3(58 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



WHY THE HOFF.MAX FKAMK IS SUPEKIOl! TO 

 THE I,OOSE FRAME. 



The great advantages of c]ose-tittiiig over the 

 swinging frames in moving and carrying hives 

 have h(»en stated in Gleanings by others and 

 myself, and I think they mnst be conceded by 

 all i)ractical bee-keepers, hi regarJ to rapid 

 Jutudliiuj (iffnnnex in ivorkliuj bees. I iriU ven- 

 ture ti> sd'ij' th<tt I can. irlth my fraine.ivork 

 nearly douhlc the nmnher nf colonics that I 

 could ivWi any frame that is not spaced, or 

 close fitting. As you. fi-iend Ernest, wish that 

 some of us " closcnl and partly closed-end 

 fric^nds "' would not be quite so modest. I will 

 here indulge in a little bragging, and say that 

 my partly closed frame, as a hanging or sus- 

 pended frame, has one great advantage over 

 the standing close-fitting frame. It is a fact, 

 as I have it from some extensive honey-raisers 

 who use the standing frame, that very often 

 they have to suspend work on account of rob- 

 bing, when such hives are taken apart and 

 frames handled. It is for the bees very much 

 like pulling down tiieir house, and robbers have 

 too much of a chance at them. In a box hive 

 with hanging frame, the robbers can, when the 

 entrance is guarded, attack the open colony 

 only from the top of the hive, and can easily be 

 managed by smoke. 



HOW TO CIRCU.MVEXT ROBBERS IN AN OVT- 

 APIARY. 



As robbing is one of the woi'st ti'oubles of the 

 many that belong to bee-keeping, I will explain 

 how I manage this ditficulty. As soon as I find 

 the bees are inclined to rob I take a small 

 bunch of grass, clover, weeds, or some leaves of 

 shrubs or trees, and stuflf the entrance of the 

 hive quite loosely before I open the hive at all. 

 In this way robbers can not get in after the 

 hive is clos(>d again and disappear. Soon after, 

 the green stuffing shrinks and drops away from 

 the entrance, and the bees have their door 

 opened again without any attention from the 

 bee-keeper. If it were not for this little inven- 

 tion I could not, when bees ai'e robbing, as I 

 have done now for several years, woi'k and fin- 

 ish an apiary of 100 colonies or more, within 

 one day. in a continuous job, without being 

 troubled a good deal. Jui>ius Hoffman. 



Canajoharie. N. Y. 



THE HOFFMAN FRAME. 



adapted to the l. size of hive: further 



particul.vrs on how to m.\nipulate; 



by ernest k. root. 



Some time ago Mr. Samuel Cushman. of Paw- 

 tucket. Rhode Island, made a statement to the 

 effect that, if he were the editor of a bee-jour- 

 nal, he would set forth the real merits of the 

 Hoffman frame, and describe minutely, with 

 suitable and accurate engravings, its manner of 

 manipulation. Althougli much had been said 

 in regard to the Hoffman fi-ame at that time, 

 he was satisfied that its real points of excel- 

 lence had not yet been fully described. Our 

 fi'iend Mr. Hoffman, in the article preceding, 

 has covered the ground pretty thoroughly: but 

 as his description apijlies to a deep hive, I have 

 thought best to have some photographs taken, 

 illustrating the method of handling the Hoff- 

 man frames, as adapted to the Dovetailed hive, 

 with its L. size of frame. I accordingly took a 

 Dovetailed hive filled with Hoffman frames, 

 and over it I sti'uck several attitudes, and then 

 had Mrs. Root photograph me in those posi- 

 tions. Our engravers have now reproduced 

 them. 



1 will first show you a cut of three Hoffman 



frames, without any comb in them, standing 

 side by side, as if they were stiick together with 

 propolis. This cut shows a little more accu- 

 rately how they are made for the Dovetailed 

 hive.'^ The top-bars are % inch thick, and at 

 the naiTowest part are 1^^ inches wide. This 

 width continues until witliin I4 inch of the 

 end-bar, where it then enlarges to 1% inches 

 scant. 



HOFFMAN frame ADAPTED TO L. SIZE. 



It does not .seem to be altogether clear yet 

 why the top-bar should widen out near the 

 ends. I will explain again, that it is for cover- 

 ing up the wood rabbet entirely, so that the 

 bees can have no occasion for chinking in pro- 

 polis. We will suppose that the top-bar is I3V 

 inches wide its entire length, and that the end- 

 bars are as shown in the cut. As these are 

 spaced frames, it is evident that the top-bars 

 will I'est in the rabbet exactly in the same 

 place at all times. In a few months" time, if 

 the frames be all lifted out. the places in the 

 hive-rabbet not covered with top-bars will be 

 thickened and stuck up with propolis, and those 

 covered by the ends of the top-bars will be 

 compaiatively clean. In process of time, espe- 

 cially with hybrids, these exposed places in the 

 hives will receive further accumulations of 

 propolis, until the ends of the top-bars, so to 

 speak, will rest between the notches of bee- 

 glue. Now, the great '"function." if I may 

 borrow a term from Mr. Heddon. of the Hoff- 

 num frame, is a lateral sliding motion. With 

 masses or notches of propolis placed at regular 

 distances, this lateral motion is impracticable. 

 "But," you say, "why is this not true with 

 the ordinary loose frames?" For this reason: 

 Loose frames are nevei' put back exactly in the 

 same place in the rabbet; and the result is, 

 that the wooden rabbets are covered about 

 equally with propolis from a\w end to the other. 

 To avoid the regular masses of propolis, the 

 inventor. Mr. Hoffman, had the top-bars en- 

 larged at the ends, so that, when the frames are 

 all in the hives, the rabbets will b(> covered up 

 entirely. You may examine the wooden rab- 

 bets of hives that have had these frames for 

 years, and you will find they are about as free 

 and clean from propolis as they w(M'e w hen the 

 hives were first mad(\ This is not guesswork 

 nor theory. I saw it in Mi-. Hoffman's yard. 



If you use tin rabbets you can get along very 

 \\ell with top-bars the same width throughout; 

 but those of you who have had hybrids to any 

 extent, know that they will sometimes fill tin 

 rabbets level full with propolis, and then you 

 have to go and dig it out again. By Mr. Hoff- 

 man's plan, the woi-st propolizing bees known 

 are circumvented in the woist propolizing lo- 

 calities. If you use Italians and tin rabbets, 

 you will never have any trouble about the rab- 

 bets being filled with propolis, and you could 

 use the Hoffman frames with straight top-bars. 



So much for the construction of the top-bar. 

 There is no need of discussing the need of hav- 

 ing a wide end-bar near the top. Its office in 

 preventing the bottom-bars from knocking to- 

 gether during moving or otherwise rough hand- 

 ling, is too evident to need discussion. 



