858 



SOME HIVES 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



lABE BY L= L, LANGSTEOTM STILL IN USE 



BY JOSEPH G. BAIER 



Just to go the boasters one better yet 

 (best yet, I think), let me say this about 

 liives of ancient times, referring to p. 448, 

 June 15. I have several fhat I am sure are 

 over 44 years old; but one in particular is 

 made of the lumber that Rev. L. L. Lang- 

 stroth himself made with his own hands in 

 1851 at Flushing, N. Y. In that year and 

 place you will remember he had the support 

 of Mr. Parsons in his experiments. He ob- 

 tained permission to Italianize all colonies 

 near at hand. In the grounds of the old 

 Flushing Institute, owned by Mr. Elias A. 

 Fairchild and Mr. Allen P. Northrop, the 

 hives were all made Langstroth type by Mr. 



The tree from -whicli the 



is obtained. 



Lang.slrotli personally. These same hives 

 of his old dimensions were in use till 1902 

 — 51 years. 



In 1902 I purchased six or eight of the 

 old colonies. I cut down the old hives to 

 present standard L. dimensions. Be it re- 

 membered Mr. Langstroth's first hives were 

 about two inches longer, about % or 1 inch 

 liigher, and a trifle wider than the present 

 L. hives. One of the hives had his auto- 

 graph and the date, 1851, in pencil on it. 

 But at this moment I do not remember 

 whether it was inside or outside, or just 

 where. I i^ainted my hives very well after 

 rebuilding, and have lost track of which 

 one; but I am still using the same hives with 

 a considerable number of newer ones. Those 

 old hives were almost identical in shape with 

 the dovetailed hive of the present, and had 

 a telescope top. I made most of them of 

 the same type, and still like it best. 



Now whose hives are oldest? It looks 

 like one Baier (pronounced Byer) against 

 another Byer. 



ANCIENT WAX COMBS. 



In the ABC book, I believe, and in 

 Gleanings at times, I think I have read 

 discussions about how long combs can be 

 used. Well, when I started to run the 

 Flushing Institute apiary as the younger 

 enthusiastic assistant of Mr. A. P. Northrop, 

 I transferred a great many combs by cut- 

 ting out the best pieces and wrapping string 

 round and round for temporally suppox't in 

 standard frames. Some of those frames, 

 Mr. Northrop told me, were probably as old 

 as the hives, for he did not " tinker much 

 with what was working all right," as he 

 put it. I have some of those same combs 

 in newer frames. T have had them 18 years. 

 I am sure they were more than that old 

 when I got them in 1896 ; and, though there 

 is no positive evidence of it, I think it a 

 fair presumption that some are probably 

 the same as were used by bees for breeding 

 purposes away back before the Civil War 

 of 1861 — many years before I was born. 



New York City. 



VAMOUS USES WHICH MAY BE MADE OF PROPOLIS 



BY DR. L. A. SIMMON 



It has often occurred to me that few 

 beekeepers know the value of propolis. It 

 is a resinous substance secreted by plants 

 and trees, and gathei'ed by the bees. It is 

 soft when first gathered, so that the bees 



may use it to glaze the combs, to repair 

 breaks, and to stop holes and crevices which 

 are smaller than a bee-space. I have even 

 known them to cover the under surface of 

 a wire screen over a super, rendering it air 



