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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



December, 1921 



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A NEGLECTED CONVENIENCE 



The Hanson Ventilator Is Not Often Mentioned, 

 tho Inexpensive and Useful 



In the Beekeepers' Eeview for 1911, on 

 page 175, is an article by E. F. Atwater in 

 which the Hanson ventilator is mentioned 

 and a cut shown, but nowhere else in bee 

 literature is it mentioned so far as I know, 

 yet those who use it would not willingly 

 abandon it and have found it convenient in 

 so many ways that they wonder why it has 

 not come into general use. 



It is placed about the middle of the front 

 of each super and hive-body and is esi^ecial- 

 ly adapted to the needs of extracted-honey 

 producers. It is made of galvanized iron, 

 as shown in the accompanying drawing, the 

 hole being 1% or 1% inches in diameter. 

 The long edges of the part which is fas- 

 tened to the hive are folded over for 3/16 

 of an inch to form a groove for the slide 

 which closes the hole or for a bit of screen 



31^ 





The Hanson ventilator, made of galvanized iron and 

 tacked over a l^/i-inch hole in end of hive-body. 



wire-cloth or of queen-excluding zinc. Do 

 not make the mistake of painting over the 

 ventilator when repainting a hive, as it will 

 interfere with the free action of the slide. 



This ventilator is being used considerably 

 thru the West, and the principle of a hole 

 in the super has long been used in the East; 

 but when wanted closed, the closing has 

 usually been done with a bit of section 

 tacked on, which is far from satisfactory. 

 Those Hanson ventilators made for me cost 

 two cents each, being made by the local tin- 

 ner from scrap stuff during spare time, but 

 they surely could be included with the hive 

 as it comes from the supply dealers without 

 appreciable additional cost. Those who 

 know its advantages feel that supply manu- 

 facturers would be conferring a boon on the 

 industry if every Langstroth super should 

 be equipped with a Hanson ventilator. 



We all know how well the bees like to use 

 an auger hole for an entrance, and this ven- 

 tilator provides just that thing, with the re- 

 sult that many of the field bees will use 

 this entrance to one of the supers in pref- 

 erence to the regular entrance, thus remov- 



ing the fear anyone may have of a queen- 

 excluder being a honey-excluder, as a great 

 part of the nectar carried in does not go into 

 the brood-chamber, but directly into the 

 super where it is wanted and so never has 

 to be carried up thru the excluder at all. 



On hot days and evenings when bees hang 

 out at the entrance in great bunches, it is 

 only a few minutes ' work to open the slides 

 in the Hanson ventilator, and it makes the 

 beekeeper happy to see the little fellows 

 rush inside and get busy where they ought 

 to be. In ten minutes the front of the hive 

 is often cleared. Then, if less ventilation 

 is wanted, the bees just form a ring around 

 the edges of that auger hole and regulate 

 the A-entilation to suit themselves; and if 

 the beekeeper is absent or neglectful, and 

 cold weather comes on in the fall with the 

 slides still open, a little bunch of bees will 

 plug up that hole solidly, even becoming 

 detached from the cluster, staying there 

 even when they are too chilled to move 

 freely. 



Another use is in the making of increase 

 and in having queens mated from the upper 

 story. When colonies are strong and the 

 time is right, and you want to take brood 

 from the brood-chamber, put the queen be- 

 low the excluder on combs or foundation or 

 starters as the case may be, then the storage 

 supers on top of the excluder, with another 

 excluder above the storage supers, and on 

 top of this second excluder place the super 

 of brood with the Hanson ventilator open 

 or partly open and turned to the rear. Then 

 when you see, anywhere in the apiary a 

 Hanson ventilator on the rear of a super, 

 you know at once what is going on there, 

 and if you give a ripe queen-cell, there will 

 be a good colony there to set off on a new 

 stand within a few weeks. If no increase is 

 wanted, simply kill the old queen and put 

 the top brood-chamber with the young queen 

 in it down on the bottom-board under the 

 old brood-chamber and the hive is requeened 

 without any trouble. This is an easy method 

 of swarm control, and the Hanson ventila- 

 tor adds to the ease of doing it. 



The ventilator may be used for the en- 

 trance to the brood-chamber in a nucleus, 

 closing the regular entrance, as a round hole 

 is easily defended or the slide may be closed 

 so as to admit only one bee at a time. In 

 making nuclei, it is easy to slip in a piece of 

 wire cloth closing the regular entrance as 

 well as the ventilator; then make the nuclei 

 and place them whore wanted, with no dan- 

 ger of suffocation. Then when you wish, 

 just open the ventilator enough to allow a 

 bee to pass, and leave the wire cloth closing 

 the entrance. When you wish to move to 

 another location, just close the slide, and 



