1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



181 



Doctor, you ask about getting bees to clean 

 up unfinished sections. Try placing supers 

 under brood- chaniljers. I have no trouble that 

 ■wa}'. It works nicely in early spring to start 

 up brood. I keep over winter quite a lot for 

 that purpose. I have other points, but this is 

 now much longer than I intended. 



In closing, let nie say that I trust this will 

 not be construed in any sense as being adverse 

 to The A. I. Root Co., for I never had dealings 

 with better people than the Roots, nor have I 

 seen better work than they send out from their 

 factory — it's superb. Their paper also is the 

 cleanest and brightest I read. 1 wonder if 

 their kind endeavors to give all bee-keepers 

 what they want has caused this fence and sec- 

 tion racket — quite likely. If we should pa.ss 

 an occasional letter I will give in detail other 

 points, especially comb honej- and swarming. 



New River Depot, Va , Jan. 20. 



[To the above, Dr. Miller replies:] 



Friend Ranson, the matters discussed in 

 your letter are of such general interest that it 

 may be worth while to take the editor of 

 Gleanings into our confidence and have a 

 triangular conference — especially as he is 

 largely responsible for the changes that you 

 deprecate. I confess that the matter of mak- 

 ing such radical changes is a serious one, to 

 be justified only by something so manifestly 

 better that we can not afford to omit the change. 

 For myself I shall move somewhat cautiously 

 until satisfied that I should gain enough by 

 the change to recoup me for my loss in throw- 

 ing away my present stock of supers to the 

 value of 82.-.0. 



But don't you think that you are a little un- 

 reasonable yourself? Evidently you are in- 

 clined to the belief that we should hold on to 

 our old fixtures, and yet in the same breath 

 you spe3k of changes that you have yourself 

 made, and quite plainly you think that others 

 should make the same changes you have done. 

 So that you are not so much averse to change, 

 providing the change is one that suits yon. 

 Let me tell you wherein I think you are bad. 

 You've been going on all these years using 

 what you thought was a good thing, keeping 

 it all to yourself, until some one tries to reach 

 the same thing in another wa}^; and then, aft- 

 er some have been to the trouble and expense 

 of making the change, you are ready to say 

 what you ought to have said long ago. Bvit 

 perhaps we'd better not quarrel about that 

 now. 



You ask whether the section-holder was any 

 better than the T super. That depends upon 

 who answers the question. The editor and I 

 are not on speaking terms on that question. 

 He thinks the section-holders better, and won- 

 ders wh}' I can't see it. With my knowledge 

 and management of T supers and section- 

 holders, I am very, very sure that the T supers 

 are far and away ahead. And yet it is possi- 

 ble that, if I knew as much as he about the 

 section-holders and their management, 1 might 

 prefer them. And it is just as possible that, 

 if he knew as well as I how to manage T su- 

 pers, he might experience a change of mind. 

 I suspect that he thinks I stand almost alone 



in preferring T supers. Others, like yourself, 

 go on using them without saying any thing, 

 so he doesn't know about them. In some re- 

 spects you are wise in keeping quiet. 



I don't know enough to answer your ques- 

 tion as to whether the tall sections are better. 

 I can hardly say that they look any better to 

 me. But here come witnesses who say they 

 have been using them, and they like them, 

 and, what is more emphatically to the point, 

 they say they can sell them better, and some, 

 at least, say they sell them for a higher price. 

 If only one man said so, or if the followers of 

 one man said so, it might not deserve very 

 much notice ; but the use of tall sections 

 seems to have originated independently in 

 more than one place, and all give the same 

 sort of testimony. If any one has tried the 

 tall sections, and has not found them good, he 

 has at least kept very quiet about it. If they 

 are undeniably an improvement, and are to 

 come into use, it seems a fair question to ask, 

 " Why not give a chance for them in T su- 

 pers?" Possibly the editor thinks the num- 

 ber of T-super men so small it isn't worth 

 while. ( Between you and me I suspect that 

 there are three or four times as many super 

 adherents as he supposes. ) But before we 

 come down on him too hard, we'd better first 

 find out whether he will refuse to grant what 

 we ask. For we must remember that the chief 

 business of supply-manufacturers is to supply 

 demand. Can we agree upon what we want ? 

 If we have a section ^xi^xlT/g it would be too 

 heavy. How would 5x4^x1 ^ do ? That would 

 give us a section very nearly the same weight 

 as a section 4,'4'x4j4:xl J.^. 



Your bottom- board has something in it de- 

 cidedly good; and the fact that the same idea 

 has been quietly used in more than one quar- 

 ter with great satisfaction for years says nuicli 

 in its favor. It does seem boiled-down non- 

 sense to give the whole hive a forward pitch 

 just for the sake of having the same pitch for 

 the bottom-board or floor, when the floor can 

 have its own pitch independently, and leave 

 the hive level, not only from side to side, but 

 from front to rear. Then, too, it gives us the 

 advantage that may be of real value that the 

 bees are forced to make their way up the sides 

 and rear on their way to the supers. By all 

 means let us have the hive level. It certainly 

 seems that we can have truer combs than with 

 a slanting hive. 



If a perfectly level hive vdll do away with 

 the necessity for fences and separators of all 

 kinds, then that's a fourfold reason for level 

 hives. But that seems almost too much to be- 

 lieve. Do you mean to say that, without sep- 

 arators, every one of your sections is built true 

 with no hollowing or bulging ? If you lay a 

 rule across the sections, are there no cases in 

 which the rule would touch the comb ? Or do 

 you merely mean that they will do for a home 

 market, with a chance to get rid of bulgers 

 without any careful packing ? What makes 

 me just a little more careful in inquiring about 

 this is that, years ago, it was claimed that, 

 with Heddon supers, no separators were need- 

 ed. But others who tried the same thing 

 found that separators were needed, and gradu- 



