Publisht Weekly at 118 Michigan St. 



George W. York, Editor. 



$1.00 a Year— Sample Copy Free. 



38th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., NOVEMBER 3, 1898. 



No. 44. 



Loose or Tight Bottom- Boards — The Union. 



BV W. M. WHITNEY. 



I have read Mr. C. P. Dadaot's contribution on page 645, 

 on the subject of tight and loose bottom-boards, purporting to 

 be a criticism of something attributed to me in an item on 

 page ofJ:. While I would not presume to offer instruction or 

 advice to any bee-keeper having the knowledge and experi- 

 ence which is well known to every novice in the business, who 

 reads at all, that Mr. Dadant po-sesses, yet his article is based 

 upon an assumption so far removed from the actual facts, 

 that I feel constrained to defend myself by way of an expla- 

 nation. 



I made no issue between loose and tight bottom-boards, 



latlon in forming ray judgment respecting the hive, entirely 

 independent of the matter of construction of the bottom- 

 board. Were it left to me to choo.-e, and were it practicable 

 to make a double-walled hive thus, it might be that a loose 

 bottom would be selected, mainly because the hive, as Mr. 

 Dadant suggests, might be more readily cleared of dead bees, 

 as well as of any foreign matter; yet, there has not been 

 the least difSi^ulty during the four years of my bee-experience 

 in cleaning my hives, without the trouble of transferring. 



My hives are double-walled to the top of the brood-cham- 

 ber, having the air-space filled with some light, dry, porous 

 substance, and having the second story single wall of thin 

 stuff, and protected by a gable cover having plenty of air- 

 space. They are not more cumbersome to handle than the 

 two-story Langstroth ; in fact, I find no difficulty in handling 

 them during swarming-time. Queens being all dipt, when a 

 swarm emerges, the parent hive is removed on a sled, and an 

 empty one placed on the old stand. 



Several of my hives stand in the sun, without a particle of 

 protection from its rays, and while these colonies are among 

 the strongest in the apiary, there has been scarcely a day 

 during the heat of the summer that they have shown the least 

 uneasiness because of the beat, or manifested a desire to hang 



Exliildlti itj E. Kixtcliiiicr und Lin 



CiimUy, Ncbr., in the Aitimy Ijniuutcj at tlic Oiutihit K.HJuaUiuu. 



but simply stated that the methods of ventilation described 

 were not applicable to the hives I use ; and that for out-of- 

 door wintering and for manipulation, as I have learned to do, 

 I preferred them to any other with which I have become ac- 

 quainted. There are other factors that enter Into the calcu- 



out; which condition, I believe. Is due to the fact that the In- 

 side hive-body is protected from the heat of the sun by the 

 outer wall, and a circulation is kept up by ventilators in the 

 gable of the covers. 



In regard to removing frames from the brood-chamber, re- 



