114 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Fel. 2A, 



The New No-Bee-Way Section and Double- 

 Cleated Slat Separator or Fence. 



These two articles seem to be makiuR quite a stir among 

 some of our cotemporaries ; and as there seems to be some in- 

 quiry in regard to them among the readers of the American 

 Bee Journal, perhaps a brief description and discussion of 

 them may not come amiss. 



Fifteen years ago sections having top and bottom of equal 

 width with the sides were manufactured and sold by Mr. G. B. 

 Lewis, of the G. B. Lewis Co. Just how these sections were 



used at that time by bee-keepers who bought them Is not defi- 

 nitely known ; but in all probability they were spaced apart 

 without separators. This would cause the combs to be bulged 

 unequally, and, as a result, such combs would be uncratable. 



A few years later Oliver Foster, then of Iowa, conceived 

 the idea of making double-cleated slat separators. With these 

 separators he used plain sections — that is, those having top 

 and bottom equal in width to the sides. A row of sections 

 was set on a flat board, and up against them was placed a 

 cleated separator ; then another row and another separator, 

 and so on. These were firmly clampt together and put on the 

 hive. On the under side of the cleats was fastened a little 

 strip of tin that projected out far enough to catch the corners 

 of the sections. This was in 1SS8. The illustration herewith 



1 [n T 



i 



I iiJ I 



The B. Taylor Slotted Separator. 



given will show the separator as he used it, and is very like 

 those now manufactured and styled " fences," the last name 

 being used, we suppose, because it was short and descriptive. 



But for some reason or other these did not attract a great 

 deal of attention at the time, altho we are informed that sev- 

 eral bee-keepers throughout the United States began using 

 them, and have been using them ever since. But no one 

 seems to have said very much about them till along in 189.5, 

 when the late B. Taylor wrote up and described his double- 

 cleated separators and 4x5 no-bee-way section. At that time 

 he claimed he had been using them some four years; that 

 they gave him perfect sections weighing a scant pound ; that 

 "the honey on both sides of the sections comes within 'g inch 

 of the section, and is never broken in moving the separator, 

 and the surfaces are V inch apart in crating. In crating sec- 

 tions filled between common fiat separators, the surfaces of 

 the combs are Ji inch apart, and requires a larger crate for 

 the same number of pounds." Mr. Taylor further claimed 

 that he not only secured better-lilled sections, but that their 

 appearance was very much better. 



Altho it appears that Mr. Taylor called Mr. Root's atten- 

 tion to this style of separator aud section, the latter did not 

 at the time enthuse very much over it. 



Later on Mr. Danzenbaker began to talk of the merits of 

 the plain section ; aud altho he tried to get the Root people to 

 see their advantages when used in connection with cleated 

 separators, they could not be made to " see." How blind some 

 people cn?i be when they ii'fuit to be, and how wide awake 

 they can be when they want to sec. How is this, Mr. Root ? 



During the greater part of this time there were others 

 who were using sections without insets or openings; but for 

 some reason they said little or nothing about it in print ; but it 

 now turns out that Mr. L. A. Aspinwall, of Michigan, had 



been using plain sections in connection with the double-cleated 

 tin separator for a number of years with a great deal of satis- 

 faction. Aspinwall separators differ materially In construc- 

 tion from the " fences " that are now being talkt about. In 

 each tin separator there were transverse slots stampt out of 

 the metal, and coming directly opposite the uprights of the 

 sections. Just above and below these slots are fastened short 

 cleats that space and hold the separator a scant bee-space be- 

 tween the sections. 



Mr. Aspinwall secures, in effect, sections open all around ; 

 and Mr. W. D. Soper writes of Mr. Aspinwall's honey that it 

 was the finest he ever saw. The combs were filled clear out 

 to the wood, and there were no peep-holes or openings in the 

 corners of the sections. Mr. Aspinwall, however, says this 

 statement is a little overdrawn, and that while the openings 

 are small ana scarce, there are occasionally some to be found. 



Along In October last. Mr. Root, of Gleanings, suddenly 

 became very much awake over plain sections and fences. 

 When he saw them in use at the home and apiary of Mr. Miles 

 Morton, of New York State, he says he did not entirely get 

 hold of their advantages ; but later, when he came home and 

 saw Mr. Danzenbaker's beautiful honey, his enthusiasm for 

 this kind of section and fences quite ran away with him. Mr. 

 Root, you know, is a hobby-rider, and sometimes his hobby 

 runs away with him. Whether the section-fence hobby will 

 run away with him now remains to be seen. Among other 

 things he claims as advantages for the plain sections and' 

 fence the following : 



1. These fences are made entirely of scrap, and, consequently, 

 will cost but little more than the old-style separator, which, after 

 being used a year or so, had to be discarded. 



y. Prettier and better filled comb honey can be secured with a 

 fence, for the reason that the bees can crawl all through the slats, 

 affording them easy and direct passage-ways from one honey-hox 

 to another, ihir tprat ultjcctiun 1u the ulU-vtijIf .super with itii separator-f 

 is thai it sliiit off' eaeli seetiun-hux into a eoniportntenl or room by itaelf ; 

 and, as every one knows, it was much harder to get bees to enter 

 comb-honey supers than supers of the extracting sort. 



The Tall and the Scpiare Section. 



3. The peculiar construction of the fence will, we believe, 

 largely do away with the passage-holes in the corners of the ordi- 

 nary section honey-boxes. 



4. The fact that the fence is made up of several different slats, 

 bound by transverse strips on each side, and grooved cleats on each 

 end. has a tendency to very materially stiffen and strengthen the 

 section-holder. lu case of the old-style super, the bottom-bar of 

 the section-holder would sometimes sag; but the new fence is so 

 much stiffer than the separator that we believe it will do away 

 largely with the sagging of the bottom-bars. 



5. The new section, when filled with honey, will bring a higher 

 price, because they appear to be, and. in fact, are better filled out, 

 and the surfaces of the combs themselves are more even — at least 

 this seems to be the experience of those who have used such sec- 

 tions with a cleated separator or fence. 



6. Facility in scraping these sections with their plain straight 

 edges is quite an important feature. It is not an easy matter to 

 clean out the insets of the ordinary old-style sections, and practi- 

 cally impossible to remove the stain. A case-knife or a piece of 

 steel having sharp square edges will, with one sweep, clean almost 

 the whole four edges of the new section at once. 



7. The new section and fence greatly simplify the construction 

 of the section-holder. The bottom instead of being scored out to 

 correspond with the openings in the bottoms of the sections, is 

 one straight piece, and of the same width as the section itself. 

 The end-bars are also of equal width with the bottom-bar. 



S. The new section is only 1}.> inches wide, and yet will hold 



