1373 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



MY BEE-HOUSE. 



The l)ee-house I am now using was Iniilt 

 30 years ago. I have used it for wintering 

 my l:)ees, with entire satisfaction, during all 

 of" these years. It was built in a permanent 

 manner, and is in a good state of preserva- 

 tion now. While it is not perfect in all the 

 details. I consider it pretty nearly an ideal 

 ))ee-house. 



DETAILS OF CONSTKICTIOX. 



It is entirely above gi'ound, resting upon a 

 foundation wall of masonry. It is .JUXl'2, 

 anil 7 feet high inside, with double walls 12 

 inches thick inside, pai-ked with sawdust. 

 an<l sawdust on the floor overhead, making 

 it pretty nearly fx'ost-proof without the V)ees. 

 It is liow under a painted shingle roof. 

 Where there is much shade I think I should 

 prefer tarred paper or felt rooting. It is 

 covered with |-inch pine lumber, single sur- 

 face, boarded up and down, and liatteued 

 outside and ceiled inside. Tlie lloor is ce- 

 ment. It is divided into three rooms, two 

 of which were designed for winter reposito- 

 ries for the l^ees. A room in the middle be- 

 tween these two is 10 ft. stjuare inside, leav- 



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The upper diayram is the floor plan of the bee- 

 house. T shows the location of the table, and C the 

 cistern. The black squares in the lower diat;-ram 

 represent the hives in the yard. This illustrates 

 also the system of numbering. 



ing the bee-rooms 10x10 feet inside. This 

 middle room was designed for an ante-room 

 to the bee-rooms in winter, and also serves 

 for a ventilating-room through which the 

 bee-rooms may l)e ventilated without admit- 

 ting the outside air directly to the bees. 



This room contains a stove used for vari- 

 ous purposes, and used to be a prominent 

 feature in artitieial heat for the bees when I 

 thought it necessary, and often with favor- 

 able results; but I have abandoned the iise 

 of artificial heat in the bee-room. 



There are two doors to this room, front 

 and l^ack, and one window. All of the win- 

 ilows, of whi(^h there are four in the house, 

 face the bee-yard on the east. They tip on 

 pivots to let out bees that get in by accident 

 or are brought in on the honey. They fast- 

 en at the top with spring stops. 



They are provided with shutters inside to 

 make the rooms dark as well as warmer in 

 winter. Dou])le doors are aUo provided for 



winter, and screens for summer. The rooms 

 are all bee-proof. 



The other rooms, one of which was de- 

 signed for a bee-room exclusively, and has 

 lieen used for little else, has only one window 

 and no outside door. This is the south room. 



The other room is in the north end of the 

 bee-house. It has one outside door and two 

 windows. It was designeil for a store-room 

 and work-shop as well as a bee-room. The 

 comb honey and store combs, surplus empty 

 combs, and' wide frames containing sections 

 ai'e stored overhead, hanging upon light 

 strips between the joists, which were spaced 

 at the right distance apart, especially for 

 this ])urp(>se. 



'I'his method of overhead storage has much 

 to recommend it besides economy of space. 

 The whole stock is accessilile from Ijelow, 

 and can l)e readily inspected in every part. 

 If it becomes necessary to fumigate (and it 

 must sometimes be done), the room can Ije 

 closed and the whole stock treated at once. 

 A long table stands l)efore the windows, up- 

 on which much of the work comes. A cis- 

 tern is one of the indispensalsle conveniences 

 of my l>ee-house. I would have this storage 

 and work room provided with a liberal ex- 

 posure of glass, and at the south end of the 

 house if possible. For the benefit of comb 

 honey I think this is important. I am con- 

 templating suc-h an improvement now in my 

 bee-house. When I had several out-yards 

 the bees were wintered at these yards in cel- 

 lars under dwelling-houses. Some of these 

 cellars were very good ones. I partitioneil 

 the bee-rooms from the rest of the cellar: but 

 with the best conditions I could provide, none 

 ever gave as good results in wintering as the 

 up-grountl bee-house at home. The latter 

 was a distributing-point of supplies for the 

 out-yai'ds. as well as storage-house for stores 

 and surplus from the out-yards. 



I would not think of buikling any kind of 

 permanent bee-house or cellar that did not 

 provide .safe storage for com):) honey and con- 

 venience for doing work unless I already 

 had such convenience. 



I think two rooms answer very well if not 

 more than 100 or 150 (colonies are to be kept: 

 but for a large number I am sure the three- 

 room plan will give best results. I am not 

 in favor of putting much over 100 colonies in 

 one room to winter. 



I have already alluded to the method of 

 influencing the temperature of the bee-rooms 

 by ventilating through the middle room with- 

 out admitting the outside air to the bee- 

 rooms. This worked very well: but the room 

 was not of sutiicient capacity to control the 

 temperature of both bee-rot) ms during a 

 warm spell. Acting upon this suggestion I 

 put all the l)ees in one room, nearly as many 

 as I usually put in both. I depended upon 

 the well-tilled room for keeping the temper- 

 ature up, and upon the other two rooms of 

 cold air to keep it under conti'ol. It has 

 given excellent results for several years. 



I used to open the outside doors of the 

 bee-room to ailmit the fresh cool air at night 

 to quiet the bees down during a warm 



