4(J6 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



evpry year, so that for 30 yeais it would amount 

 to UO.OO instead of Mr. Dyke"s S2.00. Taking 

 the cost of the ten restrictors (S4.70) from the 

 $40. it shows a balance of $35.30 in their favor. 

 It is no more reasonable to use restrictors only 

 one season than to use hives only one season 

 and throw them away. 



In the footnotes the editor says. "The object 

 of queen - restriction, advocated by C. VV. 

 Dayton, is primarily, as we understand it, to 

 control unnecessary brood - rearing out of 

 season.'" This understanding is faulty. It is 

 not primarily nor any other "marily." In my 

 last pamphlet, no such function is mentioned; 

 iDut for correction, and any one who cares to 

 know. I may explain somewhat further. You 

 use an excluding honey-board on top of the 

 brood -chamber, to prevent the queen from 

 going above into the sections. Very well; the 

 restrictor consists of what may be called 

 excluding honey-boards; one for each side of 

 the brood-combs, as well as one for the top, to 

 prevent the queen from going into the sections 

 or extracting combs at the sides and top of the 

 hives, and also an excluder to prevent the 

 queen from going out at the entrance. 



I know there may be more honey obtained by 

 having the surplus receptacles arranged upon 

 three sides of the brood than when we depend 

 upon the top of the hive alone. Again, ihere 

 are not such a perplexing set of bee-spaces at 

 the sides to coax the bees through as at the top, 

 because brood-combs may be placed outside of 

 the excluders, and the excluders moved toward 

 the center of the hive. With the common 

 excluding honey-board, having two bee-spaces, 

 it takes about five days for the bees to work 

 their way through them, and then they enter 

 at the bottom of the sections, four inches from 

 where they wish to begin work. The bees will 

 never go into surplus receptacles thus arranged, 

 until the honey-flow forces them to go soiiie- 

 where. These claims may be tested by a proper 

 arrangement of the bee-hive, as for instance: 

 About ten days before the opening of the honey 

 harvest, select a number of strong colonies and 

 separate their brood-combs in the middl(\ and 

 put in three courses of pound sections through 

 the center of the brood-nest. At the end of ten 

 days the outside sections will be filled with 

 comb; but the center rows will seldom be work- 

 ed upon any. If only one row of sections is put 

 in they will be filled with comb in thirty-six 

 hours. 



This shows plainly that the bees work much 

 more readily close by the brood. Again, two 

 wide frames full of sections may be placed in 

 the center of the brood-nest, with a slatted 

 honey-board (or, rather, a slatted division- 

 board) on one side, and nothing between the 

 sections and brood on the other side. The 

 ifoundation next the division-board remains un- 

 touched day after day, or until the honey har- 

 vest sets iii. From 16 to 40 sections are filled 

 with comb by the time the bees begin on the 

 foundation after going through the slatted 

 division-board, or the excluding honey-board, 

 on top of the hive. 



A NEW-FANGI>ED QUEEN-EXCLUDEK. 



Friend Dyke says I "seem to think four frames 

 about the right number" for the n^strictor. 

 Exactly. Now suppose your colony contains 

 the eight combs of brood. Of course, this may 

 not apply to mri colonies, because my hives 

 liold twelve combs, and there are usually more 

 than eight combs of brood; but if you area 

 bee-keeper who keeps up with the times we 

 may be safe in counting on eight combs of 

 brood for j/oirr colony. Separate the eight 

 combs into three groups— four combs in the 

 middle group, and two in each outside group. 



Attach the restrictor-excluders to the outside 

 frame" of the middle group, and arrange the 

 three excludingstripsin the bee-spaces between 

 the frames. Now you will have the queen con- 

 fined on four conibs. and there will be two 

 brood -combs on each side, outside of the exclud- 

 ers. In this way the effects of the excluders 

 are entirely overcome, and sections or frames 

 placed beside or alternated with these outside 

 brood-combs will be worked upon just as readi- 

 ly as they will take i)OSsession of any comb 

 alternated with the brood-combs. The line of 

 queen exclusion or resti'iction. to bring the best 

 results, should be drawn within the limits of 

 the brood-nest instead of outside. 



In the case of the excluding hom^y board, 

 used between the brood -nest and supers, it is 

 considerable distance outside. 



SPEED IN MANIPULATING HIVES. 



On page 161 Mr. Dyke estimates ten colonies 

 as a day's work in unqueening and destroying 

 queen-cells. On the next page you place two 

 hours' work at 40 hives, which would be equal 

 to 300 per day and 1300 per week. Now. after 

 ten years of practice I confess that, to find and 

 clip the queen's wing, break a little capping 

 for stimulation, etc., 60 colonies is a good fair 

 ten hours' job. I can set 13,000 ems of type in 

 ten hours, which is considerably above the or- 

 dinary speed of composition: but I am not nim- 

 ble enough to manipulate 75 colonies of bees in 

 the ten hours; so you see we have a variation 

 as to a day's work of fiom 10 to (iOto 3(X) colonies 

 — still further apart than were Messrs. Doolittle 

 and Taylor as to what a day's work is worth. 

 Who is the nearest right? 



Whatever discussion any one may enter into 

 regarding the cost of restrictors will not ti'ouble 

 me. as I am not in the notion of manufacturing 

 them to sell, but am in the notion of maintain- 

 ing my originality and priority of invention 

 without such a dispute as was caused by the 

 invention of bee-escapes, divisible brood-cham- 

 bers, and swarm-hivers. 



Several have intimated that Heddon hives 

 with a queen-excluding honey-board on the top 

 and bottom would accomplish about the same 

 results. Certainly they would; but their 

 greater expense is against them. The two ex- 

 cluding boards cost 40 cents, while the total 

 expense of the I'estrictor is 47c(^nts. leaving only 

 7 cents with which to change fi'om the common 

 frames and hives in use to the Heddon style. 

 To adopt restrictors is simply to change from 

 one form of excluder to another. Hives and 

 frames remain the same. C. W. Dayton. 



Greeley, Col., May 10. 



[The average bee-keeper does not use one 

 kind of frame or hive more than ten years. He 

 either goes out of the business or runs on to 

 some new hobby. So ten years would be about 

 as long as you could safely count upon the use 

 of your restrictors on the average, although 

 they would doubtless last twice that length of 

 time; so there would hardly be a balance of 

 $35.(X) in favor of the restrictors. Moreover, as 

 it has been already observed by another, it 

 seems to us there must be a good deal of labor 

 used in handling so many pieces of metal; and 

 if for any reason it is desired to see the queen or 

 to inspect the brood surfaces, these pieces of 

 metal must be handled at a considerable ex- 

 pense of time. 



Referring to our footnotes, our understanding 

 of the restrictor may be faulty; but arestrictor 

 is something to restrict something, and, in the 

 case of your device, to restrict brood-rearing. 

 Either the device is not well named, or our un- 

 derstanding, as stated, was correct. The object 

 of contraction is, to prevent excessive brood- 



