588 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1. 



board, every four feet. These holes are bored 

 with a boring-machine, and they reach almost 

 through the board — that is, through it edge- 

 wise; therefore the machine must be arranged 

 so as to bore to ^ depth of tive inches or a little 

 more. Into the.-e holes we drive pieces of half- 

 inch iron rod. The cheapest kind of round iron 

 is just as good as any. You will notie<» that 

 this iron rod. when driven into the board, holds 

 it from warping, which the board is quite apt to 

 do under the influence of wet ground on one 

 side and the liot sun on the other; and the tend- 

 ency to warp is so great that it very soon pulls 

 thenars from the damp stakes: therefore 1 like 

 the iron rod much tli<- best. Of coui'se. these 

 iron rods are driven into the ground far enough 

 to make them solid. I have never known them 

 to be drawn out by frost. They are so smooth 

 that the frost does not lift on them as it does on 

 a wooden stake. Now. after having you under- 

 stand how my iron stakes are used instead of 

 wooden stakes, I am going to suggest to you the 

 plan of not having stakes at all. You will re- 

 member our paths are only 16 inches wide ; 

 therefore, instead of having' the iron stake go 

 down into the ground, we simply bend it like 

 the letter [J. letting it go down under the path 

 and up again, to hold the opposite board. Per- 

 haps a drawing will make this a little plainer. 

 In order to get these U-shaped irons, we first 

 have the blacksmith make us some square 

 frames of half-inch round iron, like those in the 

 cut below. 



IKON FRAMES KI<:FOKE THEY AKE CUT IX TWO. 



After he has got a lot of them made, of the 

 dimensions 16x20 inside, he cuts each one in two 



so as to make two U-shaped irons, thus: | | | | 



Now, these U-shaped pieces, you will no- 

 tice, go under the path, and reach up and hold 

 the boards on each side of the path. Below is 

 the engraving of two 16-foot boards attached 

 together with the U-shaped irons. 



THE WAY THE BOARDS AKE ATTACHED TOGETHER 

 ORDER TO MAKE THE PLAKT-BEDS. 



Wheie the ends of the 16-foot boards come 

 together, a short piece of board, say three or 

 four feet long, is placed on the inside, so as tn 

 lap over the joint, and is securely nailed with 

 nails that will clinch. We will "now suppose 

 our ground has been underdrained, with the 

 tiles running north and south, and also the nip- 

 per layer of tiles running east and west. \Ylien 

 you have got this far, you want to plow and 

 harrow and roll that piece of ground until it is 

 just as tine and soft and nice as you can inake 

 it; then with a double-moldboard plow — or. if 

 you haven't got it. use a common plow — fui'row- 

 ing out the paths and throwing the fine dirt up 

 into beds. Of course, you run the beds from 



east to west. After this is done, with the same 

 plow you can throw out the street running 

 north and south through the center. The 

 broad street through the middle, running east 

 and west, will probably have to be shov^eled 

 out. If there are any depressions anywhere in 

 the plot, use the dirt that comes out of the 

 streets for filling said depressions. Now stretch 

 your lines from east to west, and shovel out the 

 paths so as to set in the boards that make the 

 sides of the beds. Y'ou will need to take very 

 great pains in this matter. If you do not, you 

 will have trouble. If you have any number of 

 sash on hand. I hope they are all of one exact 

 size. If not, you will have the same trouble a 

 good many of us encountered when we first be- 

 gan to work with the movable-comb bee-hives 

 — having frames and hives of different dimen- 

 sions. If your sash are not all alike, pick out 

 one that is to be your standard, and sooner or 

 later I think you will conclude to make them 

 all of one lengtli if you do not have them all of 

 one width. I have purchased sash made in 

 New Y^ork, Cleveland. Chicago, and other 

 places; and the general tendency seems to be 

 for a sash 6 feet long by 3 feet -t" inches wide; 

 in reckoning, say 33:iX6 feet. Now have the 

 standard sash with you when you lay out your 

 beds; and be sure that the bonrds mentioned 

 above are just far enough apart for sash to catch 

 easily on each board. When my beds were 

 made I exhorted my men to be very careful to 

 have the beds all of the same width; but about 

 as soon as we got to work covering plants, 

 (when a sudden blizzard came up) we founl 

 some of the beds so wide that the sash would 

 drop down on the plants: and one bed was so 

 narrow that the sash lapped enough at both 

 ends to let the frost in where the glass project- 

 ed over the boards. When I called the men 

 who made the beds to account for such a state 

 of affairs, they said they lost the measuring- 

 stick I gave them, and so they had to make 

 another themselves. I asked them where they 

 got the dlinensions'for the stick they made 

 themselves. They said they knew it was right. 

 because they took it from another bed. I asked 

 what bed, and discovered that they 

 had gone to a very poorly made bed 

 — one of the first — where the stakes 

 !iad rotted so the boards were out 

 of place. Now, had they come and 

 informed me that they had lost the 

 measuring-stick I had given them, 

 it would have saved some bitter 

 thoughts and hard feelings, per- 

 haps, on my part. I suppose you 

 have all had experience in just this 

 sort of stupidity. Come to think, 

 I believe you had better be around 

 when your beds are made up. Ev- 

 ery bed should be just like every 

 other bed. and every sash should 

 fit nicely, whether it is moved from 

 one bed to another or not. In our 

 work it constantly occurs that 

 some plants will need protec- 

 tion, while some may not: and every sash in a 

 lot is bound to travel, sooner or later, to every 

 bed in the lot. It is almost as easy, in the out- 

 set, to do things right as wrong. The end-pieces 

 of the beds are simply nailed from one side- 

 piece to the other: I think it is a pretty good 

 idea to have a substantial stake in each corner: 

 then you can cross-nail so as to have the cor- 

 ners strong. If you think it advisable to use a 

 horse for working up the beds, the end-pieces 

 may be left movable: but \\hen your soil is 

 made exceedingly rich with lots of manure and 

 the best materials you can hunt up, I think you 

 will not care to have a horse set his foot on the 

 bed — at least, not verv often. When the soil is 



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