322 



AMERICAN BEE JOURN/\L. 



May 25, 1899. 



hive than can be done bj- the use of nails. While there are 

 hive-hooks made and designed to be used for such purposes, 

 they have not proved (with me) very satisfactory, and when 

 nails are used the hives in time become damaged, for in 

 order to be sure the nails will hold it is necessary to drive 

 them in a new place each time, and I much dislike to mar 

 or damage hives in any way, for they are an important part 

 of the means by which I earn a living, and also enable me 

 to lay up a little each year for old age, or a rainj' daj', as 

 the saying is. 



Altho my method of fastening screens to hives without 

 the use of nails or marring the hive in any waj- is so simple 

 and easily employed that probably many others have made 

 use of it, I do not remember ever seeing anything said 

 about it. There are, without doubt, many who have not 

 thought about it, and some time ago one of the great honey- 

 producers of California, who hauls as many as ISO colonies 

 at one load, described the kind of screen he used ; and altho 

 he had tried hooks he preferred nails instead, but seemed 

 far from being satisfied with nails as a means of attaching 

 screens over the top of hives.' ■ 



The screen I use is large enough to cover the entire top 

 of the hive, and I will say here that I consider it a very im- 

 portant matter when hauling bees to give them plenty of 

 air, as the jarring and disturbance cause them to till them- 

 selves with honey, and arouse them to such activity that 

 they generate much more heat than when in a normal con- 

 dition. While in some cases colonies can be moved without 

 much provision being made for the ventilation of the hives, 

 and not actually smother, I do not think thej' do so well for 

 some time afterwards. 



The frames for the screens should be made so that the 

 wirecloth will be up at least an inch above the top of the 

 brood-frames. Some of mine are made of inch thick pieces 

 about two inches wide, and halved together at the corners. 

 The wire screen is tackt over the entire top, and then pieces 

 of lath are nailed on top of it around the edges, .so the 

 edges of the wire will not be turning up and catching 

 things, or cutting one's hands. 



Tho I have the frames of these screens made in various 

 ways, they are all of such size that when placed on top of a 

 hive the outer edge of the frame is just even or flush with 

 the outside of the hive on both sides and at each end. In 

 other words, the frame is just the size of the top of the hive. 

 After a frame is made so far, I take eight pieces of lath 

 for each frame, that are about three inches long, and nail 

 two pieces on each side, and two on each end of the frame. 

 They are nailed on near the corners on the outside of the 

 strips forming the frame. The top or upper end of each of 

 these short pieces of lath are just up even with the wire- 

 cloth, so the lower part of them hangs or projects down on 

 the outside of the hive. 



Now, if I have made mj-self understood, it will be seen 

 that the screen, on account of these short pieces, cannot be 

 shoved or moved out of place, either sidewise or endwise. The 

 only way it can get out of place, or be removed, is by being 

 raised up. To prevent its raising up, two stout strings (or 

 perhaps very small rope more nearly expresses what I use, 

 something like a small cotton clothes-line), are tied around 

 the hive, bottom-board, screen and all. They are placed 

 one near each end. If. however, the frame fits down true 

 on the top of the hive, and there is no danger of the load 

 being upset, one string near the center is ample. If the 

 frame does not fit true it can easily be brought down tight, 

 when a string is used at each end. A screen can be tied on 

 in less time than nailed, and if tied tight enough it will hold 

 the screen surer than nails will. 



I will briefly cite an incident in support of it : One 

 spring I sold four colonies, and was to deliver them to the 

 buyer, a few miles away. There was one place on the road 

 where there was a high embankment off to one side, and 

 when I arrived at about the worst place, the horse I was 

 driving — a powerful black one that I had recently traded 

 for — suddenly wliirled almost square around, and upset the 

 wagon so that I with the hives went down the enbankment. 

 Screens were tied on as I have described, and none were 

 loosened or out of place except on one hive, which struck 

 on a rock and was badly broken up. 



There is quite a knack about tj'ing strings around a 

 hive, but it is easih' acquired. I have a loop on one end of 

 each string, and pass tile end without the loop under the 

 hive, then up thru the loop; the string is then placed so 

 that the edge of the loop is even with the outside of the 

 frame. I tlien draw it tight and hold it from slipping or 

 loosening with the left hand, while tying the knot with the 

 right hand. These strings cost but a trifle in the first place, 

 and will last so long that they are about as cheap as nails. 



I use loose bottom-boards, and have special ones for 

 hauling, which are made just the same as an ordinary bot- 

 tom-board except they have short pieces of lath nailed on 

 at the sides and on the back end, which project up and pre- 

 vent the hive-body from moving sidewise or backwards. To 

 prevent its moving forwards, and to close the entrance, 

 blocks are used that I will describe, for depending upon a 

 simple .strip to close the entrance, with bottom-boards that 

 have strips around the outside to form the entrance, like the 

 dovetailed bottom-board, with me has sometimes caused 

 trouble. I take a strip that will just fit between the strips on 

 the bottom-board so it will entirely close the entrance, and 

 which is about l''^ inches wide. Then I take another strip 

 which is long enough to reach clear across the bottom- 

 board, but which is onl)- '4 inch wide. Now to make my- 

 self clear I will say, take the shorter strip and shove it in at 

 the entrance until only about half its width is left out in 

 front, then take the longer and narrow piece and lay it over 

 or on top of the short piece that projects out in front, and 

 tack the two together with small nails that can be clincht. 

 To hold it in place when moving, two wire nails are driven 

 in the bottom-board in front of it. With this kind of block, 

 if the body of the hive moves nearly an inch on the bottom- 

 board either backward or forward, no bees can escape. 



A bee-keeper who saw my screens made some in a little 

 different way. The frames of his were just the size of the 

 top of the hive, but the strips forming them were only % 

 inch wide, and instead of using short pieces of lath nailed 

 on the outside to hold them in place, he used short pieces of 

 thick iron that had two holes in one end. and one piece was 

 fastened at each corner of the frame on the inside of the %- 

 incii strip, so that these irons fitted down inside the hive. 

 While he considered this wa5- an improvement, I prefer to 

 have short pieces of lath on the outside, as they prevent the 

 hive's themselves from coming close enough together to rub 

 or chafe the paint off. Southern Minnesota. 



An Experience with Bees in Wisconsin. 



BY HERBERT CLUTE. 



IN the Spring of 1895 I moved here from Mauston, Wis., 

 where the large honey crop the year before showed Clark 

 County to be as good for hone^' in quantity as well as 

 quality as any place in this State, of which the latter is the 

 very b'e.st as to color and flavor. That spring (1895) I traded 

 m)' bees at Mauston toward a one-third share in one car- 

 load of bees that Mr. Grimm, of Jefferson, Wis., had, and 

 which were purchast by Frank McNay, and placed in mj- 

 care here. 



We had a very bad freeze here on or about May 25, that 

 killed all basswood blossoms, so as to make things look verj- 

 discouraging, as the bees hardlj- had a pound of honej' thru 

 Julj' to breed on, except what little the raspberries furnisht. 



On Aug. 1 they began to swarm, and the hive on scales 

 commenced to gain, the first day's gain being o'i pounds. 

 All thru August there was a lot of rainy weather each week 

 that would check the honey-flow so that sometimes it would 

 be a couple of days before the bees would gain as before. 

 The honey harvest lasted until Sept. 5 ; on that day the 

 colony on scales gained 5'i pounds, there being that day a 

 hot wind so as to take all life out of the flowers, it checkt 

 the honey harvest so as to stop all the nectar from flowing 

 as before, and from then on the bees never gained an ounce 

 of honey, still there was fine weather and lots of flowers. 

 From the car of bees, or 100 colonies, there was an average 

 of 100 pounds besides an increase of 28 colonies, and 400 

 new combs drawn out for extracting. 



The next spring, 1896, the apiarv was all moved IJ4 

 miles west, to the other side of town, just inside of the city 

 limits, as the year before the bees all workt in that direc- 

 tion, on the river bottoms, which made l-'^ miles that was 

 useless for them to travel. 



That spring (1896) there was another car of bees pur- 

 chast in chaft' hives from Hartford, and turned in as before 

 with 50 other colonies that I had purcliast at Neilsville. All 

 the bees were divided in two apiaries, one apiary for home 

 yard and the other for an out-yard, which was located five 

 miles southwest from the home yard. That season they 

 gave a surplus of 30,000 pounds of honey, gathered from 

 July 1 to the 30th, from basswood and willow-herb. That 

 fall the out-apiary was brought in and placed with the 

 home yard, and kept together from that time on, for the 

 reason that both apiaries took more time to do the .same 

 amount of work than if both were together; and for 

 another reason, the bees in each yard workt the heaviest 



