1891 



GLEANINGS IN UEE CULTURE. 



959 



had taken a view of the whole apiarj-. such as 

 was shown in our last issue. You see, I station- 

 ed the camera, drew the slide, set the piieninat- 

 ic shutter, and then poised myself on one of the 

 hives, the onl.v connection between mi' and ilie 

 camera being a rubber tube. Attached to said 

 tube was a rubber bulb which I held in my 

 hand. I thonght I wouldn't wear any veil, so 

 folks would think I worked with bees without 

 one: and then, striking an attitu(^e as nearly 

 natural as I could over the hive, I squeezed the 

 little bulb. The camera gave a click, opened 

 its eye. stared lor a few moments: and, after the 

 signal from the bulb, closed its eye and the pic- 

 ture " was took." But, oh dear! I didn't let 

 the thing look at me long enough, for I see the 

 picture is a little dark in the shades. 



Well, now, don't pay any more attention to 

 photography. I just want you to notice how 

 convenient it is to have five hives in a group — 

 sit on one and look into the other. Why. it is 

 just fun compared with the old way. When I 

 wish to look at the next hive, all I have to do is 



caught me with these thoughts in mind: and 

 if you look sharp you will see cross-lines 

 over the frames that indicate transferring- 

 clasps. Somebody has said that a string wound 

 around the combs would be better than any 

 thing else, because, if you forget it, the bees 

 will gnaw the strings in two. and remove them: 

 but not so with the tin clasps. 



There is another thing in tlie engraving 

 which perhaps you did not notice. The hives 

 are all on Heddon hive-stands, and are elevated 

 out of the grass, and are up to convenient work- 

 ing distance, and. of course, they will be nice 

 and dry the year round. To give you a little 

 better idea of the stand in detail, I made the 

 camera stare at one of the hives by itself, and 

 you will see it on the next page. 



The stand proper is simply a shallow box 

 without top or bottom, the sides and ends o 

 which are i% inches deep and X inch thick. 

 The ends are nailed on to the sides. The lum- 

 ber is simply the culls from supers — that is, 

 pieces that are too poor to be used for supers to 



THE .lUXIOE EDITOR EN.JOYIXG THE CONVENIENCE OF THE HEDDON HIVE-STAND AND THE 



SCHEME OF FIVE HIVES IN A GROUP. 



to turn around and sit down. May be I diag- 

 nose the condition of the colony by looking 

 over the top of the frames. Perhaps I am not 

 satisfied, and I pull out one frame, and that will 

 give me a clew to the whole condition. It so 

 happened I was not doing either in the picture. 

 You will remember that we transferred the 

 combs from some old loose frames into the 

 Hoffman. To hold the combs secure in the 

 frames we used the old-fashioned transferring- 

 clasps. You may think it very shiftless: but 

 both the boys and I were too busy to think of 

 pulling out the clasps after the combs were se- 

 curely fastened, and I am ashamed to confess 

 that they are on the frames yet. The camera 



the Dovetailed hive. The front and back 

 boards are dropped down ^4 inch, so as to leave 

 room for the cleats of the bottom-board, which 

 project down a little. 



This idea I obtained from Heddon's old orig- 

 inal eight-frame hive. I happened to be look- 

 ing over some of our old castaway hives in our 

 museum, and my eyes ran across this. The 

 same thing is illustrated in connection with the 

 old style Heddon hive in February Gleanings. 

 188.5. page 8.5. This stand is about as cheap and 

 convenient as any thing I know of. I like it be- 

 cause it raises the hive up six inches above the 

 ground, while most of the other stands leave 

 them pretty well in the grass. 



