THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



57 



suppose you know how ;i strawberry 

 box is, cut lialf through at each cor- 

 ner and nailed at one side, l)nt the 

 veneer must be wet over niglit l)ef'ore 

 bending; it then works nicely). 1 then 

 put a piece of comb in the ton, ] inch 

 sciuare (would prefer drone "comb if 

 white) in some I struck little bits of 

 wax alons the under side of top. 

 When Idled they weighed from one to 

 two pounds each. C)nly two sections 

 out of the 150 lbs. were connected. 1 

 sold all my honey at the liouse, for 

 cash, C(unb honey 25c., extracted 20c. 

 J ha ; more demand for the little sec- 

 tions than any other. 1 put the sec- 

 tions in the frames both front and 

 back of the hive. 1 think the comb 

 foundation for tlie sections, a grand 

 hit. One colony made !I0 lbs. comb 

 lioney. Besides the '^^)0 llis. honey, I 

 had swarms from the s colonies, 

 making 24 all in good order, to start 

 with this spring. Alex. Fiddes. 

 Ceutralia, 111,, Mar. 8, 1876. 



Mr. Root sent us tlie above extract, 

 and stated that the one-juece section 

 was mentioned in the liist edition of 

 Cook's Manual, but when pressed, he 

 could not find it. At the Convention 

 at Battle Creek, Mich., last Decem- 

 ber, Prof. Cook admitted that the 

 berry box section was not of practi- 

 cal use for shipping honey in. 



Three years ago Lewis & Parks sent 

 a sample of our one-piece section to 

 Mr. Root, and in Oleanings for Feb- 

 ruary. ISTEt, he remarked as follows, 

 concerning it : 



" Their new section box will not 

 come under this criticism for although 

 it is more work to make than ours, it 

 is a most decidedly neat and liuished 

 job when done. They apply tlie same 

 idea to making boxes, and if any 

 want these in place of sections, they 

 are most decidedly tlie handsomest 

 honey box for the nioney which I ever 

 saw. As the principle is evidently no 

 secret, I will give it here. I made a 

 few sections on nearly the same plan, 

 as much as 3 years ago but discarded 

 the plan as being too much work."' 



In the above extract Mr. Root ad- 

 mits tliat it is new, when he calls it 

 their " new section box." and s;iys " I 

 made a few sections on nearly the 

 same plan, as much as 3 years ago, but 

 discarded the i)lan as be'ing too much 

 work." lie discarded it, jirobably, 

 because he had not the ingenuity to 

 perfect it, and now it has been per- 

 fected, he would like to claim it as his 

 idea, when, it is safe to say, he never 

 thought it coidd be perfected. 



His discarding or abaiuioning the 

 section shows that he did not consider 

 it practical. All the Patent Ottice 

 wants to know about any invention 

 is : " has it been in public use two 

 years prior to the date of the applica- 

 tion ?' Because a man or a half- 

 dozen men put some strawberry boxes 

 on their hive, and had them Idled with 

 honey, does not prove that secti(uis 

 made of " one-piece " were in pAblic 

 use. Mr. Root's assertion that be- 

 cause we have phuied our section, we 

 have patented it, is too silly to reply to. 



He says we propose to make bee- 

 keepers pay SG per thousand instead 

 of the established price of S4.50. Who 



established this price V Mr. Hoot did 

 not. He never reduced the price un- 

 til he was compelled to by others com- 

 ing down. We reduced the price of 

 sections and there was a good living 

 profit then; but, as everybody knows, 

 basswood has since advanced at least 

 one-third. 



In Gleuninfjn of December, 1877, Mr. 

 Root advertises thus: "Section 

 boxes in the Hat l)y the quantity S9.50 

 per thousand and ujiwards, according 

 to size." Why did he not then have 

 interest enough in liee-keepers, to re- 

 duce the price to S1.50 ':' They could 

 be made as cheaii then as now. 



The true reason of Mr. Root's op- 

 position is this : He has been manu- 

 facturing one-piece sections, and sell- 

 ing machines to make them, which our 

 patent now prohibits him from doing. 



Mr. Root is the wrong man to class 

 anyone else with N. C. Mitchell. He 

 said he inserted our advertisement 

 "out of respect to Mr. Forncrook." 

 Why should he respi.ct a man whom he 

 publishes as a swindler and classes 

 with Mitchell "r" 



Watertown, Wis., Jan. 16, 1882. 



[We give place to the above com- 

 munication, simply to let Mr. Forn- 

 crook define his position, and that he 

 may be understood aright, having 

 been publicly classed with Mitchell, 

 etc. 



When the Commissioner of Patents 

 ordered the taking of testimony in 

 the case of interference, the editor of 

 the Bee Journal was summoned as 

 a witness against Mr. Forncrook, and 

 in testimony gave a history of the use 

 of section boxes for honey, and pro- 

 duced the first efforts of quite a num- 

 ber of inventions— the berry box, the 

 section of Mr. T. T. Delzell and some 

 others— and the Commissioner of Pat- 

 ents decided that none of them were 

 competent to debar the issuance of 

 the patent— and accordingly ruled 

 them out. These points were then 

 thoroughly tested, and we can see no 

 use now of bringing up a point al- 

 ready decided, especially as, so far as 

 we can see, the ])atentees do not in- 

 tend to use their patent to defraud 

 bee-keepers, or make them unneces- 

 sary trouble.— Ed.] 



'i'he Cultivator. 



Report from my Apiary. 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



Perhaps some of your bee-keeping 

 readers would be interested in a re- 

 port from my own humble apiary. I 

 was not one of the fortunate ones, as, 

 during last winter, I lost nearly all 

 my bees. It was vi'ith difficulty that 

 I obtained money with which to buy 

 more bees; while to find bees to buy, 

 unless at exorbitant prices, was an 

 equally difiiciilt task. All the colo- 

 nies purchased were either in box 



hives or else in movable comb hives 

 having frames that differed in size 

 from mine; hence all had to be trans- 

 ferred. June 1st, I found myself the 

 possessor of 18 fair colonies. The 

 weathercontiniied socold, that queen- 

 rearing operations were not com- 

 menced until nearly a month later 

 than usual. White clover began open- 

 ing its blossoms about the first of 

 June, and although it was so abun- 

 dant that many fields reminded one 

 of a snow-drill, yet the weather re- 

 mained so cool that but little surplus 

 was gathered until the latter part of 

 the month. The yield was quite fair 

 from about June 27th until about July 

 8th, when the white clover was deser- 

 ted for the fragrant, bounteous bass- 

 wood. The yield from basswood was 

 fair, but that from fall flowers was 

 cut short by the drouth. I reared and 

 sold 263 queens, doubled the number 

 of my colonies, and obtained 1,100 

 pounds of extracted honey. I keep 

 an exact account with my apiary, and 

 estimating the colonies that 1 now 

 have on liand (28) at ?5 each, my 

 profits have been $15.43 per colony. 



To help solve the wintering problem^ 

 I am trying several experiments. 

 Some of my colonies have been de- 

 prived of their natural stores, and 

 liave been fed A coffee sugar. Others 

 have been given early-gathered honey, 

 while others have been left wholly 

 undisturbed. Eleven colonies were 

 protected, by dill'erent methods, and 

 left upon their summer staiuls, ten 

 were buried in clamps, and seven 

 were placed in the cellar. Nextspring^ 

 I will tell your readers how iny bees- 

 wintered, and which method gave the 

 best results. I am glad to add, in con- 

 clusion, that, although the production 

 of lioney is steadily increasing, it is 

 no longer a drug in the market. It 

 never could be so readily disposed of 

 as at the present time. Large quan- 

 tities have already been sent to- 

 Europe, while the indications are that 

 the foreign demand will largely in- 

 crease, and that honey will eventually 

 become nearly as staple a product as- 

 the biscuit anil butter with which it 

 is eaten. 



Genesee County, Mich. 



Prairie Farmer. 



Preparing Bees for Winter. 



MRS. L. HARRISON. 



There are some things, with refer- 

 ence to wintering bees, upon which 

 bee-keepers differ; but all agree upon 

 these two points, that in order to be 

 successful, young bees should be 

 raised late in the fall, and plenty of 

 well ripene<l sealed honey, accessible 

 to them at all times. In this locality 

 last year, the How of honey lasted 

 until the middle of October, and was 

 so abundant that the brood chamber 

 was filled with it, to the exclusion of 

 broo(i. Consequently the bees fiu'in- 

 ing the colonies at" the commence- 

 ment of cold weather, were old and 

 feeble, and had worn themselves out, 

 gathering the heavy fall harvest. 



By reason of the long continued 

 drouth, we find that honey is not en- 



