666 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15 



whole has the appearance of a doll's play- 

 house (Fig. 1). This effect is further en- 

 hanced by the feeding-bottle (with perforat- 

 ed cap) which extends down through the 

 roof, and is of the proper length to project 

 far enough to have the aspect of a chimney 

 (Fig. 1). The inventor is in such hearty 

 sympathy with Old Saint Nicholas, and a 

 magazine of that name so full of good 

 things for the young folks, that it seems 

 eminently fitting that the honey-bees should 

 get their presents of sweetness— a la Saint 

 Nick— down the chimney! 



The house-like appearance is further in- 

 creased by a neat label on the gable end, in 

 the place usually occupied by the attic win- 

 dow. The words on this label are, 



THE PEARL AGNES BEE-HIVE 



DESIGNED liY 



EDWARD F. BIGELOW. STAMFORD, CT. 



MANUFACTrRED HY 



THE A. I. ROOT COMPANY, MEDINA, OHIO 



The door is a swinging wire screen, so that 

 the entrance may be easily closed when the 

 hive is to be carried from place to place for 

 observation or experiment, and when the 

 professional bee-keeper desires to take it to 

 an outdoor apiary as an enlarged nucleus for 

 breeding purposes. 



In the invention of this hive I have had in 

 mind several purposes. 



1. To supply the educator with an inex- 

 pensive, attractive miniature hive, all com- 

 plete with comb and colony by the manufac- 

 turers or by a large apiary. For demon- 

 stration in the yard it prevents the disturb- 

 ance of a full-sized working colony. For 

 the schoolroom it can be easily carried, taken 

 apart, and put together, and yet it shows in 

 miniature every thing that could be shown 

 by a large hive, which it would be difficult 

 or impossible to take into the schoolroom. 



2. For the young folks a hive that will 

 give them a start in the fascinating work of 

 bee-keeping and observation, at a minimum 

 of cost. To the large apiarist it is what the 

 flower-bed or school-garden is to general 

 horticulture or to agriculture. It is a sam- 

 ple. It shows the thing and gives the pleas- 

 ure on a small, inexpensive, and simple scale. 

 In floriculture or in vegetable gardening the 

 child enjoys the small bed more than he 

 would do if obliged to cultivate an acre, or 

 even a market-wagon full of lettuce or rad- 

 ishes or popcorn. But before the coming of 

 the Pearl Agnes hive there was nothing for 

 the interested boy in which to keep a colony, 

 except the regular hive used by the large 

 apiary, which often contains a thousand col- 

 onies. This hive is, then, for the young 

 folks a play- apiary, as well as a means of 

 nature study. 



3. For the commercial apiarist this Pearl 

 Agnes hive is better in some respects than 

 the usual ' ' baby nucleus ' ' for mating, be- 

 cause "the nucleus" is too small for that 

 purpose, except with close and continued 'at- 

 tention. It is a hive to be kept especially 



for exhibition to visiting friends. This is 

 better and easier than to disturb one of the 

 regular colonies by taking it out. It may 

 also become a source of income if it be pur- 

 chased empty from the manufacturers, and 

 filled with a complete colony and supplied to 

 nearby teachers. As previously explained, 

 the supplying of the hive thus filled would 

 be equivalent, in number of bees and quan- 

 tity of comb, to five- sixths of a two- frame 

 nucleus. Simply put six of these section 

 frames into two full frames, and fill ihe 

 Pearl Agnes hive with five of these frames. 

 But, better than all this, perhaps, to the 

 professional apiarist, it solves the problem 

 of plenty of queens in early spring, when 

 queens are not only the most valuable but 

 the rarest. Queens are most easily obtain- 

 ed in the latter part of summer or in early 

 autumn. They are most needed in ihe 

 spring. A ten-frame hive fitted with thirty 

 of these large sections may be divided into 

 six Pearl Agnes hives, and thus five extra 

 queens for that one hive carried through the 

 winter. In early spring all the thirty frames 

 may be put back into the ten- frame hive, 

 and there will then be five extra queens to 

 be used when queens are queens. 



The first Pearl Agnes hive was roughly 

 made last autumn from my drawings and 

 specifications, and was placed in the hands 

 of my esteemed friend and honored fellow- 

 townsman Mr. L. C. Root, who is well known 

 as the author of "Practical Bee-keeping," 

 and an apiarist with "an experience of almost 

 half a century conducting apiaries of the 

 largest size, and^, he is still an enthusiast 

 with many colonies. He reports at the pres 

 ent writing (last week in March) that the 

 bees have wintered astonishingly well (in- 

 doors) in this Pearl Agnes hive. I am in 

 debted to him for the suggestion in regard 

 to the possession of plenty of queens in ear- 

 ly spring. 



4. To the experimental apiarist, the ad- 

 vantages of the hive are so many and so im- 

 portant that I prefer to defer even sugges- 

 tion in reference to them till later, when I 

 may be able to announce and to illustrate 

 some of the things that have been done, 

 rather than not to predict what may be ac- 

 complished. I will merely advise the reader 

 to procure one or more of these hives; and 

 my assurance is that, if he will handle them, 

 study them, and dream about them as much 

 as has the inventor, some of the suggestions 

 will come to him spontaneously, and thus 

 give him all the charm and pleasure of origi- 

 nal discovery. The results of such discover- 

 ies may add much of value to the apiarist as 

 well as to the scientist. It would be, you 

 know, difficult to play a game of chess 

 through all its entrancing situations if the 

 men were of full size. One can often imag- 

 ine and theorize better in miniature, better 

 with a plan than with the completed house, 

 better with a map than with the country it- 

 self. Perhaps these advantages will be 

 yours if you become an experimental apiarist 

 with the Pearl Agnes hive. 



It is not for me within the province of this 



