THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



with tobacco will insure safe introduc- 

 tion. Each of the six colonies in the 

 out apiary were so treated. 



THE CONVENIKNCE Ob' THE ALLEY TRAP 



DURING SWAIIMING. 



From Gleanings, Dec. 1. 

 I have noticed now and then some- 

 thing about the Alley queen-and-drone 

 trap My experience with it has been 

 good. It is impossible for me to attend 

 the bees in the day time ; but when I go 

 home late in the afternoon I can tell 

 which ones have swarmed by their cling- 

 ing to ihe cage part of the trap. I just 

 change the location of the parent hive, 

 and put the new hive in its place, release 

 the queen and what workers are clus- 

 tering on the cage. The result is, in a 

 few days I have a rousing colony, where 

 if it were not for the queen trap, I 

 should run a big risk of losing the swarm. 

 But as it is now, I am satisfied with them 

 for my use. 

 O/ean, JV. V., Nov. 20. Geo. Shiber. 



There are not less than 100,000 of 

 these traps in use, and but one opinion 

 regardingtiieir utility and practicability. 

 Place one of the traps on your hive and 

 there will be no danger of losing the 

 swarm if one issues in your absence. 

 Then again, as the trap catches and de- 

 stroys nearly all the drones, swarming, 

 in a great measure, is controlled and 

 prevented. 



It is the universal testimony of all 

 who use the traps, that they aid the bees 

 and not annoy them in their work. 



PATENTS ON BEE-HIVES. 



Another patent has just been issued on 

 a bee-liive. It is dated Nov. 10, 1891, and 

 was jilven to Reuben H. Evving, ot Iowa. 

 It is the old story — a moth-proof hive — 

 worthless and useless with not a new fea- 

 ture in it. Here is the claim of the so- 

 called invention : 



The bee-liive A, having a liorizontal 

 bottom 13, wiih the center hole b, just 

 large enough to allow the bees to pass 

 through it, and an upwardly convex bot- 

 tom C, whose oppositely inclined sides 



meet in a vertex c, directly under the said 

 hole, ami just far enough tiiereCrom 10 

 permit the liees to reach tlie hole, the said 

 hive being provided with opposite entranc- 

 es c' c' for the bees and moths between 

 said bottoms as shown and described. 



The inventor does not even know the sex 

 of worker bees, as will be seen by the fol- 

 ' lowing from specilicaiions, where it is 

 called he every time. 



The teud3ii(y of the bee is to move up- 

 wardly; and as soon as lie reaches the ver- 

 tex c he will make for the entrance h, 

 while the moth w II travel up one side of 

 tiie bottom C, and down the other, there- 

 bv failing to get into the honey or bee- 

 chambers at all, not being able to reach 

 the hole b, even ii inclined to do so. 



What A pity it is to lool away good mon- 

 ey for such a worthless patent! 



What stvpidiUj it is to maintain a lot of 

 u-^eless "examiners" to approve of inven- 

 tions, tlie practical workingsof which tliey 

 know nothing about! 



AVhat dishonesty it is to grant patents, 

 over and over again, to different persons 

 on precisely the same thing! 



What rubbery it is to take the money of > 

 the credulous inventor and rentier no 

 equivalent for it! 



In this case the patentee has sold one- 

 half of the "invention" in advance to se- 

 cure the money to get a patent, which for 

 practical purposes, is not worth the paper 

 it is priiited upon ! Bali ! — American Bee 

 Journal. 



Patents are obtained how ? Well, the 

 writer has been granted three patents 

 within a few years and, being of an ob- 

 servdng disposition has "caught on" 

 sotne of the ponts usually employed to 

 work a job. I do not want it under- 

 stood that any unfair or underhanded 

 work was employed to engineer any 

 patent claim through. None were so 

 far as 1 know. But there is a good deal 

 of fltvoritism shown in the matter of ob- 

 taining some things in this world. 



Here is an illustration of the way 

 things are done at Washington. A pat- 

 ent was granted on an automatic device 

 for hiving bees. Aiaother j^arty used 

 the same principle and hitched a lot of 

 useless clap-trap to it, and was granted 



