802 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jqne 15 



trouble in introducing. I think 100 good 

 three-comb nuclei purchased in May, and 

 properly cared for, will furnish enough ex- 

 tracted honey during the season to pay their 

 first cost. 



If not convenient to get your queens in a 

 nucleus, then introduce them into small col- 

 onies that have no uncapped brood, especial- 

 ly if the queen is a valuable one. 



I think queen-breeders are often wrong- 

 fully accused of sending out hybrid queens 

 when the queen they sent was all right; but 

 shortly after she commenced to lay she was 

 superseded by a young one reared from her 

 brood, which was mismated, and the pur- 

 chaser never knew that the queen he bought 

 was killed shortly after she commenced to 

 lay. 



If you have any questions to ask me, 

 please ask them through Gleanings, for I 

 can not take time to answer so many private 

 letters separately. 



Delanson, N. Y,, March 20. 



[I saw these tanks when I visited Mr. 

 Alexander. Two of them were put in a 

 building large enough to receive them and 

 yet give room for a man to get in and 

 around them. The two buildings were very 

 nearly alike, each containing two tanks or 

 what would be a total capacity of 20, 000 

 pounds. To each of these buildings was a 

 conductor pipe running on up grade to the 

 extracting- house in the center of the bee- 

 yard. As is well known perhaps, Mr. Alex- 

 ander extracts just before the bees cap the 

 honey. As I saw it running out of the con- 

 ductor-pipes it was very thick, but to fur- 

 ther evaporate it, it is allowed to stand in 

 these shallow tanks in a small building 

 where the temperature will rise to a high 

 point in mid- summer. This will explain 

 why Mr. Alexander is able to extract with- 

 out allowing the bees to cap the combs. 

 Should any one desire to make a honey-tank 

 of this description he will need to follow 

 carefully the details here given. A long 

 oblong tank of this kind would bulge very 

 badly at the sides unless it were braced se- 

 curely with 2x4's at top and bottom edge 

 and further braced by cross-pieces and iron 

 rods or bolts.— Ed.] 



THE CYRENIUS HIVE-LIFT. 



How to Tip up a Hive for Examination ; Bisul- 

 phide of Carbon vs. Sulphur. 



BY F. GREINER. 



In response to a letter from a New Jersey 

 friend in which he is asking about the best 

 hive for extracting, and the Cyrenius hive- 

 lift, etc. , and in consideration of what was 

 said in regard to the latter device at the 

 late New York State Bee-keepers' meeting 

 in Geneva, I would hereby beg for a Httle 

 space to ventilate these matters. 



To begin with, the Cyrenius hive- lift is a 

 clever device, easily adjusted, and intended 

 to hold together securely the hive and super 



upon it, while the whole is tilted up for ex- 

 amination of the combs from the under side. 

 For illustration and description see Glean- 

 ings, 1905, page 7i4. I find that, when a 

 brood-chamber is filled full of good combs, 

 nearly all the queen- cells are started at the 

 bottoms of the combs. By tilting the hive, 

 not necessarily laying it clear over, we are 

 enabled to see any queen- cells under con- 

 struction when the bees are smoked back a 

 little. If we do not see any cells we may 

 safely conclude that no preparations for 

 swarming have so far been made. My New 

 Jersey friend fears that, with his deep (?) 

 Langstroth frames, the cells may not be 

 built along the lower edge of the combs, 

 and he would, therefore, like a very shallow 

 hive in two sections, somewhat like the 

 Heddon. He proposes a shallow frame of 

 five inches. I am in position to tell him 

 how it works with the five-inch frame hives 

 as well as with Langstroth frame hives and 

 others with a still deeper frame by two 

 inches. I have them all in use, and would 

 say that I have for the past two seasons, 

 with infallible certainty and very little trou- 

 ble, found the colonies which were bent on 

 swarming in any of these hives as easily in 

 one as in the other. I would, therefore, ad- 

 vise my friend not to change from his ten- 

 frame Langstroth hive to the shallow five- 

 inch- deep frame hive nor the Danzenbaker 

 hive— not on that account, particularly as he 

 would be unable, as he says, to sell bees to 

 others in his vicinity— if tney were in other 

 than Langstroth hives. Two shallow- framed 

 hive-bodies as a brood- chamber are some- 

 times an advantage, sometimes they are a 

 great disadvantage. For the production of 

 extracted honey it is extremely doubtful 

 whether a better hive- combination will be 

 found than the ten-frame L. hive with full- 

 frame supers. 



That my friend should be troubled with 

 swarming seems strange. With plenty of 

 storing room in shape of empty combs, a 

 large entrance to his hives, and shade, there 

 should be no swarming with our ordinary 

 bees. If he has Carniolans, then I would 

 advise Italianizing his whole yard as speed- 

 ily as possible. The Carniolan bee is a good 

 one for comb honey, but not so desirable for 

 extracted, while the Italian bee would be 

 hard to beat for the production of extracted 

 honey. 



Right here it might not be out of place to 

 give a pointer on tilting up a hive properly. 

 I have had the fewest mishaps when I pro- 

 ceeded from the rear of the hive. In tilting 

 it up from the front it brings it in danger 

 of slipping off from the bottom- bo^rd unless 

 we take the precaution to move it forward 

 just a little to prevent its slipping. If the 

 hive-body were hinged to the bottom- board 

 at the back it would work well to tip it up 

 from the front; but as this is not the case, 

 and the bottom-board projects in front with 

 the most forms of hives, it will be found 

 much more convenient to tip it up from the 

 back as in Fig. 2. 



In all localities that I am familiar with the 



