74 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



stuff, the rear piece to be two inch- 

 es wide and the front piece five 

 inches wide ; the bottom board to 

 be cut one and one-eighth inches 

 shorter than the hive is long, and 

 the wide cleat nailed across two 

 inches from the end. This would 

 give an entrance across the front 

 of one-half inch. If blocks are 

 nailed on each side to go under the 

 front corners of the hive, ordinary 

 entrance blocks can then be used. 



Sectional hives containing only 

 seven or eight frames in each sec- 

 tion will be so light that we shall 

 find it an easy task to carry them 

 back and forth from cellars in win- 

 tering, where they can be placed 

 under our full control and wintered 

 in a scientific manner, which we 

 shall never be able to do in out- 

 door wintering where we cannot 

 regulate the temperature at will. 

 Only one of the sectional cases, 

 well filled, will be necessary for 

 each colony for the winter. 



To operate a sectional hive of 

 shallow frames successfully we 

 shall need a honey board with strips 

 of perforated zinc set in thin saw 

 cuts made in the edges of the slats 

 composing the board. This con- 

 struction, and use of perforated 

 zinc is my invention, but it is free 

 to all to use. As any kind of a 

 section case or super can be ad- 

 justed to this hive every beekeeper 

 will be expected to use his favorite. 



The capacity of two of the sec- 

 tional brood chambers will about 

 equal the eight frame L. hive but 

 many would prefer to use three of 

 the parts in building up for the 

 honey harvest. The frames alone 

 are made to reverse but we shall 

 need to reverse them but once and 

 that simply to get the frames filled 

 out with comb plump to the sides 

 all around. Ordinary six-inch 

 boards can be split and dressed to 

 three-eighths for the sides of the 

 cases and we shall have no trouble 

 to get whole boards wide enough 



for the bottoms and covers. For 

 avery cheap hive we shall never get 

 a cheaper and a better hive, for 

 large results may not be possible. 

 It will hardly be necessary to add, 

 in conclusion, that this hive is not 

 patented or patentable, except in 

 one or two features which are my 

 inventions and are hereby freely 

 given to the public. 

 New Philadelphia^ 0. 



TEMPERATURE, A FACTOR 

 IN BEEKEEPING. 



(Coutiuued from p. 27, Vol. IV.) 



In ascertaining the exact tem- 

 perature of bees much depends 

 upon the sensibility of the instru- 

 ments used and upon the ingenuity 

 and skill of the operator in using 

 such methods as will guard against 

 error. In my own experiment the 

 thermometer indicated 76° 24 hours 

 after it was pushed into the clus- 

 ter. Next day it stood at 70° and 

 the following day at 54.° On ex- 

 amination I found the cluster had 

 drawn away from the instrument 

 and left the bulb partly bare. Had 

 the thermometer been inserted from 

 above between the combs instead 

 of being pushed into a large cluster 

 formed beneath, the cause of 

 this sudden change could not have 

 been so readily seen. The writer, 

 in the B. B. J., to whose ex- 

 periments I referred, used long 

 wire cloth cages inserted between 

 the combs. His thermometers 

 were placed in these cages and 

 withdrawn from them without dis- 

 turbing the bees. 



On one occasion, a thermometer 

 in one of Newport's hives stood at 

 30° while the outside temperature 

 was 1 7^.° The bees were roused by 

 a few taps on the hive and in sixteen 

 minutes the mercury rose to 70° 

 but the bulb was now covered by 



