912 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



like a common fence or gate, for the sake of 

 brevity we here at the Home of the Honey- 

 bees called it a "fence," in distinction from 

 separator, which latter is, ordinarily, a plain 

 thin piece of veneering or tin that is let down 

 between the several rows of bee-way sections. 



THE FENCE OF 1898. 



Fig. 1. 



The fence that we adopted last season is 

 shown herewith. It was made a good deal 

 after the Morton fence, with these differences : 

 The horizontal slats were narrower, as were 

 also the cross-cleats, or what, we maj' term 

 the " fence -posts, " to carry out the simile. It 

 seemed to us that the slats on the Morton 

 fence were wider than necessary. His were 

 l^s, and we therefore decided to make ours %, 

 because we had quantities of scrap lumber of 

 that thickness that could be utilized for fences, 

 and thus reduce to a great extent the cost of 

 material. Then it seemed to us also that the 

 posts or cross-cleats were too wide. Our 

 friend Mr. Danzenbaker had been trying 

 cleats % inch wide, and he thought them 

 just right. As here were two men of wide 

 experience who seemed to disagree, we decid- 

 ed to strike a "golden mean," and therefore 

 adopted yi inch as the width ; but, as I shall 

 presentl}^ show, there was no golden mean in 

 this case. We should have adopted one or the 

 other extreme. 



Let us consider for a moment why the cross- 

 cleat or fence-post should be either wide or 

 narrow, and why the mean of the extremes 

 would not answer. We will suppose, for in- 

 stance, that we have two supers of plain sec- 

 tions and fences. They are identical, save in 

 one respect — width of cleats. One has cleats 

 3^ inch wide, and the other y^ inch. We will 

 suppose that we are looking down squarely on 

 top of them. To assist the imagination a little 

 our artist made a diagram which shows, not 



I-IG. 2. 



two supers side by side, but two rows of sec- 

 tions. One row has a fence on each side of it, 

 with zvide cleats (B) and the other also has a 

 fence on each side with narrow cleats (b). 

 The wide white spaces indicate a cross-sec- 



tional view of the comb looking down from 

 the top. C C represent the ends or sides of 

 the sections, and B b the cleats. Now, when 

 the ivide cleats are used, the bees will bend the 

 face of the comb honey under the cleat, mak- 

 ing the comb with rounded edges, as shown 

 in the top view. When the cleat is narrow, 

 the face of the honey will be slab-like, and 

 run straight across from one side of the sec- 

 tion to the other. Still again, if the width of 

 the cleat be a medium or a golden mean be- 

 tween the very wide and narrow one, the bees 

 occasionally build the comb up to the corner 

 of the cleat, and then when the fence is re- 

 moved from the super a bleeding edge is left. 

 For this reason the cleat ought to be either as 

 wide as ^i or as narrow as i%, the latter being 

 the width we have adopted. 



To some, the comb shown as in the top with 

 rounded edges, dipping down under the cleat, 

 will present a prettier appearance. To others, 

 a comb that is flat clear across it, clear to the 

 sides of the sections, is handsomer. I have ask- 

 ed for the opinion of a good many, and the no- 

 tion of nearly all seems to favor the last named. 



Fig. 3. 



For that reason we use the narrow cleat this 

 year, while last year we used a cleat that was 

 neither wide nor narrow ; but Mr. Niver and 

 Mr. Morton both claimed that there would 

 be less liability of honey bleeding with a wide 

 cleat than with a narrow one, and this is prob- 

 ably true. But even with the narrow one there 

 is only about one in a hundred that will bleed, 

 and that not enough to make it unsalable. 



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OUR 1898 AND '99 

 FENCES. 



Fig. 1 shows the fence we used last year, 

 and Fig. 3 shows the one we have adopted 

 this season. It is so near like the other that 

 no one would notice the difference unless his 

 attention were called to it. As already stated, 

 cleats are ,% inch wide, instead of )4 inch. As 

 to thickness, they run 13 to 2 inches instead 

 of 12 to 2 inches, as last year ; for you will re- 

 member that our cleats last year were Vd inch 

 thick. There is no particular reason why we 

 should reduce the thickness of cleats except 

 that we thought we should err, if at all, on the 



