64 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



— Our friends who write articles 

 for the " Apiculturist " will please 

 use but one side of the paper. Be 

 careful, also, not to mix business 

 matters with articles intended for 

 publication. We cannot use them 

 when thus written, as we file all busi- 

 ness letters for future reference. 



— The reader's attention is called 

 to our price list of apiarian supplies 

 on the last pages of this number of 

 the " Apiculturist." 



— We invite all who receive this num- 

 ber of the "Api " to read and examine 

 its contents carefully. We feel quite 

 sure that many will agree with us in 

 the opinion tliat no one copy of any 

 bee journal yet sent out contains a 

 greater variety or an equal amount of 

 valuable information concerning bee 

 culture. 



APICULTURIST BEE FARM 

 NOTES. 



PERFORATED ZINC AND SOME OF ITS 

 USES. 



Of the new appliances for manag- 

 ing the apiary there is no one arti- 

 cle so handy and useful as perforated 

 zinc. The average beekeeper does 

 not seem to realize the many uses to 

 which this article can be apphed. 



DRONE EXCLUDERS. 



They were first used at the entrance 

 of hives to exclude drones, but did not 

 work satisfactorily, and instead of ex- 

 cluding them from the hive "de- 

 tained" them. The only way to ex- 

 clude drones by this arrangement, 

 is for the apiarist to watch his hives, 

 and when the drones are trying to 

 go out, remove the zinc, and almost 

 immediately replace it, so that none 

 can enter on their return, which they 

 will attempt to do after they have 

 had a good frolic and work equally 

 as hard to enter the hive as they 

 did to leave it. The next thing to 

 be done is to kill each particular 

 drone, as there is no other way to 

 destroy them. Under such circum- 

 stances such a drone excluder is 

 worthless. A good drone trap needs 

 no watching ; it not only excludes 



all the drones from the hive but it 

 catches and destroys them at the 

 same time. Not only does it do 

 this, but it catches the queen in 

 swarming time. As to how it works 

 in such cases, the reader is referred 

 to the excellent article of Mrs. Sher- 

 man on page 54. 



BE 



L__ 



Fig. 1. Perforatetl zinc for drone exchiders. 



Fig. I represents the proper per- 

 forations to be used for drone traps. 

 No drones can pass through this 

 zinc, but a queen can do so after she 

 has tried for five or six hours to work 

 her body through, as the hair on 

 the thorax is worn off by coming in 

 contact with the sharp edges of the 

 metal. 



QUEEN EXCLUDING HONEYBOARDS. 



Another purpose to which perfor- 

 ated zinc is applied is to prevent the 

 queen entering the sections and de- 

 positing drone eggs there. She is 

 sure to do so unless prevented ; es- 

 pecially is this the case when there 

 is not sufficient room in the brood- 

 chamber for rearing drones. In 

 many cases it will make no differ- 

 ence whether the sections are filled 

 with worker foundations or not, the 

 bees would remove it and construct 

 drone cells in place of it. No 

 arrangement has as yet been devised 

 for preventing the rearing of drone 

 bees (something interesting on this 

 point may be found in the "question 

 and answer" department), hence the 

 importance of some arrangement for 

 excluding the queen from the sec- 

 tions. 



PERFORATED ZINC DIVISION BOARDS. 



Although we have not practised it 

 to any great extent here, some bee- 



