1892 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



705 



\\if iiinv swarm. Of i'onrst>, soino he(>s will cdii- 

 tiiHii' passiiiii tliriiinili the lioiicy-board to the 

 old liivc. This is all the niaiiipiilation neces- 

 sary for from 7 to 14 days, wlicii tlio old hivi' 

 must be n'moved to a new stand, to pivo the 

 younji qni'iMi a oiianro to lly. This docs away 

 with my licc-cscapc mcthoil of strcngthcniiifr 

 the swarm. 1 pet liooming swarms: and if the 

 snrpliis cases are chanyed to the new hives, the 

 hees will kec^p right aioni: at worl< in them, if 

 any honl'y is coming in. Ifoiu^ is present when 

 the bees swarm, tlio sqnarc stick can be placed, 

 to cut otT the direct entrance, while the swarm 

 is ont. and thns gel all th(> swarm at once. The 

 cnt will fairly show my device: and 1 want to 

 say that no patent will he applied for on it. and 

 all bee-keepers are welcome to whatever rights 

 I niav have in the invention. 



a swarm and will not necessarily reqniro the at- 

 tention of an a|)iarist for .several days. A hiver 

 is not strictly antomatic unless it does this.] 



DIHBERX'S NEW SEI.F-HIVKIi. 



One error, in connection with the self-hiver, 

 into which many seem to have fallen. I wish to 

 correct: that is, about swarms doubling up 

 when several issue about the same time. From 

 an experience of three years, with more than 

 100 hives each season, I do not recall a single 

 case where swarms doubled up unless a (pieen 

 was out somehow. June -jsth I had five swarms 

 in the air at once, and each quietly returned to 

 its own hive. A numbei- of times I had two 

 and three out at once, always with the same 

 result. There may be exceptions, but I am 

 satisfied the rule is, that swarms wWtout ([ueens 

 will not douhh? up by going to a strange hive. 

 Anothei- error is the idea that the hiver will be 

 useful only in small out-apiaries. I claim that 

 it is just the tiling for all kinds of apiaries, from 

 the mechanic's or farmer's of a few hives, who 

 is away all day at his woik, to the bee-master 

 with hundreds of colonies and half a dozen out- 

 apiaiies. ('. H. Dihijehn. 



Milan. 111. 



[So far as we can gatlier from our correspond- 

 ent's article above, the Pratt automatic hiver 

 works successfully, his only objection to it be- 

 ing the lifting of the upper story off from the 

 bottom-board. Mr. Pratt's original self-hiver 

 obviaK's this ditVicully — that is. the hives are 

 placed one in front of the other, on the same 

 plan as illustrated above. Mr. Dibbern's ar- 

 rangement, however, differs from F'ratt's in 

 that it providi'S for the egress of the drones, and 

 is so constructed as to run the quecm up into the 

 perforated -zinc apartment in front of the en- 

 trance, liut I'ratt's tiering-up hivi'r is simpler 

 than the horizontal plan, and hence we prefer 

 it. The lifting of the upper story is no great 

 objection. In the production of honey we nev- 

 ei- object to the lifting of heavy supers. The 

 difficulty that you found with the Alley hiver 

 was also the experic^nce of Dr. Miller, as you re- 

 member. We quite agree with you that Alley's 

 device is not a self-hiver. but simply a device to 

 catch a swarm in an empty box, to be hived aft- 

 erward by an attendant. "Swarm-catcher" 

 would be" a good name for it. The principal 

 feature of the Pratt device, and which we think 

 would be true of yours also, is, that it will hive 



CAN "WE HAVE A STANDARD SIZE OF SEC- 

 TION T 



DK. .MII-LKK REVIEW^S THE M.\TTEH. 



That wide-awake Frenchman. C. P. Dadant. 

 put me down on the Albany prograrh to open 

 the discussion aliout the size; of sections, with- 

 out asking vvh(>ther I knew or cared any thing 

 about it. It so happened that I did feel some- 

 what interested in it, and studying the matter 

 up a little has naturally increased that interest. 

 G Before I forget it I wish to refer to that part 

 of my paper at Albany which left the erroneous 

 impression that I opposed the \% section on ac- 

 count of its weighing less than a pound. It is 

 probably well known that " under-weight" sec- 

 tions are quite generally preferred. Whatever 

 other reason theic may be for tlieir preference, 

 it is unfortunately true that, in loo many cases, 

 they are preferred, because, going under the 

 general name of "■ pound sections.'' lhe.se " un- 

 der- weights" can be sold for the price of a full 

 pound. How general this system of cheating is, 

 I do not know. I do know that it is practiced 

 by some of the most prominent and popular gro- 

 cers in one of our lai-g^st cities. Thei'e issiu^h ir- 

 regularity in the weight of sections of the same 

 'size, it would seem the best way to sell every sec- 

 lion by actual weight. But so long as that is 

 not done, it is well to do every thing possible to 

 prevent a section from being sold for more than 

 its true weight. A 414x414x1^ comes so near to 

 averaging a pound that many of them dg weigh 

 a pound each, and this gives a tietter chance for 

 all to be sold, without weighing, for a full pound 

 each. Now. I am glad to come down to a size 

 so small that ((/? will be less than a pound: for 

 in that case the lack of weight would be more 

 noticeable. If each section should weigh only 

 half a pound it would not be possible to sell it 

 for a full iiound; and, on the same principle, the 

 lighter it is, the less danger of selling as a full 

 pound. For the.se I'easons I decidedly prefer a 

 1%' section to anything larger. 



An esteemed friend has called my attention to 

 the fact thatdifferences in the width of sections 

 do not make so much trouble as differences in 

 the other dimensions. That is. if all sections 

 were. say. 4'4x4i4 there would not be so much 

 change of nuichinery needed to make all differ- 

 ent widths from 1 to 2 inches as to change the 

 4'4 to4}'.(, .5, etc.; so if we could reach a stan- 

 dard as to height and length it would be quite 

 a gain. 



Now, I am glad to say that I believe we have 

 reached a standard for the two dimensions. A 

 table of the different sizes of sections made in a 

 year by one of the large manufacturing con- 

 cerns has been kindly submitted to me, and I 

 tind that about 08 per cent of all are \li square. 

 Surely that is a sufficiently large number to 

 justify its being called standard, especially as 

 the odd sizes are hopelessly divided up into .5;i 

 different kinds, and among these 52 kinds the 

 most formidable rival of the 4H (AH square) 

 reaches onlv a little more than one-tenth of the 

 odd sizes. "It is noticeable that the odd sizes 

 run larger than AU square, the two largest be- 

 ing (ixf) and 8.\4J^. 



On page 19 the statement is made, that, at 

 Albany, the commission men seemed to prefer 

 larger and thinner coml)s. thus favoring ^4 

 square. Let me implore the friends who favor 

 this last size, to do a little considering. It is 

 only H inch larger in height and length than 



