684 



GLEANINGS IN HEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



caught in this same fix myself, when I would be a 

 little tardy in keeping up with the bees, so that T 

 have often had from five to fifteen pounds of honey 

 built in the cap of the hive, the bees having to travel 

 from 25 to 30 inches entirely away from the brood 

 to get there. This leaving the brood and storing 

 honey in such amounts in the cap led me to adopt 

 what I term the "lateral" plan of obtaining section 

 hoiiey, which plan gives me fully as much honey as 

 could be obtained by the side and top box plan, with 

 as little work as is required when using the tiering-up 

 plan. The larger part of my hives are of the kind 

 known a§ the " chaff hive," which gives plenty of 

 room on top for all the room required by the largest 

 colony, without tiering up. Over the top of these 

 hives 1 have placed a queen-excluding honey-board, 

 the queen-excluding part going overonly the brood- 

 apartment to the hive, the rest being a thin board 

 to cover up the chatr. When the honey season ar- 

 rives this is put on (quilts being used, together with 

 sawdust cushions up to this time), and from three 

 to five wide frames holding four l^i -pound sections 

 each are placed directly over the brood. As soon as 

 these are well occupied with bees at work I add one 

 or two wide frames at each side; and when these are 

 bccupied I add enough more to cover the top of the 

 hive, if so much room is needed. In this way I ac- 

 commodate the size of the colony with the needed 

 room, neither giving too much nor too little, as must 

 of necessity occur where the T super and others of 

 a set capacity are used. As soon as the first that 

 were put on are filled, they aretakenotf (handling by 

 the wide frame only, so five pounds are handled in- 

 stead of single boxes), when the partly filled sec- 

 tions at each side are slid along on the honey-board 

 till they come together In the center, when the 

 empty ones are placed at the sides. As the 

 honey season draws to a close, no more empty 

 sections are put on, so that, when the season is over, 

 I often have but one or two wide frames of sec- 

 tions on the hive, thus doing away with more partly 

 filled sections than T really need for bait sections 

 the following season. 



In the above, all will see that I have all the advan- 

 tages of both the former plans combined, and that, 

 so as to work to the very best possible advantage. 

 Well, just as I had this all wrought out, and have 

 worked it to my entire satisfaction (often using the 

 whole complement of wide frames over but .5 Gallup 

 frames below), for the past two seasons, whatshould 

 friends Root and Miller do (see page .5.53 of July 15th 

 Gi^EANiNGS) but upset the whole thing? Now, gen- 

 tlemen, in all candor I ask. Did either one of you 

 ever fully test the matter you are there talking 

 about, or have you reasoned it out in theory, and 

 told us that such and such would be the facts? If 

 you have fully tested the matter, please tell me how 

 It came about that my bees will thus work to ad- 

 vantage, and would go even two feet or more entii'c- 

 ly away from the brood, and there work, apparently 

 as well as anywhere. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Friend D., 1 am very glad indeed to hear 

 that your experience has been as you indi- 

 cate ; and 1 hope it will transpire that both 

 myself and Dr. Miller are wroug. During 

 the height of the bassvvood season, when we 

 have such warm days and warm nights that 

 the bees are inclined to get out of the hive, 

 or into some place that is cooler, I can read- 

 ily imagine they will go two feet away from 



the brood to store honey. Now, is it not 

 true that the biggest part of your honey 

 comes from basswood, and that this accounts 

 for your experience in a measure ? We often 

 have clover honey in the latter part of May 

 or the first of June, when both days and 

 nights are comparatively cool. Under such 

 circumstances our bees show a decided aver- 

 sion to getting away off from the brood ; and 

 it is from many years of experience that I 

 have decided to get comb honey as near the 

 heart of the brood-nest as we can. Because 

 the L. hive offers such facilities for getting 

 our sections right down almost into the heart 

 of the brood-nest, is why I have always be- 

 lieved it to be the best hive for securing comb 

 honey. Having a lot of unfinished sections to 

 hold over is certainly a great drawback, and 

 your plan is one of the best, if not the very 

 best, for avoiding it. Are we to understand 

 that you have entirely discontinued the use 

 of side storing V If you have, then we are 

 one step nearer toward having a unanimous 

 decision that side storing in connection with 

 top storing, is not desirable. I did not know, 

 until I read the above, that you had adopted 

 so much of what we call the chaff hive. 

 Years ago I decided that it was the best and 

 simplest arrangement for keeping bees, win- 

 ter and summer, having every thing ready 

 for comb honey. Where you place so many 

 sections on top of the brood-nest that they 

 extend over beyond the brood-combs, it 

 seems to me that something equivalent to a 

 chaff hive would be a necessity — that is, if 

 there are no live bees under these sections 

 which extend over, they ought to lie blanket- 

 ed or protected in some "way from the changes 

 of the weather. 



THE SHA"W HIVE. 



tKOTHEK UOOT:— Why should you think that 

 " it is a little odd that Shaw, in undei-taking 

 to make a moviiblccomb hive, concluded 

 from what he knew of bees that they would 

 wax and gum the frames so fast to the hive 

 they could not be taken out"? With his uprights 

 fitting close to the front and rear walls of the hive, 

 how could he well come to any other conclusion? 

 Mr. Chas. Dadaut (see ^. B. J., 1873, p. 197) says of 

 the Debeauvoys hive of 1847: "The frames were as 

 broad as the interitu- of the hive; i. e., close fitting 

 at the sides. . . . The hive worked well when 

 new and empty; but after the bees had glued the 

 frames, it was difficult to remove them without 

 breaking the combs. It would have been entirely 

 impossible to remove them at a,U, without 8eparati)ig 

 the eud*' (i/ the hive from the frames with a chisel." 

 The italics in the above are mine. From Mr. Shaw's 

 deposition, taken in the suit of Otis vs. King, it ap- 

 pears that he usedaiuetal case with doutjie metallic 

 watertight walls; that the cover of this case was a 

 metallic reservoir to hold a fluid for drowning the 

 bee-moth; that he made only one hive; that he 

 never got any honey from it; that the first two col- 

 onies which he put into it deserted it; that the last 

 one died in it: and that, becoming discouraged, he 

 laid it aside. It seems to have benefited neither 

 himself nor the public. Certainly no one who has 

 ever used an improved Ruber hive but would pre- 

 fer it, either for amateur or practical uses, to the 



