56 



THE AMEKICAJSI BEE JOURNAL. 



Puciflc Kiiral Press, 



Skunks ill tlie Apiary. 



W3I. 3IUTH-RASMUSSEN. 



The skunk is one of the recognized 

 enemies of bees, and, like most of 

 them, is nocturnal in its habits. The 

 lirst indication that the bee-keeper 

 has of the visits of a skunk is, that 

 the front of the hive and the entrance- 

 board is blackened as if smeared over 

 with mud, vs'hich liad afterwards been 

 carelessly wiped olf. This is done by 

 the skunk's scratching on the hive 

 with its paws to incite the bees to 

 come out. As it is not strong enough 

 to knock the hive over, like a bear, 

 and get at the honey itself, it is con- 

 tent to eat the bees for the sake of 

 the honey they may contain, although 

 I doubt not that it frequently swal- 

 lows a highly seasoned morsel. 



On closer examination, a hole will 

 generally be found scooped out in the 

 ground in front of the hive, and more 

 or less dead and dying bees, some- 

 times as much as a handfid will be 

 found lying in the hole. It has been 

 said that the skunk manages to get 

 the bees entangled in the hairs of its 

 large bushy tail, and slashing it 

 around in the hole kills or cripples 

 the bees before it proceeds to eat 

 tliem. As it always leaves a number 

 of bees, many of them still kicking, 

 in the hole, it may be surmised that 

 either it does not take much to satisfy 

 the skunk, or else, getting more stings 

 than honey, it leaves in disgust before 

 it has had enough. However, if a 

 skunk is allowed to visit the same 

 hive several times in succession, it is 

 obvious that it will not take it long 

 to seriously depopulate the colony, 

 more so as its visits are most frequent 

 during the winter, when the bees are 

 not breeding. 



A large dog will easily kill a skunk, 

 and some dogs take naturally to that 

 kind of game, while others are loth to 

 tackle a skunk after they once have 

 gotten a dose of its perfume. Skunks 

 may be shot on moonlight nights if 

 the bee-keeper watches for them, but 

 in either case they are apt to leave 

 their scent, which will adhere to the 

 locality for a number of days. The 

 better way is to trap them in a com- 

 mon box-trap with a sliding-door. 



The trivp may be baited with a piece 

 of old, tough comb or a rag smeared 

 over with thick honey, or with a piece 

 of fresh meat tied securely to the trig- 

 ger. It should also have a small open- 

 ing in the top, closed with a shutter, 

 through which it may be .seen if it is 

 a skunk, or a cat, or other animal, 

 which is in the trap. If a skunk is 

 caught, carry the trap to a pond or a 

 large, water-tight box; immerse the 

 trap and weight it down with a heavy 

 stone, so that it will be filled and 

 thoroughly covered by the water. If 

 the trap is handled carefully, without 

 shaking or frightening the skunk, it 

 will, as a general thing, not smell. In 

 10 or 1-5 minutes the trap may betaken 

 out of the water and the skunk buried 

 deep enough to prevent dogs or coy- 

 otes from unearthing it again. 



As soon as the trap has been dried 

 out, so that the door works easily, it 

 should be set again, and works ap- 

 parently better the oftener a skunk is 

 caught "in it, as the scent seems to be 

 rather an attraction to others of the 

 same tribe. To prevent the skunk 

 from lifting the door and escaping, a 

 cleat should be nailed across the bot- 

 tom of the trap, just inside the lower 

 edge of the door,' If this cleat is not 

 there, or some other device to hold 

 the door down, the skunk can easily 

 raise it with its long claws. 



Independence, o+California. 



For the American Bee JourntkJ. 



Small Hives vs. Large Hives, 



D. A. FULLER. (SO.) 



I think that I can best answer Mr. 

 Dayton, page 25, in his reference to 

 my" letter on page 762 of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal for 1885, by giving 

 a little of my experience in my own 

 apiary. I must acknowledge that as 

 late as the spring of 1SS3 I was very 

 much in favor of the 8-frame hive. I 

 commenced that spring with part of 

 my bees in 8-frame hives and part of 

 them in the 10-f rame ones. That year 

 I commenced using the Ileddon super 

 and tiering-up system for comb honey. 

 1 found that I was getting but 28 sec- 

 tions on an 8-frame hive, and the 10- 

 frame hives took 32 sections. 4i|x4L|x 

 13-16 inches. This made 4 lbs. more 

 for the 10-frame hive, and I tiered 

 them up 4 hiijh ; none of the 8-frame 

 hives were tiered up any higher, and 

 a few of the 10-frame hives were 5 

 tiers high. But allowing them to 

 have been tiered up the same, I had 4 

 more sections to the tier on the 10- 

 frame hives than on the S-frame ones, 

 which made 16 ths. more honey in 

 favor of the 10-frame hives. 



The foregoing was my experience 

 for 1883 ; in the season I used but 3 

 8-frame hives, still determined to give 

 them a fair trial ; but the result was 

 the same, and those other 3 8-frame 

 hives were condemned to the wood- 

 pile. It has often been said that the 

 strongest argument a man can use is 

 one that reaches his pocket, and this 

 did reacli mine, to the amount of $2 

 per hive, if I compute the 16 lbs. of 

 honey at 12J^ cts. per pound, which is 

 a low estimate. Location certainly 

 made no difference with my experi- 

 ments as the hives stood side by side. 



While tiering-up is not an entire 

 preventive of swarming, if it is 

 closely and carefully attended to the 

 apiarist will not be troubled with 

 many swarms; and if Mr. Dayton 

 could see the swarms that do issue 

 when a colony in a tiered-up hive does 

 swarm, he would conclude that I did 

 not need to compare a third or fourth 

 swarm with an average one. In my 

 plan of working by tiering-up, third 

 and fourth swarms are a rarity. 



Some springs I do find it necessary 

 to feed some colonies in wet or cold 

 spells in order to build them up to 

 good, strong colonies by the com- 

 mencement of the white clover sea- 

 son. My colonies do average more 



than 8-frames of brood, and quite 

 often fully 10-frames, at the beginning 

 of white clover bloom ; and my ex- 

 perience has taught me that a large 

 (average) hive is better than a small 

 (average) hive. 

 Cherry A^alley, 5111. 



For tho American Bee Journal. 



Reversing tlie Frames, 



J. E. POND, JB. 



When the matter of reversing 

 frames was first presented, I looked 

 the idea over and experimented some- 

 what in that direction, and as I had 

 previously met with some degree of 

 success in reversing sections to cause 

 the corners to be filled out, I became 

 quite enthusiastic on the subject, and 

 gave tlie opinion that they would be 

 or should be universally ad.opted. A 

 single season with them taught me 

 that I was wrong, and that the bene- 

 fits claimed by their use was not in ac- 

 cordance with natural law, and could 

 be far more easily attained without 

 the trouble and expense of fitting over 

 frames, as would be necessary in order 

 to adopt the plan. 



Chief among the benefits caused by 

 the method of reversing, is the get- 

 ting of brood in the tops of the frames ; 

 not that I pass over that of getting 

 frames filled out in the corners, for 

 by use of full sheets of foundation 

 no trouble of tliat kind need arise. It 

 is, I suppose, as well known to others 

 as to myself, that the queen will not 

 use store-combs in which to lay her 

 eggs, but will use only such cells as 

 are of the regulation depth. Rea- 

 soning from this premise, and on the 

 further ground that the attempt is 

 always made to put honey above the 

 brood, I decided that any plan that 

 would keep the upper part of the 

 comb at just the correct width, viz., 

 y^ of an inch, would at once cause the 

 cells to be filled with eggs ; and as a 

 matter of course, the stores to be de- 

 posited in the sections above. 



The question then arose, how can 

 this best be done ? Shaving off the 

 combs I found to be too much labor, 

 but upon testing the idea of putting 

 the frames nearer together, I found 

 the plan was a success. If the combs 

 are placed just so near together as to 

 leave a bee-space between them, and 

 allow the whole comb to be Ji of 

 an inch wide, no trouble will be found 

 in keeping the upper rows of cells 

 filled with eggs, if sections are in 

 place ; and if the new top-bar of Mr. 

 G. W. Demaree is used, no brace- 

 combs will be needed at all, while the 

 bees will be found to occupy the sec- 

 tions whenever there is any honey to 

 be gathered and stored. 



Perhaps my own experience may not 

 be that of others ; however, I would 

 advise that a test be made in different 

 localities, in order that the matter 

 may be fully determined ; for if it 

 works elsewhere as with myself, time 

 and labor will be saved, and the pro- 

 duction of comb honey greatly sim- 

 plified. 



Foxboro, otMass. 



