1897 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



197 



zontal process, which I had used for a number 

 of years previously. There was one idea in 

 Keany's method, however, which was worth 

 retaining, and which I have retained, but 

 which I see by your circulars, you have not, 

 and that is the fastening of the wire to nails 

 bent in the shape of hooks instead of sewing 

 through holes in the end-bar. I find that, 

 when sewed, unless great care is taken when 

 scraping propolis from the frames, the wires 

 will be cut. and the work undone; and where 

 one has not machinery for making the holes it 

 will be found easier to drive and bend the nails 

 than to make holes with a punch. I do this 

 work on an anvil, as driving against something 

 solid enables me to sink the nailheads into the 

 wood. I use nails J^' inch longer than the 

 thickness of the end-bar. By a tap from the 

 hammer they are bent over, and, after the 

 wires are in place, another tap sinks the pro- 

 jecting points into the wood, and the wires are 

 a fixture. 



[We very much prefer shavings in place of 

 stovewood; but some people have an idea that 

 a smoker is not good for much unless it will 

 burn stovewood. Our Cornell will burn hard 

 fuel as well as any. 



It is a pretty big margin between the price of 

 your honey in California and the price as it is 

 about to leave New York. Would it not be well 

 for the California Exchange to seek to find its 

 own British markets rather than to pay some 

 one else a pretty big salvage for doing the same 

 business? 



After we had tried the Keeney wiring for a 

 season we found the same difficulty you report. 

 We then took up horizontal wiring, and have 

 been using it ever since, and have as pretty a 

 lot of combs as you ever saw.— Ed.J 



PETTIT'S SYSTEM OF TAKING COMB HONEY, 

 AGAIN. 



HOW TO GET THE BEES TO FILL OUT THE OUT- 

 SIDE SECTIONS. 



By S. T. Pettit. 



I notice that you, on page 53, have mixed up 

 my system of taking comb honey with Mr. Dan- 

 zenbaker's system, and that you have come to 

 the conclusion that the results will be practic- 

 ally the same. But I think quite differently. 

 Mr. Danzenbaker's reversible bottom -board (I 

 wish you would let me say "floor" instead of 

 bottom-board) gives an entrance of one inch 

 high only, and the same elevation is kept up 

 all the way to the rear end of the hive. My 

 system gives an entrance 1% in. high, and the 

 bottom bars at the rear end are only ^ to X in. 

 from the floor. 



Now, there are obvious reasons why the re- 

 sults will not be the same in the two systems. 

 Let us look at them for a moment. When the 

 bees come in from the fields a few times they 

 learn to realize pretty clearly that, with a l^i- 

 inch entrance, they can not reach the frames 



near the entrance; a lower entrance would en- 

 courage them to keep on trying once in a while. 

 Then, again, when the rear ends of the frames 

 are within about % of an inch of the floor, the 

 bees are induced, or a |)art of them are, to go 

 right on until they can easily catch on to the 

 bottom-bars; so you see this places a lot of 

 them right away back where most needed, the 

 others going up the sides. 



But with Mr. Danzenbaker's equal height 

 from the floor, all the way back, almost all the 

 bees would go up at the sides, or manage to 

 reach the frames some other way; they would 

 not go clear back; and the result would be a 

 greater or less neglect of the rear sections. But 

 in my system, the rear sections are equally well 

 cared for. And, further, I want the rear end 

 of the floor about an inch higher than the front 

 end. That position keeps out the water, and 

 helps the bees to keep their house clean. 



Again, the section super should not be far 

 from level from front to rear. Well, now, we 

 see that the wedges fix these requirements just 

 right also. I may be allowed to point out that 

 there is less work in placing the wedges in po- 

 sition, and removing them, than there is in 

 reversing the floor twice. 



Well, dear Ernest, I beg to say that footnote 

 is my excuse for these comparisons. I have no 

 axes to grind, and no desire to say an unkind 

 word against any one's hive. I believe that re- 

 versible floor is an advantage in giving more 

 roominess and more air, but at the same time I 

 am persuaded that there is a more excellent 

 way. It appears to me just now that so much 

 has been said about the lower arrangements of 

 the hive that there is danger of losing sight of 

 the important feature of giving two bee-spaces 

 at the sides of the supers. S. T. Pettit. 



Belmont, Ont., Can., Jan. 23. 



[I did not mean to convey the impression 

 that your system and Danzenbaker's were iden- 

 tically the same, but I am glad for your further 

 statement in the matter, for it will leave the 

 subject, I am sure, in such shape that there can 

 be no further possible misunderstanding. Mr. 

 Pettit is a careful bee-keeper, and our readers 

 will do well to try his plan.— Ed.] 



WOLF-HUNTING. 



interesting REMINISCENCES OF A BEE-MAN. 



By E. France. 



After living on the frontier in Iowa, trapping 

 and hunting 6 years, I came to Grant Co., Wis. 

 I found pretty good trapping here, so I went at 

 my old tricks again. Beaver were gone, but 

 there were some otter, coon, mink, rats; some 

 wildcats and wolves were quite common. A 

 few years after I came here the county put a 

 boanty of ?4.00 on the wolf. Then the county 

 raised the bounty to ?8.00 to kill a wolf; then 

 the State put on a bounty of $10.00 for wolves, 



