Dec. 14, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



787 



open at both ends. They were laid very nearly level upon 

 scantlings 18 inches from the ground. The posts which 

 supported these frames were set in cement. This bed of 

 cement was turned up in a ridge on the out edge, making a 

 sort of basin a foot across, in the middle of which the post 

 arose from an island of cement. The basin was filled with 

 water. The frames for the support of the hives were all 

 painted with tar. 



The rows were perfectly straight and regular, and were 

 exactly the same distance apart thru the apiary. One could 

 sight over the corners of the hives in any direction and find 

 them all in line. Take it all together, it was one of the 

 handsomest apiaries I ever saw. 



The owner, Senor Manuel Ouerido, said that he fixt 

 them up so as to keep out the ants. He had lost a good 

 many colonies lately, and thought the ants were to blame. 

 Upon further enquiry it turned out that he had lost 125 colo- 

 nies the past summer. Man^' of those left did not seem 

 to be in good shape. They had an air of not caring what 

 became of them. These and various other symptoms led us 

 to ask the owner if he knew about foul brood, but he said 

 he had never heard of it. 



Of course we did not dig into the bees to see for our- 

 selves, but later on, when we get a foul-brood inspector, he 

 will. 



There were about 200 colonies still in working order. 



Senor Querido showed us his extractor, which was a 

 sort of reversible affair, and took the honey out of the 

 combs both sides at once. As the honey is taken from the 

 hives it is placed in open baskets. These are set over a big 

 trough made from a hollow tree and fixt so the honey will 

 run into a big cask. Then the combs in the baskets are 

 all masht fine with a big masher, and the honey allowed to 

 drain out. 



To get the honey out of the hive he uses a long iron rod 

 with a sort of chisel on one end and a sharp-edged hook on 

 the otlier. 



The wax product in Cuba is large. One firm has a 

 regular trade of 10,000 pounds a month. 



One of the problems here for the foul-brood inspector 

 will be how to treat the colonies in box-hives. 



Province of Habana, Cuba, Nov. 10. 



Straw Mats— How Made and Used. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



ON page 743, I see that the question is askt as to how we 

 can have ventilation in- our hives if we pile them on top 

 of one another in the cellar, with a straw mat between 

 them. The question would naturally arise in the mind of 

 any one who does not know how our hives are made, and 

 Dr. Miller's explanation is not quite sufficient to remove 

 the doubt. 



The hives that we use are made with an extension 

 downward on three sides of the bottom-board, that is, on all 

 sides but the front, so that, when the bottom is removed, 

 the hive extends about 1)4 ;inches below the bottom of the 

 frames. This extension is intended to shed all moisture on 

 the back and sides, and to make a better joint of the body 

 with the bottom. 



As a matter of course, when our hives are piled in the 

 cellar, on top of one another, this projection below gives a 

 sufficient distance between the bottom of the frames and 

 the straw mat of the next hive below to insure a very plenti- 

 ful ventilation. But the straw mat itself is very porous, 

 and a good ventilating implement, and I wish to say a few 

 things in its favor. I do not know of any one outside of 

 our own disciples, except the late Chas. F. Muth, who used 

 the straw mat in this country. Yet it is the most unani- 

 mous verdict of all who have tried it that it is a very useful, 

 a very inexpensive, and a very durable implement. 



America is renowned for her enterprise, for the readi- 

 ness with which she takes hold of any implement or any 

 improvement which is brought to her by her many immi- 

 grants from all parts of the world, and it is held justly, I 

 believe, that it is this readiness of adaptability, together 

 with the many and various customs and ideas brought over 

 from all parts of the world, which make America's progress 

 so markt. Yet there are a few things in which America's 

 progress has been slow. It took a quarter of a century to 

 show our Western farmer, or business man, that his dyspep- 

 tic feeling was caused by the incessant repetition of fried 

 bacon and hot biscuits three times per day. A good, palat- 

 able stew was despised, and pork, beef, mutton, chicken, 

 rabbit, duck, etc., were fried, fried, fried — much to the dam- 



age of the American stomach, and of the quality of some of 

 the dishes. " You can't work your French dishes on me, 

 Mr. Dadant," said a young Hoosier housekeeper to me ; " I 

 can't go your liver and kidneys, and cow-bag and tripe, and 

 those little minnies with castor-oil on 'em " (French sar- 

 dines). " No, sir-ree !" 



Well, the world is moving, and we can now eat " canard 

 aux navets " and " gigot a Tail " in American homes, even 

 here in the West, and the best of it is that the people think 

 it is good. 



Beg pardon, Mr. Editor, I did not mean to run off in 

 this way. Let me see, it was straw mats I was talking 

 about. 



Well, I believe it ought to be with the straw mats as 

 with the cooking, our Americans ought to try them, and I'll 

 warrant they will think them good. 



I call them strazv mats, but we make them of slough- 

 grass (put it " slu," Mr. Editor), because it is stronger and 

 easier handled than straw ; but I believe mats made of g'ood 

 rye-straw would be better. 



The mat over the oilcloth in the summer keeps the heat 

 off better than a two-inch plank. In the winter, if placed 

 right over the bees, it absorbs moisture, allows it to pass 

 thru without letting the heat escape. If it gets wet thru a 

 leak in the hive-top it readily dries up, does not rot like the 

 material of a chaff or sawdust cushion, and the bees do not 

 eat any holes into it as they do in the material of which 

 chaff cushion is made. Yet, I am free to acknowledge 

 that the latter is a little better than the straw mat, fits bet- 

 ter over the frames, and keeps the heat and the cold off in 

 fully as good a fashion. But we have discarded the chaff 

 and sawdust cushions for the very reason that, unless they 

 were made of very heavy material, the bees would soon pick 

 them full of holes and change them into a nuisance. 



The only drawback I can see to the straw mat is the 

 difficulty of fitting it over the frames when the hive is 

 made, like many hives of the present day, with the super 

 or cover fitting exactly over the body. Our hives are all 

 made with a telescope cap, which gives us much more sur- 

 face at the top, and the irregularities of a straw mat are not 

 in the way. 



Some'of our old European bee-keepers use straw-mats, 

 not only in the hive, but around it, as a winter shelter. An 

 old French bee-keeper living but a few miles from us, who 

 had been a market-gardener in the vicinity of Paris in his 

 younger days, had made a number of straw mats two feet 

 in width, and some 5 feet long, with which he wrapt each 

 of his hives at the opening of winter, leaving but a narrow 

 opening in front for air and sunshine. During the summer 

 he kept the mats piled up in a shed with wood ashes sprink- 

 led between them. He said that this kept out the mice, as 

 the fine ash-dust was unpleasant to them. 



In Europe they protect not only bees, but hothouse 

 roofs, chicken-coops and trees in espaliers, early vegetables 

 and hotbed plants, with straw mats of all sorts and sizes. 



Hancock Co., 111. 



Success in Wintering' Bees on Deep Frames. 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



MR. HASTY, in "The Afterthought," on page 647, 

 seems to think that some of my success in wintering 

 bees on frames deeper than the Langstroth may be 

 due, or partly due, to the increast size of the brood- 

 chambers instead of being altogether due to the in- 

 creast depth of the frames. When I take into consideration 

 the fact that I have used for several years quite a number 

 of these hives with the deep frames, and that these hives 

 have been of varying capacities—some taking 8, some 9, 

 and some 10 frames—I think I can form a tolerably good 

 judgment with regard to the cause for the better wintering 

 of the bees. I use some hives 12 inches deep, taking 8 

 frames the same as the Eangtroth-Simplicity and dove- 

 tailed, and have never lost a colony that was wintered in 

 one of them, on account of a deficiency of stores. 



If any one has kept bees long in hives of this size, he 

 cannot have failed to observe that there is always, at the 

 approach of winter, a good deal more honey above the space 

 in the combs devoted to brood-rearing than there is in 

 combs of the Langstroth depth. While the space used for 

 brood is about equal in both kinds of frames, the honey be- 

 tween the upper edges of the brood-cells and the top-bars 

 of the frames will be about two inches wider in the deep 

 frames than it will be found in the Langstroth frames. 



It seems to me that this increast amount of honey cuts 



