152 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



prices of friend Alley's drone-traps in our 

 advertising columns, and you can order them 

 of us, if more convenient. 



the: ^vav friend house uses ke- 

 vehsib1.e fkajues. 



"^r^RIEND ROOT:— lam overrun with inquiries ia 

 Ipl relation to honey-racks, reversible frames, and 

 queen-rearing. 1 have not time to reply to 

 these communications, and therefore send you by 

 express some samples. The honey-rack I send is in- 

 tended to set directly on thetopsof the brood frames, 

 thus leaving a space of J4 inch between bottom of 

 section boxes and top of brood- frames. 1 am not 

 troubled by the queen getting into the surplus box- 

 es, and depositing eggs, etc.; neither do we find any 

 comb built between boxes and brood-frames. The 

 rack is made for the 5J4x5J4x2-inch sections, and 

 hold^ 21 boxes; the separators rest upon the end- 

 pieces, which leaves the proper space for entrance 

 into the sections. They can be tiered up as well as 

 any rack I have ever seen. 



The strip containing the tin and the staples will 

 represent the bottom-board of hive. Either the tin 

 or the staples may be used. I prefer the latter. 

 They should be driven into the bottom-board, both 

 across the front end and near the rear end of said 

 board, and should be Hi inches from center to cen- 

 ter. The reversible frames rest on these staples. 

 The staples in the center of end-pieces of frames 

 sent will keep the frames at the proper distance 

 from the sides of hive. I send 3 frames — one a 

 closed-end frame, and the other two will show how 

 any hanging frame can be made reversible. The 

 one, you will notice, has pieces tacked on sides of 

 end bar of frame, to keep them the proper distance 

 apart. The other is an old L. frame, with projec- 

 tions sawed off and made reversible, the same as 

 can be done with any frame. I think you will find 

 no trouble in seeing into the workings as described. 

 If you do, write, and I will try to explain further. 



I prefer the closed-end frame. I believe we shall 

 soon see and learn the valuable points in the closed- 

 end standing Quinby frame. Had our lamented 

 Quinby been spared, 1 believe this point would have 

 been trought to light ere this, and I think he had 

 thiso;ie of many good points in view when he in- 

 vented that frame. Geo. W. House. 



Fayetteville, N. Y., Feb. 7, 18»4. 



I will explain to our readers, that friend 

 House's reversible frame is on the plan of 

 the Quinby closed-end frames ; in fact, you 

 will notice that he predicts that these are go- 

 ing to come into general use. His frame, 

 however, is supported by a strip fastened to 

 the bottom-board of the hive, both front and 

 rear. Staples i)laced at proper distances in 

 these strips space the bottoms of the frames. 

 The frames are held the right distance apart 

 at their tops by nails or staples driven the 

 proper distance. They are, also, held from 

 striking against the ends of the hives by the 

 staples. Of course, these arrangements are 

 all old. Having the frames made closed ends 

 at all, or even a part of their lengths, would 

 obviate the necessity of the nails. In con- 

 nection with this, I may remark that friend 

 H. also suggests a reversible hanging frame 

 by putting a stout screw through the center 



of the end - bars. An ordinary tin rabbet 

 is then placed half way down the ends of 

 the hive. The frame can now be used either 

 side up. But we shall be obliged to use 

 spacers of some kind, or the frames will al 

 ways be tipping over. Spacing nails or sta- 

 ples have been for a long time abandoned, 

 by almost universal consent, and I hardly 

 think they will obtain favor now. Friend 

 House's rack for holding sections differs but 

 little from many in ordinary use. Sections 

 are held above the brood-frames by strips one 

 inch wide and i inch thick, these strips run- 

 ning crosswise of the hive, and supporting 

 the ends of the two rows of sections. Many 

 good bee-keepers use a similar arrangement, 

 but I really can not understand how any- 

 body can consent to let the bees get directly 

 at the under side of the sections, to cover 

 them with wax and propolis. I know, that 

 at certain times, and with certain colonies, 

 we do not get much wax or gum placed on 

 the sections, even if left thus exposed ; yet 

 at other times they will all be covered with 

 bits of comb and propolis. Why not have 

 the whole section protected, so the bees can 

 get at them nowhere, except where they go 

 in at the entrances? In regard to queen- 

 rearing, friend House writes as follows : 



QUEEN-REARING. 



That the queen-bee is the foundation of success- 

 ful apiculture, none will dispute; therefore it be- 

 hooves us to be very careful in the selection of the 

 mother queen or queens. If the bee-keeper has no 

 queen that fills the bill, or that comes up to 

 the desired standard, it will be far better and cheap- 

 er to purchase such as have the desired qualities, 

 even at a cost of fifty dollars. Above all, I would 

 advise against breeding from Italian queens that 

 have become fecundated from German or hybrid 

 drones. The worker progeny of such queens may 

 be desirable to some; but each succeeding genera- 

 ation will deteriorate in value, unless the amount of 

 Italian blood be increased with each successive 

 crossing. Italians and Syrians are far different. A 

 cross between these two races produces our best 

 strains of workers. Many writers claim that we 

 should not breed from queens more than two years 

 old; in this I must disagree with them. I prefer a 

 queen at least three years old and older, if she re- 

 tains her vitality. How can we test the qualities 

 for wintering — endurance, longevity, e'.c, when 

 discarded at the end of two years? Some of the fin- 

 est queens I ever saw were superseded queens, 

 reared to take the place of five-year-old mothers. I 

 will not discuss this point any further here, but will 

 proceed to give what 1 claim to be the best as well as 

 the most simple method of rearing queens I have 

 yet learned or heard of. 



To be better understood, I will first describe the 

 hive used, and its arrangement. In this, hinges the 

 success of this method. The hive is constructed for 

 11 frames, ll'/4xl3'/4, outside measure; but instead of 

 using 11 frames, we use only 8', using two wide 

 frames containing four 5Vix5;4x3 sections each. 

 Place one of these wide frames on each side of the 

 eight brood-frames. The wide frames are made so 

 that they go inside the hive with ease. On one side 

 of each wide frame nail a sheet of Jones's perforated 

 metal, covering the entire side of said wide' frames. 

 The colony having our best queen, with her wing 

 clipped, being in eneh hiye. we will proceed with the 



