816 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15. 



all at the bottom, and you will also notice, 

 owing to the absence of bee-ways, that the 

 sections have a phinip nicely filled-out look, 

 such as sections having insets do not have. 



THE REVIEW ON THE NO-BEE-WAY SECTIONS. 

 Since writing the foregoing, the Bee-keep- 

 ers' Review for October has come to hand, 

 and in it I find an editorial that interests me 

 greatly, particularly as it confirms almost ev- 

 ery point that 1 have made in favor of the no- 

 bee-way section. 



SECTIONS WITHOUT BEE-SPACES ; THE LATTER BEING 

 FORMED BY THE SEPARATuRS. 



While ou my way home from the fairs I passed one 

 day at the hospilaule and plea.-ant home of Mr. I,. A. 

 Aspinwall, of Jackson, the man who furnishes an ar- 

 ticle each month for the first page of the Review. In 

 his back yard is au apiaiy that now numbers 50 col- 

 onies. Duiing the past season it has furnished him 

 about 30(A) lbs. of as fine honey as 1 have ever seen. 

 A portion of it was yet stacked" up on the shelves of 

 his honey-ioom. A more even or pel fectly filled lot 

 of sections it would be hard to find. Mr. .\>pinwall 

 has for .'-eveial seasons u.-^ed sections without bee- 

 spaces, thai is, they are the same width all the way 

 aiouno, tne bee-spaces being furnished by metal oh- 

 sets on the tin separators. Iheie are also openings 

 cm in ihe .--.epaiators ju:t opposite the meeting point 

 of each pair of stctions. 1 his gives the bees a freer 

 pa.ssagewav thiough the super, and does much to less- 

 en tiie pop-holes at the comers of the sections. The 

 plump, full, smooth look of sections tilled in this 

 manner, without the one-fourth inch of wood stand- 

 ing up above the comb-suiface, does much to add to 

 the attractiveness of the sections. It is almost impos- 

 sible now to sell the Oid-style of sections to Mr. Aspin- 

 wall's cutomeis. This stj le of section also allows 

 the use of a machine in cleaning oft the propolis, by 

 means of which it can be done very quickly and efl'ec- 

 tuaily. Mr. Aspinv\all u.ses a super of the knock- 

 down style, with thumo-sciews at each end, whereby 

 the secaons can be pressed very closely togetlier, and 

 when the sea.>-on is over these supers can be piled 

 away in very little space ; but i won't steal his thun- 

 der, as he nas promised to lUu-tiate and describe all 

 these things in an early issue of the Review. 



The wonder with me has been that so many 

 of the supply -dealers and bee- journals have 

 been so stupid all these years as nut to see 

 and know that a no-bee-way section is far su- 

 perior to the regulation kind with insets at 

 the lop anti bottom. Why, 1 almost feel my- 

 self like making Bro. Aspinwall a visit to see 

 his honey, and to learn nio.re about his expe- 

 rience with these sections. But as we are 

 promised that he will tell us souielhing about 

 it in the Review, assisted by illustrations, we 

 may all, to a certain extent, take a peep into 

 his apiary. Bro. Hutchinson, I wish you 

 would tell Bro. Aspinwall to hurry up with 

 that article, and at the same time hurry up 

 the Review that will contain it. 



INVENTIONS WHICH ARE IN ADVANCE OF 

 THE TIMES. 

 In line with what A. I. R. said in last issue, 

 page 782, the latest issue of Electricity, a 

 weekly publication devoted to the science in- 

 dicated by its name, relates how one Moses G. 

 Farmer exhibited the first operative electric 

 railroad at Dover, N. H., fifty years ago; and, 

 even prior to that time by some twelve years, 

 a Vermont blacksmith astonished the scien- 

 tific world with the first attempt in that line ; 

 but, as the editor of Electricity very pertinent- 

 ly remarks, " he and Farmer were too far 

 ahead of the time to make much impress upon 

 it ; but during the ten years that have elapsed 



since the installation of the Richmond road 

 and the Philadelphia meeting, the little horse- 

 railroads, converted into electric systems, have 

 become enormous concerns, carrying annually 

 millions of passengers where they had been 

 carrying hundreds." 



With regard to the cleated separators and 

 the no-bee-way section, it would appear that 

 such men as Miles Morton, of Groton, N. Y. ; 

 the late B. Taylor, of Forestville, Minn. ; 

 Oliver Foster, of Grand Junction, Colo.; Mr. 

 L. A. Aspinwall, of Jackson, Mich.; R. C. 

 Aikin, Lovelaiid, Colo., and K. P. Kidder, were 

 ahead of the times, but times were not ready 

 for them. I firmly believe, judging by the 

 correspondence that has come m lately, since 

 I began the agitation of these ideas, that the 

 times are now ripe, and that this cleated sepa- 

 rator and the no-bee-way section will go a long 

 way toward crowding the old-style sections 

 with awkward insets into the background. 

 While it is true the A. I. Root Co. may have 

 an "ax to grind," we propose by every fair 

 and legitimate means to push into popularity 

 these two things — not so much for tlie " filthy 

 lucre " there may be in them, but because they 

 are a real step forward, and, as I believe, will 

 prove to be a real help to the mass of bee- 

 keepers who depend upon bees to a greater or 

 less extent for their bread and butter. While 

 it is true that the pushing of these two things 

 will give the A. 1. Root Co. business in cer- 

 tain lines, it can not tail to help other supply- 

 dealers just in proportion to tlie prominence 

 they place upon these same things that are as 

 free as water, can not be patented, and are old. 



But the thought that we have been all these 

 years without tlie benefit of these two things, 

 when in point of fact we already had them, is 

 zhixost provoking . For years A. 1. R. said he 

 would give a large sum of money for a well 

 of soft water on his grounds. Perhaps the 

 offer was larger because he was sure no such 

 water could be found here in Medina, where 

 the water is notoriously hard. But when, a 

 year ago, a well-driller went a little deeper 

 and cased off the upper vein of hard water, 

 an unlimited amount of very soft water bub- 

 bled to the surface ( with the help of an en- 

 gine) as much as to say, " Good-morning ! I 

 have been waiting here for years for you to 

 let me out and do you good. Why did you 

 not punch a hole througu my prison sooner? " 



THE NO-BEE-WAY SECTION OLD. 



Quite by accident, as I was running over 

 some of our back volumes I ran across an ad- 

 vertisement of G. B. Lewis, of Watertown, 

 Wis., calling attention to the value of no-bee- 

 way sections. This advertisement appears on 

 page 102 for Feb., 1882 — nearly sixteen years 

 ago. Mr. Lewis calls attention briefly to the 

 advantages of such a section; but why bee- 

 keepers did not "catch on" then I can not 

 say, unless it is that they did not know or ap- 

 preciate the value of cleated separators by 

 which alone such sections could be used. 

 Many and many a time we have gone back to 

 first principles in hive-construction ; and it 

 looks as if, in the case of the one-piece section 

 at least, history were about to repeat itself. 



