January, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



15 



at Asheville, N. C, his main bee operations 

 are confined to South Carolina and Porto 

 Rico. This simply means that his yards are 

 located thousands of miles apart. It is a 

 big job to handle yards all within a range 

 of a hundred miles; but it is a vastly big- 



Fig. 5. — Mr. Warner smoking and drumming bees 

 from a box-hive into a modern hive. 



ger job to manage heliiei's and oversee 

 yards scattered all the way from North 

 Carolina to Porto Rico. Mr. Warner is not 

 only a first-class beekeeper, but he is also 

 a business man — not one of the kind tiiat 

 splits a penny or drives a sliarp bargain, 

 but one who studies the times, and par- 

 ticularly the markets. While he was born 

 in the United States he has spent a large 

 part of his life in Porto Rico. He speaks 

 Spanish fluently, and one of his best yard 

 men, Mr. Rodriguez, is a native Porto 

 Rican. 



Uses the 13-Frame Hive. 

 We have heard a great deal about large 

 hives, especially the thirteen-frame ones. I 



Fig. b. — After the bees are drummed out the combs 

 are cut out; but only brood inserted in the frames. 



was not a little surprised to find that our 

 friend is a user of this big hive, and a 

 strong advocate of not only strong colonies 

 but also large brood-chambers. When we 

 went thru his apiaries it was easy to see 

 why he was successful, because he had colo- 

 nies big enough so that they were ready to 

 do a rushing business when the honey flow 

 began. 



I took a number of photos of Mr. Warner 

 in action. The legend under each of the pic- 

 tures will explain. 



His Plan of "Drumming Out." 



Mr. Warner has a manner of drumming 

 the bees from a "gum" laid on its side 

 into a movaV)lc-framo hivo, on the plan il- 

 lustrated in Fig. 5, which shows him in the 

 act of doing this trick of the trade, and it 

 is not so very difficult either. After the 

 bees are drummed out the brood is cut out 

 and tran.sferrod to regular frames. The rest 

 of the space is then filled out with frames 

 of foundation. I wish to call your atten- 

 tion particularly to the position of Mr. 

 Warner's smoker in his right hand as seen 

 in Fig. 5. Before he begins a job of drum- 

 ming he bores a %-inch hole near the top 

 of the ' * gum ' ' 

 or box hive- 

 It is the n 

 laid on its 

 side with the 

 open bottom 

 placed as 

 close as )>os- 

 sible to the 

 e n t r a nee of 

 one of his 

 r e g u 1 ar 13- 

 f rame hives 

 c o n t a ining 

 f r a m e s of 

 f o u ndation. 

 With his 

 smoker he 

 blows vol- 

 u m e s of 

 smoke into 

 the hole be- 

 f o r e m en- 

 tioned, and 

 at the same 

 time keeps uj) a vigorous drumming with a 

 liammer as shown. 



Mr. Warner likes this manner better be- 

 cause it is less trouble to place the old log 

 gum and the modern hive on the same level 



h"\'^. 



7. — SoniPi of those old 

 ;uins" have a super or . 

 surplus department. • 



Fig. 8. — One of Warner's South Caroliua npiarics. 



than it is to place one on top of the other. 

 I watched him drum out a number of colo- 

 nies in this way, and it appeared to me 

 that they would run in on a horizontal 

 plane as well as they would vertically into 

 a box placed on top. After practically all 



