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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



Although a little out of my beat, I make a 

 few extracts here relative to the Leahy Mfg. 

 Co., Higginsville, Mo. I get my information 

 from the Advance, of that place : 



In 1883 R. B. Eeahy, then a struggling day laborer, 

 made his appearance in this city, and for a time found 

 employment doing odd jobs for sevcal of our oldest 

 citizens. Soon after his arrival here he opened a little 

 wood-shop and began his life's work, that of building 

 bee-hives and kindred supplies. His largest and most 

 expensive piece of machinery at that time was a foot- 

 power saw. With this he worked early and late, and 

 by severe perseverance he added to his plant, little by 

 little, until he was so fixed that his work and output 

 attracted some little attention. 



In 1890 he started the erection of his present plant, 

 and, being short of finances, succeeded in interesting 

 John J., Jas. E.. F. M., and E. B. Gladish sufficiently 

 to form a stock company, of which he retained a half 

 interest. This stock company was organized under 

 the name of The I_,eahv Manufacturing Company, 

 with a paid-up capital of $8000. R B. Leahy was ap- 

 pointed general manager and treasurer, and Ed. B. 

 Gladish, general foreman of the shops. The business 

 has been continuously under the same management 

 since, and the present business is a sufficient proof 

 that it has prospered. 



Eate last fall it became necessary to again enlarge 

 the plant, and a new brick addition was built, which, 

 with the new and improved machinery added at that 

 time, doubled the capacity of the plant. They now 

 occupy a two-story brick building, 54x130 feet, thor- 

 oughly equipped up stairs and down with the best im- 

 proved machinery. In addition to the main building 

 they have several warehouses, their waxroom and 

 tin-shops being under separate cover. 



In the busiest season, which is now on, the plant is 

 run day and night, and from 35 to 40 men and boys are 

 employed during this period. That this factory is a 

 great boom to labor has been duly demonstrated, over 

 $10,000 being paid out here last year for labor alone. 

 Sixty-five carloads of material was consumed in the 

 manufacture of goods sold last year, which amounted 

 to over 130,000. 



DADANT-QUINBY HIVES VS. TWO AND THREE 

 STORY EIGHT-FRAME LANGSTROTH. 



Arguments in Favor of the Former, by a User of 



the Dadant Hive; the Editor Challenged; 



the Challenge Accepted. 



BY A. N. DRAPER. 



Mr. E. R. Root: — I have just received your 

 April 1st issue. In your footnotes under Mr. 

 Dadant's article, page 259, I find these words : 

 ' ' But I get a good deal of solid comfort out of 

 the notion, that almost amounts to conviction, 

 that two eight-frame hives will accomplish the 

 same results," etc. As I have had a good deal 

 of experience along this line, perhaps it will 

 not be uninteresting to you at this time. 



In 1889 I had a little over 200 hives of bees 

 that I was running for extracted honey. I had 

 them in eight-frame Simplicity hives, with an 

 average of about three bodies to the hive con- 

 taining 24 Simplicity frames. I wintered them 

 in one and two stories. December 10, 11, and 

 12, 1889, I attended the State Horticultural 

 Society's meeting at Hamilton, and, of course, 

 I visited the Dadants They had from 70 to 80 

 barrels of honey on hand of that year's crop ; 

 in fact, the whole basement of their barn was 



filled with barrels full of extracted honey, as 

 they had no other building large enough to 

 hold their crop of honey. Their crop at that 

 time was worth over $4000 cash. At that time 

 I had my second attack of bee-fever, and I 

 took a serious relapse. Their bees were all 

 packed in leaves for the winter, and I had a 

 good opportunity to see how it was done. I 

 then and there bought me a Barnes foot-power 

 saw, and that winter I made up over 200 of 

 those large hives. 



You will see on p. 151, Art. 306, Langstroth 

 Revised, as follows: "The Langstroth-Sim- 

 plicity frame is long enough, but hardly deep 

 enough. The Quinby frame is deep enough, 

 but would be better if a little shorter." In 

 Art. 397 they say : " We would counsel begin- 

 ners to use a frame as long as the standard 

 Langstroth, and as deep as the Quinby." 



Ten years have gone by. Some of the win- 

 ters 'I had over 400 colonies. I have packed 

 leaves entirely around two-story eight-frame 

 hives, with the exception of the south end. 

 Kindly permit me to remark, that, could you 

 have been here and seen the difference be- 

 tween the large hives and the two eight-frame 

 hives, your notion of " solid comfort " would 

 have given way to feelings of supreme disgust. 

 So thoroughly dissatisfied with them I became 

 that I have sold off nearly all of my eight- 

 frame hives. 



I will make this proposition to you : Make 

 thirty or forty of your ten-frame hives with 

 the brood-frames 2*4 inches deeper than your 

 regular size, and the brood-chamber that much 

 deeper to receive them. All the rest of your 

 fixtures are to be just as for a regular ten- 

 frame hive. Fill them up with bees for one of 

 your out-apiaries ; pack them warm for win- 

 ter and spring. If, after three years' experi- 

 ence with them, you don't find them to give 

 you more solid comfort than any other style of 

 brood-chamber you have ever tried, for the 

 production of either comb or extracted honey, 

 kindly send me a bill for whatever the expense 

 of the experiment may be, and I will send you 

 a check for the amount. Your Hoffman frame 

 will overcome the difficulty of the bottoms of 

 the frames swinging together. As I under- 

 stand it, the swinging-together of the lower 

 parts of the frames was always considered the 

 main objection to the deep frame. 



The Hoffman frame will be superior to any 

 the Dadants have used. See their spacing- 

 wire in their book, p. 168, Art. 347. In prac- 

 tice, that spacing-wire is a very serious objec- 

 tion that the Hoffman frame would overcome. 

 I have thought of ordering one or two hun- 

 dred of these hives, but have had poor seasons 

 and too much other business on hand. 



The fact is, in actual practice this extra 2*4 

 inches is added right through the middle of 

 the brood-nest, where it is spread to its widest 

 extent, and the two other frames are also add- 

 ed right in the middle of the brood-nest. If 

 you wish to see bees outstrip any thing you 

 have ever seen in the way of raising brood 

 during March, April, and May, try this. I 

 can't see any thing else in the way of your 

 trying this experiment except your dislike of 

 having a different-sized frame. Your regular 



