916 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



uniform weight, selling by the piece will be 

 feasible. 



FENCES OF VARIOUS CONSTRUCTION. 



When the subject of fences came up a year 

 ago, inventive genius went to work immedi- 

 ately to devise fences of other construction. 

 Some of them were good, some indifferent, 

 and some of them decidedly bad. I will not 

 attempt to show all the different st3-les, but 

 only some of the best. 



The first one is a fence made by J. E. Crane, 

 and, I believe, patented by him. Instead of 

 having cross-cleats, pegs y'z inch wide and y% 

 inch thick pierce each slat at just the right in- 

 tervals to come opposite the uprights in the 

 sections. We illustrated this fence some little 

 time ago, but for convenience we reproduce it. 



The object of these pegs is to afford not 



1 . n. 



I "^ °^ ^ ^— I 



Fig. 6. 



only communication from section to section 

 crosswise of the super, but from section to sec- 

 tion Ie7igthwise of it. The pegs stick out just 

 i^j inch be>ond each slat, and it is probable 

 that the bees would not fill the spaces between 

 the pegs with propolis as they do the spaces 

 over the top and under the bottom of the 

 cleats of the fence shown in Fig. 4. 



I think Mr. Crane wrote me that he was 

 well pleased with the results secured by this 

 fence. The only objection to it is that it is 

 not as strong as those which are bound by 

 transverse cleats shown in the other figures. 



THE WOODEN-BUTTON FENCE. 



Shortly after this, some inventive genius, 

 simultaneously with ourselves, got up a fence 

 like those shown in Fig. 7 below. The princi- 

 ple is much like that of Mr. Crane's ; but the 

 spacers, instead of piercing the slats, are held 

 securely between them. The spacers them- 



selves are little square blocks -f^^ inch thick, 

 with a groove on each side about yi inch deep, 

 and Va wide. These are slipped in between 

 the slats while the fence is being put together, 

 and are held in position by means of glue. 



THE HYDE-SCHOIvI. SEPARATOR. 

 This is a form of fence or separator that em- 

 bodies the principle of both the fence and the 



old-style separator ; and, except in the point 

 of its construction, it would make an excellent 

 separator. Well, here is what Mr. Hyde has 

 to say about it : 



THE HYDE-SCHOLL SLOTTED SEPARATORS AND 

 SURPI^US ARRANGEMENTS. 



[I will explain that Mr. Hyde sent us sam- 

 ples of his separator. They were made out of 

 the ordinary thin sawed separator stuff that 

 we use on old-stj'le sections for '97 supers, 

 with this difference, that the style shown in 

 Fig. 8 was slotted out with transverse and 

 longitudinal openings as illustrated. The 

 style shown in Fig. 9 is the same thing, but 

 cleated in the manner shown. 



Mr. Hyde asked for suggestions and criti- 

 cisms, and I replied, stating that the most 

 serious objection in my mind was the frailty 

 of a separator of this kind, and that removing 

 the same when stuck up with bee-glue, from 

 a super filled with honey, would be liable to 

 break a good man}- , as there was nothing but 

 the strength of the grain to hold them togeth- 

 er. Mr. Hyde's article, describing this sepa- 

 rator and replying to my criticisms, is as fol- 

 lows :] 



We have two separators on the free-com- 

 munication principle — one for the old-style 

 supers and one for the plain section. They 

 are designated Nos. 1 and 2. I will describe 

 No. 1 first. 



We start with an ordinary plain separator, 

 such as was furnished with the Dovetailed 

 hive before 1898. This separator is then 

 slotted out, making sixteen openings of four 

 divisions, as shown on the left of the cut. 

 Each of these slots is -i\ x 2>^. Just between 

 each division is an upright slot ^ x 3. These 



Fig. 8. 



Fig. 9. 



slots come opposite the upright edges of the 

 sections. 



Thus made they are used in connection with 

 open-all-around (or open-four-sides) sections, 

 affording free communication in every direc- 

 tion; viz., from row to row, from section to 

 section in each row, and diagonally opposite, 

 as can be readily seen from an examination of 

 the separator and section shown on the left of 



