THE AMERICAN APICULTUEIST. 



183 



the self- hiver with its one frame of comb 

 as I had it prepared in June and hived 

 them in it. They settled down and 

 built some comb during the night. The 

 next forenoon, about ten o'clock, I found 

 the swarm had come out again and were 

 clustered as before, on the side of a hive. 

 On examination found queen in trap. 

 I removed the trap to get a better look 

 at the queen, and while I had the trap in 

 my hands, what should she do but come 

 out through the z'nc at the back of trap 

 and fly away. Putting the trap back in 

 place, I stepped back a little way and 

 waited. Soon the cluster began to break 

 up, bees coming back to self-hiver, and 

 in a few minutes, queen and bees were 

 clustered on its cover. I put them in 

 again, this time giving ihem a little honey. 

 Being away from home all the rest of 

 the day, did not see them again till next 

 morning when I found the place besieged 

 by robbers. 



A little cluster of bees were still with 

 the queen, a good many killed in battle 

 with the robbers, and some, I suppose, 

 had returned to their old home. I had 

 found on going through the hives more 

 thorouglily, one colony with queen-cells, 

 and suppose they came from that hive. 



So few bees were left, and the robbers 

 were so bad, I did'nt care to bother with 

 them any more, so took off the cover to 

 self-hiver and let them go. 



These are the facts in the case, and 

 while they may not seem of much im- 

 portance there is one thing certain. The 

 queen and some bees stayed in the self- 

 hiver for three days when there was no 

 honey they could gather, and the rob- 

 bers carried away what I gave them. 



And while the queen du/ go through 

 the zinc at the back of the trap while I 

 held the trap, she could no^ get through 



the zinc in front. I believe the self- 

 hiver is a success. 



We have had a good flow of honey 

 this fall ; bees are in good shape for 

 winter. 



Weather, so far, has been warm and 

 pleasant ; bees are carrying pollen almost 

 every day, but there has been no honey 

 since about Sept. 25. 



Mrs. a. L. Hallenbeck. 



Millard, Neb. 



SWARMERS, PUNIC BKES, ETC. 



One of the brightest writers on api- 

 culture remarks about several things as 

 follows : 



'•At the commencement I was a little 

 down on you. The polished way Glean- 

 ings has had in criticising men and things 

 affected my judgment. The fraternity 

 should be thankful that you just pitch 

 in and plainly tell people what you think 

 of them. \Ve need something straight, 

 plain and open to counterbalance the 



and you just give it to us. I 



understand how it makes a man mad to 

 see how his ideas and inventions are 

 worked upon by others and given to us 

 as theirs. See that whole self-hiver af- 

 fair for instance. Without your inven- 

 tive genius all of them would be pushed 

 aside. Look at the way some people 

 have treated the Punic-bee question ! 



'i'he idea that an interested person 

 cannot tell the truth about his wares !" 



The writer of the above voices the 

 sentiments of thousands of fair-minded 

 beekeepers. It is a notorious fact that 

 every person who claims to have invented 

 a self-hiver, borrowed every important 

 feature from my invention. One thing 

 is sure, and that is, all who use self hivers 

 infringe my patent. I have patented a 

 certain principle, and that principle must 

 be applied to all self-hivers in order to 

 catch the queen. Without the queen 



