56 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



then devised one, the principle fea- 

 tures of which I have used during my 

 experience with bees. It was simply 

 a box, 6 or 8 inches square, with a 

 piece of tin one inch wide, having a 

 perfectly straight edge, nailed across 

 the top of one end. A square of glass 

 was then used to cover tlie box, and to 

 let the light in, as the drones would 

 not enter the trap unless the light at- 

 tracted them there. The glass was 

 set within 3-16 of an inch of the tin, or 

 just room enough was left between 

 the edges of the glass and tin for a 

 worker bee to pass, while the drones 

 could not. A wire-cloth tube was used 

 to connect the box and hive, for the 

 bees and drones to pass through from 

 the brood nest. When the drones and 

 queen had once entered the trap, they 

 could not return or escape, and hence 

 were entrapped. Xow, while this con- 

 trivance answered every purpose for 

 my own use, I never thought I could 

 so describe it that one could be made 

 without a model to work from, neither 

 could I say that the traps, as I have 

 made and used them, were as perfect 

 as they should be ; in fact, I could not 

 perfect them for want of proper ma- 

 terial. But since the introduction of 

 peiforated zinc, I have completed the 

 apparatus, and can now pronounce it 

 a success. 



I win give a few of its most valua- 

 ble features : It is a drone-excluder, 

 drone and queen trap combined. It is 

 merely a box 6 inches deep, 10 inches 

 long, and 2>^ inches wide. (They can 

 be made much larger if desirable). 

 The drone - trap proper is about 4 

 inches deep. The bees enter and leave 

 the hive through the bottom slide, 

 which is of perforated zinc (shown in 

 the cut partially drawn out). The 

 apartment in which tlie drones and 

 queens are entrapped, is above this. 

 The drones, when they attempt to fly, 

 cannot pass through the zinc, and are 

 compelled to go up through the wire- 

 tubes into the trap above, while the 

 workers pass out freely through the 

 perforations. Xow, if it is intended 

 to destroy the drones, they can remain 

 in the trap, or, if to be preserved, but 

 not permitted to fly for 2 or 3 days, 

 towards night the slides can be drawn, 

 when they will take an airing and en- 

 ter the hive again. 



By the use of these traps, queens 

 can be mated with the drones from 

 any colony in the yard, as no drones 

 can take wing from any hive where 

 the trap is placed. 



But tlie most important feature 

 about the trap is in connection with 

 swarming. It will be found by a 

 brief trial that swarming is com- 

 pletely within the control of the 



bee - master. When a colony has 

 swarmed, and while the bees are in 

 the air. the queen will be found in the 

 trap, which can be placed near the bees 

 on the ground, or a bench, or near the 

 hive they are to occupy. The bees, if 

 they have settled, discovering their 

 queenless condition, commence to 

 leave the cluster in search of her. 

 They soon find her in the trap and at 

 once settle there. Before all the bees 

 have clustered on the trap, the top 

 slide should be opened to release the 

 queen, when the bees will enter their 

 new home, and hiving them is com- 

 pleted. The trap then can be placed 

 in front of the new hive, and the 

 swarm cannot decamp to the woods, 

 as is the case sometimes. 



There is another advantage in use- 

 ing a trap : The bee-keeper is not 

 obliged to run and hive his bees the 

 moment the swarm has come off, as 

 there is not the least danger of their 

 going away without the queen; neither 

 is there any daugerof his bees swarm- 

 ing while he is away from home — gone 

 to church, for instance, or away for 

 any purpose. Then again, not every 

 bee-keeper cares to climb from 10 to 30 

 feet into a tree for a swarm of bees, 

 especially if the thermometer indicates 

 90- or 100- in the shade. 



Such things will be known only as 

 in the past, and will be classed with 

 the old way of killing bees, to secure 

 their honey. With the use of the trap, 

 the work of managing and caring for 

 the apiary will be greatly lessened, 

 and the proflts therefrom much larger. 

 A queen-and-drone trap should be 

 classed with foundation machines, 

 honey extractor and movable frames, 

 in point of utility and worth. 



Since the above was written, I have 

 read with some interest Mr. Heddon's 

 description of his trap. Mine, it will 

 be seen, is unlike his, in all respects. 

 ' Weuham, Mass. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Is Dampness the Cause of Diarrhoea? 



O. O. POPPLETON. 



In an article on out-door wintering, 

 I once made the statement : " Show 

 me a practical method of keeping the 

 entire inside of my hives perfectly 

 free from dampness, and I have no 

 further fears of unsuccessful winter- 

 ing.'" Of course, holding that opin- 

 ion, which time and a farther com- 

 parison of the experiences of others 

 has only served to strengthen, I can- 

 not helis being very mucn interested 

 in trying to learn what are the causes 

 of dampness in hives, and how to 

 prevent it. 



I have had very little experience 

 with anything except out-door winter- 

 ing, but so far as that is concerned, 

 have no doubt but dampness is the 

 cause of disease, instead of disease 

 being the cause of dampness. Reasons 

 for this opinion are ; that I frequently 

 find hives in the early spring that are 

 quite damp inside, chaff, cushions, 

 etc., as well as the refuse or excreta 

 that is always found on the bottom- 

 board at that season of the year, such 

 hives almost invariably containing 



bees that are more or less diseased, 

 but very frequently not having any 

 more dead bees on the bottom-Doard 

 than do those hives in which the bees 

 have wintered in perfect health. Of 

 course, in these cases, it is not at all 

 probable the dampness could have 

 been caused by the few dead bees that 

 were present. 



Again, bees sometimes die from 

 starvation ; in which case, so far as my 

 observation goes, both the hives and 

 their contents, including the bees 

 themselves, remain as bright, clean 

 and dry as it is possible for hives and 

 bees to be ; thus showing conclusively 

 that bees, even in large numbers, do 

 not always cause dampness. 



There are a number of well authen- 

 ticated instances where bees have 

 wintered in perfect health, in very 

 damp cellars, notably the one men- 

 tioned by Mr. Balch "on page 6 of the 

 Bee Journal. Again, several in- 

 stances are reported" where bees have 

 wintered perfectly in cellars having 

 spring water running through them, 

 in which cases the air was probably 

 quite moist all the time. Such facts 

 as these have caused some writers to 

 jump to the conclusion that dampness 

 in no case causes disease. 



I have had occasion a number of 

 times during the past few years to 

 test the temperature of water from 

 drive wells ; the water from these 

 kind of wells being probably nearer 

 like spring water than from any other 

 kind of wells. I found the tempera- 

 ture of water very constant during 

 the entire year, usually being about 

 1^ warmer in January "than in June, 

 and in no instance did I find it lower 

 than 45"^ or liigher than 48°. Again, 

 I now have a bored well, curbed with 

 12-inch patent stone curbing. The 

 water in this well having so little ex- 

 posure to the outside air, remains at 

 about the temperature as was that 

 from drive wells (47° at present). We 

 have just been having a week of ex- 

 treme cold weather, the thermometer 

 not being above 10'-' below zero any 

 morning of the week, and below 300 

 three of those mornings ; and yet, 

 frost has penetrated only about 2 feet 

 on the inside of the stone curbing, 

 and below that the entire inner sur- 

 f uace of the stone curbing is kept free 

 from frost by the warmth of the water 

 below. Now, is not this exactly what 

 a stream of running spring water 

 through a cellar does, viz. : keeps the 

 air in the cellar at an even de^ee of 

 temperature, about the same as is the 

 water ; that is, not far from 45°, which 

 seems to be about the nearest right 

 temperature to secure safe wintering 

 of bees. Not only this, but the same 

 aperture out of which the water runs 

 to tlie open air must allow of a return 

 draft of pure air, this air being itself 

 tempered by its contact with the 

 water to about the desired tempera- 

 ture. Probably a large body of water 

 in a cellar acts somewhat similar to 

 what spring water does, only not so 

 effectually. 



My opinions or theories, whichever 

 they may be called, on this subject, 

 can be briefly sumarized as follows : 



1. If dampness is not a cause of 

 disease, it is almost always (always in 



