36 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



on the Root mill I had. I had to 

 send him the foundation on sale or 

 return ; and, although he very soon ap- 

 preciated the value of foundation, I 

 regret to say my efforts in the cause 

 of wax foundation were of the non- 

 paying order, for it proved to be a 

 case of all sale, but no returns. 



In my travels in France years ago, 

 I met men who since their boyhood 

 had been in the habit of reversing 

 their hives, during the honey flow, 

 and my friend Monsieur Georges De 

 Layens explained to me its advan- 

 tages as applied to the special region 

 where it is mostly practised, namely, 

 "Gatenais." Mr. Layens, in a letter 

 written me last year, goes so far as to 

 say that the old system practised 

 there cannot, for the results in pounds 

 of honey, be surpassed by modern 

 movable frame hives, but the idea of 

 reversing each individual frame as 

 practised here did not seem to sug- 

 itself to Mr. Layens. 



The British Bee Journal has re- 

 produced a translation of a French 

 article which so exactly describes the 

 system I think it well for my readers 

 to see it. "The masterpiece of bee- 

 keepers in 'Gatenais' is to have very 

 strong, and populous hives as early 

 as the honey glut takes place. 



When the 'Esparcette' (Onobry- 

 chis sativa) or (Hydysarum onobry- 

 chis) blooms, they turn their hives 

 (straw skeps) upside down, so that 

 the crown stands upon the floor 

 board the open part uppermost. 

 Upon this open place the perforated 

 sheet iron (No. 35) and upon that a 

 second hive already partly built up 

 with empty comb. 



The holes of the sheet iron allow 



only worker bees to pass ; it is there- 

 fore evident that the bees soon fill, 

 with extra fine honey, the upper hive 

 which has already clean new comb 

 in it, so that they have not much 

 hard work to perform. To prevent 

 the queen leaving the lower hive, and 

 ascending into the upper one, the 

 sheet iron is left about three inches 

 projecting outside the entrance of 

 the two hives. All bees, returning 

 home from the fields laden with hon- 

 ey, ascend into the upper hive and 

 go into the entrance of this hive 

 while those that nurse the brood en- 

 ter the lower entrance, and the 

 queen feeling quite comfortable in 

 the midst of her young descendants, 

 does not attempt to escape. 



As the lower" hive has been turned 

 bottom up, all of the cells have 

 now a downward inclination in it, 

 namely, reversed of course, and in 

 these downward turned cells the 

 queen does not deposit any eggs, so 

 that in the shortest time all the bees 

 are gathering which increases the 

 weight of honey stored materially. 



When the top hive is filled with 

 honey, which in a goodseason is pos- 

 sible in a fortnight's time, it is taken 

 away and the lower one returned to 

 its original position ; the queen has 

 not deposited any eggs during the 

 time above referred to and this origi- 

 nal lower hive has now plenty of 

 empty cells vacant for storing the 

 honey still to be gathered. 



It is also evident that, as the sea- 

 son for turning the hives upside 

 down falls during the best time of 

 breeding, the number of bees are 

 very materially reduced. The bee- 

 keepers in Le Gatenais therefore 



