•rgs 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



late in the spring, I think if you try chaff 

 hives side by side with your single-walled 

 hives, you will And they will average better. 

 A colony may come through in f.iir condi- 

 tion; but if the use of the chaff hive would 

 bring them through in extra condition, would 

 it not prove a good investment? With 

 us, even during the honey-tlow, we have 

 many days and nights so cool that the bees 

 stop building comb, except where surplus 

 receptacles are protected by chaff packing 

 or some extra outer covering. I agree with 

 you in regard to having an abundance of 

 stores to carry the bees safely through 

 brood - rearing in spring. A great many 

 times, when I have thought there were more 

 stores than they could possibly make use of, 

 by the time the iioney-tlow commenced these 

 stores would be aboiit all gone, and in place 

 Of them we would liave young bees boiling 

 out of the hive in everv direction. 



The harmer two ounce section. 



THE RAMBI.EIl'S EXPERIENCE WITH THEM. 



'HEN the editor of Gi.eanings spread before 

 its readers a description of Bro. Haiiner's 

 little five-cent package, the Rambler com- 

 menced to tigure. The more he thought 

 about the matter, the greater seemed the 

 bonanza before him. For instance, if I should run 

 one hundred swarms and get two full cases, or 50 

 lbs. per colony, there would be 40,000 packages at 

 .5 cents each, or !f20[)0. Of course, it would be a 

 bonanza. I sent for a sample frame, and thought 

 at first to get out material, crates, etc., for the 

 whole 40,000; but our water-power being frozen up, 

 I started in with much eclat, with experiments. I 

 first made ten frames, or enough for one crate, to 

 hold 200 sections. Ne.xt the veneers were success- 

 fully made; then they were cut into little bits, and 

 here methought of a grand plan for making a large 

 lot real fast— just run the veneers through a straw- 

 cutter. AVhen I had tilled a frame with little pieces 

 (and it seemed as though there were a thousand of 

 them) for 30 sections, I unanimously decided that 

 30,000 would be all I could make without machinery. 

 Then I borrowed from the housekeeper a large 

 darning-needle and commenced to glue the corners. 

 At first the glue was too thin, and ran down into the 

 form. I thickened it and pi-oceeded again. Some 

 of the little pieces were too short, and the glue ran 

 between them; then the darning-needle got a big- 

 lump on the end of it, and T broke right out with 

 " Darn the darning-needle," and thereupon con- 

 cluded to make only 10,0(10 of the " darn " things. 

 Then I went to the postofflce. The next day, just 

 after dinner, when I felt well, I tackled another 

 frame. Just as I had got ten glued, a friend came 

 in, but I was so absorbed that the first conscious- 

 ness of his presence was an irreverent remark of 

 his about my tongue sticking out, and I resolved to 

 make only 5000 of the little sections. 



I was called away, and it was several days before 

 1 got to work again; and when I had got eight 

 frames filled I thought probably 1000 would be all I 

 could sell at our county fair. A day or two after 

 I finished the case of 200, and found my tongue ex- 

 posure, while gluing the corners of the sections, 

 had resulted in a sore throat, and I soberly conclud- 



ed that one case was all 1 could possibly dispose of. 

 Hut while puttering with the little squares I was 

 very busy devising something more rapid and the 

 result was a round section. If saw-cuts are made 

 in a board a proper distance apart, the shavings 

 will come off already rolled up into little hoops. 

 Now get a 's-inch board just the length and depth 

 of your brood-frame, and bore, with an extension 

 bit, holes 2^% in diameter. Into these holes fit the 

 little hoops, with a drop of glue between the lap- 

 ping ends; then a circular piece of foundation, or, 

 better, Weed's full-depth-cell honey-comb. 



The frame I use holds 14 of these little sections; 

 and after boring the holes, each form is sawn in 

 two in the center. This enables us to open the 

 form and pick out the sections easily. The frame 

 is easily adjusted anywhere in the bee-hive between 

 brood-combs or extracting-combs, and are filled 



r\mblek s ciRcnriAR two-ounce honey-p.\ck- 



AGE. 



quicker and more evenly than if put in a crate all 

 together. The Harmer sections were badly bulged 

 in my apiary; but the season has not been a fair 

 one for a thorough test, as we have but little honey, 

 and slow work in larger sections. I give my inven- 

 tion to the fraternity, and hope they will have suc- 

 cess in producing thousands of two-ounce sections. 



The Kambler. 



Friend R., your experience with small 

 sections is very similar to ours. We started 

 out to fill with these sections, frames for two 

 upper stories. The veneer was all nicely 

 cut on the separator machine, and the form 

 was made as per directions ; but it took one 

 of our best men a day and a half to fill 

 twenty frames with these small sections, and 

 finally he begged to be excused from doing 

 any more of that kind of work, that showed 

 so little in results. Several times the frames 

 of sections stuck to the form, and the pro- 

 cess of removing caused the breaking of the 

 sections. With us, filling the frame with 

 tlie Harmer sictions is a slow job ; and not 

 the least of the difficulties is the insertion 

 of foundation in the individual section. No 

 doubt fiiend Harmer can fill the frames 

 with economy of time ; but certain it is, our 

 man did not succeed in doing so. We tried 

 one or two frames ourselves with scarcely 

 any better results. In the apiary the bees 

 showed a decided aversion to them ; per- 

 haps because fiat-bottomed foundation was 

 used. Our very poor yield of honey, how- 

 ever, was probably the principal cause of the 

 sections not being filled out more promptly 

 and in better shape. Without having tried 

 your plan of circular sections, we should say 

 you have hit the right thing. It is quite in- 

 genious, and it seems as if it would save con- 

 siderable time in preparing the section. We 

 should be glad to know whether you have 

 succeeded in having these little circles filled 

 with honey, and how it compared with the 

 Harmer method. 



