 

 qurcn when the swarm comes out. The simplicity 

 and chiapncss of this little guard arc nlfo in its 

 favor. 



But is seems t ) me such a bee-guard arc 'in^l shrs 

 onlyasm.ill j'art of what a drone and queen tiap 

 shoulil. I shniii I hci^itate to put suchagiiard agaii st 

 the entrance uf a large swarm abounding in drones, 

 on a hot July Saturday ni^ht or Sabbath nn>rning, 

 and go to church feeling that my precious queen 

 could not leave with a swarm. This little pua^d is 

 only Js of an inch square, in a cross section of it, 

 and 9S4 inches long, and it will not hold naif the 

 drones which some hives cimt,.in. T should fear the 

 result would be, that the drones w* u'.d clog up and 

 entirely fill the guard, and my queen and all her 

 colony would be in danger of suffocating. 



The second bee-guard I sent for was a drone and 

 queen trap made by Henry Alley, of Wenham, Mass. 

 It is a wooden box W2 inches long, .5!/2 high, and 2'4 

 thick. This box has two stories, or apartments, the 

 lower story I'i inches high, and the upper taking 

 the rest of the box. Imagine an old-fa hioned meal- 

 chest with\the ends extending down about a foot for 

 legs, and a second bottom nailed on to the ends of 

 these legs, and you have a large-sized illustration of 

 this trap. The lower apartment is open behind, and 

 has perforated zinc nailed on in front, and it is de- 

 signed to give free outlet to the workers, and free 

 ventilation to the hive, being a " down-stairs " en- 

 try, with a perforated zinc door Hi inches high and 

 O;^ long, leading straight into the entrance of the 

 bive. The upper apartment of this trap is about W2 

 inches deep, the whole of the box above the lower 

 apartment just described being included in it. 



Georgetown, Mass. D. D. Marsh. 



Perhaps I can better explain to our read- 

 ers friend Alley's invention, by a couple of 

 illustrations. The first one, which is the 

 simplest form, is shown below : 



through the perforated zinc, they of course 

 seek the wire-cloth cone, or funnel, and go 

 right out without any trouble. Workers can 

 also go out of this cone, if they wish to. No 

 bees or drones will go back that way, how- 

 ever, for they will all march right up to the 

 perforated zinc, without seeing it ; therefore 

 the way it works will be to let all the drones 

 go out that want to go out, but none ever set 

 back. Your drones will therefore be found 

 in front of the entrance at night, and may be 

 destroyed. They may, however, go around 

 to other hives to seek an entrance ; and un- 

 less all hives in the apiary are provided with 

 a similar machine, you would not get them. 

 This arrangement would, however, have no 

 effect on swarming, for the queens would go 

 out through the funnel just as easily as the 

 drones do. 



ALLEY'S M.\CH£NE FOK EXPELLING DRONES FROM A 

 HIVE. 



You will observe, friends, that this is sim- 

 ply an ordinary bee-entrance guard, such as 

 we sell, only a little enlarged, and having 

 the ends made of wood. J3esides this, a wire- 

 cloth cone is put into the center of it. When 

 the drones find 1 themselves unable to get 



.;3P^ 



alley's DRONE-EXCf.UDER, DRONE AND QDEEN 

 TRAP COMBINKD. 



You will readi^ly understand from the above 

 drawing, that the cones (which can be dimly 

 seen through the circles of wire cloth), in- 

 stead of being- ))laced in the perforated zinc, 

 as before, now both open upward into a box 

 above ; and this box, being covered with the 

 perforated zinc, permits any workers to get 

 out at once, if they happen to get into it. 

 All the drones are simply boxed up until 

 needed ; and if there be :iny swarming, the 

 queen also goes up into the drone-box. The 

 swarm comes back and goes into the hive, 

 remaining contentedly, probably because 

 their queen is caged right in the entrance, 

 and she is there safe until the owner returns 

 from meeting, or wherever else he has gone. 

 I must confess that this seems to me a pretty 

 nice thing. The only drawback I think of 

 is, that the queen may get through this per- 

 forated zinc. You know how many report 

 of late that they have done so. The new 

 zinc, with smaller perforations, figured on 

 page 150, m-iy fix the whole business, and 

 probably will, if it does not worry the bees 

 and scrape off the pollen. In the figure, the 

 perforated zinc is shown, partially drawn 

 out. This can be easily done at any time 

 when you don't care to use the drone-catch- 

 er. 



Now, friends, the next we are to do is to 

 have a tube from this queen-cage, leading to 

 a new hive all properlv rigged, fixed in some 

 wav so the returning bees will go into it, 

 and we have an automatic swarmer that 

 does not have to swing aroiuid or keel over 

 or go through any such antics. The only 

 thing lacking is to get the entrance to the 

 old hive turned away, or changed in such a 

 way that the bees when they come back will 

 cluster around their queen in the new hive. 

 Who will work it out V Y'ou will find the 



