58 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15. 



believe my eyes I sat in this water up to my 

 chin, after which I was requested to stand 

 under a spray that was hot to stait on, and 

 cooled off g;radually. 



Near Clifton Springs is the home of Mr. W. 

 F. Marks, Chapinville, N. Y., and with my 

 bicycle I started off to find my bee-keeping 

 friend. Mr. Marks, as our readers may 

 already know, is one of the bee keepers who 

 has so earnestly championed Apis dorsaia. 

 He is the leading bee-keeper of his vicinity; 

 and if I was ever convinced of that fact it was 

 when I was inquiring the way to Mr. Marks' 

 home. First 1 asked for Chapinville. No- 

 body seemed to know where that was. Final- 

 ly I'happened to mention to one person that I 

 wished to find W. F. Marks. Why, yes, he 

 knew the man, and then directed me on the 

 route. But I missed my way, of course ; but 

 from that time on I inquired for Mr. Marks, 

 without reference to town or any thing else ; 

 and although I was sometimes seven or eight 

 miles away, everybody kntw W. F. Marks. 

 Why ! he was the bee-man. 



In the course of an hour I found myself in 

 front of his beauuful residence, the lawn nice- 

 ly mowed, and every thing kept up in modern 

 style. Fortunately enough, INIr. Marks was 

 at home ; and although he and I had in the 

 past differed on certain policies, he welcomed 

 me most cordiallv. 



THE MARKS -HOFFMAN METAI« - SPACED 

 FRAME. 



Mr. Marks, as I found, has done some hard 

 work in trving to secure the enactment of a 

 law forbidding the spraying of fruit-trees 

 while they are in blossom. He had almost 

 succeeded ; and although defeated in the first 

 round he is preparing for another, and I have 

 no doubt he will succeed with the next legis- 

 lature. 



Friend M. showed me into his apiary and 

 workshop. I believe there is nothing that 

 interests me more than to look over bee- 

 fixtures ; and in his shop I found something 

 that interested me at once. 



He had used various styles of frames ; and 

 when some years ago I began to talk about 



the advantages of the Hoffman he tried them, 

 but found that, owing to the excessive amount 

 of propolis in his locality, it was not entirely 

 satisfactory. He liked the principle of the 

 Hoffman frame, however ; and to obviate the 

 gluing he used metal projections. The ac- 

 companjing engraving will show the idea. 



The metal spacers are simply pieces of strap 

 iron chopped off in lengths of 'ly^ inches. 

 These strip- of iron are let into saw-cuts on 

 one side of the end-bar. It seemed to me that 

 these little pieces of strap iron would pull out; 

 bat if the stips of ir. n lit ti_yht enough in the 

 saw-cuts. Mr. Claris assured mt- they would 

 hold tlieir position, or at least had done so in 

 his case. The spacers, inst* ad of reaching 

 half way, fill up the whole space between the 

 frames, as shown in the diagram. A, A, at the 

 top of the cut. Friend M. pretVrs to have 

 both on one side of the frame, ra'.her than on 

 each diagonally opposite corner. If I were to 

 use them I think I sh< uld prefer them diag- 

 onally opposite, so they would admit of turn- 

 ing the frames end ("or end in the hive. W^hen 

 the spacers are both on one side, the frame 

 must be put into the hive always the same 

 way to, beer- use it would not do to put the 

 two plain sides of the frame together. 



I wrote to Mr. Marks, asking him to tell in 

 his own words what he thought of this partic- 

 ular frame, and here is what he says : 



Referring to my metal-spacing brood-frames, all 

 hee-keepers are so familiar with self-spacing frames 

 that a description or cut of this frame is undoubtedly 

 all tha' is nece-sary. I have not any thing to say, any 

 more than that they give me perfect satisfaction. I 

 find metal spacers, like the tin rabbet, less liable to 

 be fastened with propolis. These have a 2'2-inch 

 bearing, insuring the uniform and accurate spacing 

 of the frames, both horizontally and verticalh', or, in 

 other w n ds. when ■ he frames are wedged the bottoms 

 and ends will be spaced uniformly, as well a the top- 

 bars : with a narrow spacer the tup-bars will be accu- 

 rate, but are not the bottoms and ends i-ery uncertain, 

 to .say the le .st ? I like the end-bar in any frame the 

 .same width as the top-bar. 



Your .section discussion prompts me to .say, before 

 closing, that, according to my ob.servation, sections 

 with full opening top and bottom are always better 

 filled than those with curved opening. The no-bee- 

 way section, now that you propose putting the sepa- 

 rators together at the facton,-, will, I believe, be quite 

 arenerally adopted. I wish now \ ou would get so:ne 

 hard wood to take the place of bas.swood for sections. 

 I say hard wood, because it is ea.sier to scrape and less 

 liTble to stain. I except basswood, because it should 

 be a crime for bee-ket pers or any one el.se to use such 

 a valuable honev-producer for anv such purpose. 



Chapinville, N. Y. ' W. F. Marks. 



Perhaps some of our readers may wonder 

 why we do not ofTer this as an option in our 

 catalog for 1898. First, we should like to see 

 it tried a little more. Second, it costs a little 

 more than the regular Hoffman ; and whether 

 bee-keepers will be willing to pay the extra 

 difference is something of a question. Again, 

 third, the Boomhower stapled frame seems to 

 ofTer nearly all the advantages of the Marks 

 frame, at much less cost. 



After having a delightful chat I mounted 

 the wheel again and was soon back to Clifton 

 Springs by another and more direct route. 

 Mr. ISIarks had carefully marked out on a 

 piece of paper the several turns I was to take. 

 As I followed his directions implicith- I made 

 the return trip in about half the time it took 

 me to go out. 



