American Hee Journal 



Habit has much to do with this matter. 



Some of the questions sent me need 

 a direct answer, so I will briefly add: 

 I prefer and use an 8-frame hive, no 

 cleats, but hand-holes on all four sides ; 

 I use a telescoping cover or roof like 

 Mr. Aikin, and Mr. Alexander, with 

 an under cover or honey-board ; I 

 have used them for over 30 years, and 

 see no reason for changing. The bot- 

 tom or floor board has a half-inch bee- 

 space. This is handier for all my op- 

 erations than one with a deeper space. 



I use 4x5 sections, some with bee- 

 ways and some without. I never use 

 full sheets of comb foundation in sec- 



built out well beyond the surface of 

 the frames. When one attempts to 

 make a machine which will take any 

 of the frames in common use, regard- 

 less of width of end-bars, length and 

 width of top-bar extensions, rivet sup- 

 ports or standing, one finds the prob- 

 lem not so easy. Then, too, the combs 

 must be cut smooth and flat whether 

 they project beyond the frames or are 

 well witbin them. The machine shown 

 herewith does all these things, and calls 

 for no adjustment for any dimension 

 of frame except for length, and that is 

 a matter of but half a minute. As few 

 bee-keepers have more than one length 



The Arthur C. Miller Auto.matic Decapper. 



tions. I am too conscientious for that. 

 I know that I can sleep better for deal- 

 ing fairly with my fellow men. Brood 

 sections are shallow brood-chambers 

 full of brood and honey. When such 

 are removed from any hive, as often 

 happen?, they are used to strengthen 

 other colonies, or to make increase, or 

 in various ways. 

 Naples, N. Y. 



The Miller Automatic De- 

 capper 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



The problem of devising a machine 

 for dfcapping honey-combs, at first 

 glance seems simple, and so it would 

 be were all frames alike and all combs 



of frame in a yard such adjustment is 

 not often called for. 



The machine cuts with two recipro- 

 cating knives moving across the sur- 

 faces of the comb. The knives are 

 spaced from each other by a lever at 

 one end of the machine, a mere push 

 of the finger serving to operate it and 

 send the knives to the midrib of the 

 comb or entirely out of. action. Combs 

 are dropped in as easily as into the 

 hive, and as the bottom-bar approaches 

 the knives they automatically open until 

 it passes and then go back to the depth 

 set by the lever just referred to, and 

 the same operation occurs at the top- 

 bar. 



The combs feed through in exact re- 

 lation to tlie speed of the cutters, so 

 that there is no crowding of the combs 

 on to the cutters. As soon as a comb is 



finished it drops out below. The device 

 for catching it is shown way down, as 

 when delivering a comb, but when at 

 rest it is up where it takes the comb 

 without a jolt. 



The cutters hang free in the machine 

 and are readily lifted out for sharpen- 

 ing or cleaning. As they move at high 

 speed they do not gum up or clog as 

 does a hand-knife. 



Any sort of receptacle may be used 

 to catch the cappings, or capping melt- 

 ers may be attached. 



The machine as illustrated is for 

 hand-power, but it may be driven by 

 any other power. 



Food of Larval Bees, Etc. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



In the American Bee Journal for 

 April, Mr. McNeal mentions the term 

 "royal jelly" for the food of the queen 

 larvffi and says, very correctly, that this 

 name, which is fanciful and high- 

 sounding, "leads one away from the 

 truth." He is correct. The royal-jelly, 

 so-called, is not known to be the same 

 in composition as that given to the 

 young worker-larvae. But the name is 

 not any more improper than many oth- 

 ers that have been handed down to us 

 by our forefathers. 



The term " queen," for instance, 

 which is universally accepted, is now 

 known to be a misnomer, for the queen 

 is anything but the ruler of the hive, 

 and, even in swarming, though we 

 know she makes her anxiety and desire 

 to swarm plainly visible, she is posi- 

 tively subservient to the wishes of the 

 workers which either swarm or abstain, 

 as their judgment dictates. Some radi- 

 cal reformers who hate even the terms 

 applied to royalty, have gone so far as 

 to ask for a change of name for the 

 queen-bee, under the plea that in a re- 

 public like that of the hive the term 

 "queen" is absurd; that she was the 

 beloved mother of the colony, and noth- 

 ing else. So they began to call her the 

 "mother-bcc," until some one raised the 

 objection she was not a mother, either, 

 until she was impregnated and laying 

 eggs. This of course had to be recog- 

 nized by everybody. So the term 

 "queen-bee" has remained and will prob- 

 ably remain as the most satisfactory. 

 So it is with "royal jelly." 



All the latest scientists agree that the 

 royal jelly and the food given to the 

 worker-larvK during the first 3 days 

 of their existence is the same, though 

 they do not altogether agree yet as to 

 the origin of this food. 



Schiemenz, a German microscopist, 

 ascribes the production of the milky 

 food generally known as "royal jelly," 

 to the salivary glands of the worker- 

 bees, the first ones of which are very 

 much developed in the young bees, at 

 the time when they remain in the hive 

 and take care of the brood, while the 

 same glands arc very much shrunk in 

 the worker that has become an active 

 honey-gathcrcr. This view, sustained 

 by Cheshire, is combated by Schonfeld, 

 another German, and following him, by 

 Cowan, the editor of the British Bee 

 Journal. These writers hold that it is 

 impossible for the bees to supply the 

 food in this manner. They maintain 



