800 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Srpt. 15 



tries are. But fruits can be seen on sale 

 there that I imagine are not known else- 

 where, mostly belonging- to the passion- 

 flower, anona, and persimmon families. 

 The local market for honey ought to be 

 good, as the price of all food is high; but 

 the producer could scarcelj' expect to ship, 

 as the railway charges would be high. 

 The railway crosses from La Guayra those 

 same mountains already mentioned, at an 

 elevation of 5000 feet; hence, though only 3 

 miles away by tunnel, the railway requires 

 22 for its zigzag course. It is a great en- 

 gineering feat, but very expensive to main- 

 tain, hence the high charges. A locomotive 

 hauls only two cars, and small ones at that. 



Caracas, to a person who understands 

 the language, and who is interested in men 

 and things, would be a fine place to live in, 

 despite its semi-barbaric civilization, and 

 it is wonderful to me how modern improve- 

 ments can be grafted on to such a people. 

 I mean such things as telephones, street- 

 cars, electric lights, and the like; and to 

 sit at night in Bolivar Plaza, with a band 

 playing, waiters flitting about with refresh- 

 ments for the listeners, the whole lit up 

 with an excellent supply of gas, one can 

 hardly realize that he is not in a highly 

 civilized country. 



Probably a bee-keeper combining poultry- 

 raising and dairying with his apiculture 

 would succeed very well. Still it would be 

 a risky enterprise in so wild a nation. At 

 PortoCabello there are much better chances, 

 for if the Venezuelan can't or won't eat 

 the honey it can be exported. It is a fine 

 port, as its name indicates— "the port of 

 the hair," for even a hair is not required 

 to moor a vessel alongside the wharves. 

 There is a gap in the mountains here, and 

 this gives the cattlemen of the Orinoco the 

 opportunity to get their wild-looking cattle 

 right up to the steamer's side. For the 

 same reason it might suit a bee-keeper, as 

 he could ship to any port in Europe. He 

 could safely reckon on a crop every year; 

 and if he were to combine his business vvith 

 cacao-growing, possibly he could do fairly 

 well. 



The conditions are pretty much the same 

 as in Cuba; in fact, there is no appreciable 

 difference. There is nowhere else in Ven- 

 ezuela worthy of mention. 



SHALLOW HIVES WITH CLOSED=END BROOD- 

 FRAMES. 



The Bingham Hive. 



BY J. O. SHEARMAN. 



The spirit moves me — or, rather, W. K. 

 Morrison does — to say something on the 

 subject of shallow hives again, as I have 

 been using such for over thirty years, and 

 have seen no reason to discard my original 

 size of frame (the Bingham, 20 inches long 

 by 6J4 deep, and 1^ from center to center). 

 If I had to start all over again, however, I 



should prefer frames lJ4^-inch spaced, and 

 with closed ends entirely, for the following 

 reasons: 1. Less propolis used in the hive; 

 2. Less waste room; 3. Less trouble with 

 brace-combs; 4. Less room for millers to 

 hide in. 



A year or two ago, Mr. Editor, you wrote 

 me for an article describing closed-end 

 frames. I made it as short as I could, be- 

 cause editors object to long articles; but if 

 I had written up their advantages as well, 

 I would have given some of the pointers in 

 Mr. Morrison's article. In fact, he agrees 

 with my experience very nearly, only I 

 use a brood- chamber 20 inches long, and 

 anj'where from 2 to 12 frames wide, as it is 

 adjustable without dummies, which are a 

 nuisance. The two or three frame is for a 

 nucleus, though I make up most of my nu- 

 clei with little frames, three of which oc- 

 cupy the space of one ordinary brood- 

 frame. Seven of these little frames fill a 

 nucleus-box; or by taking out the middle 

 one, and inserting a division-board, two 

 three-frame nuclei may be kept in one box. 



Closed-end frames are the only ones that 

 will each occupy exactly the same space, 

 unless we except the Hoffman, which is 

 virtually the same principle not carried out 

 to a common-sense point — that is, the Hoff- 

 man frame makes waste room. 



Last year I tried an eight-frame L. hive 

 by trimming the combs and tacking on thin 

 strips of wood all the way down the end 

 pieces, so as to space them 1 '4 inches apart, 

 then put 9 frames in a hive instead of 8, 

 and they did as well, and had one more 

 comb to brood in, but less room to make up 

 extra drone and queen cells, as any bees 

 will do in any hive. 



Any hive with a hanging frame is a both- 

 er for me, except in an upper tier for ex- 

 tracting; then I move them apart so as to 

 use one less comb in the same super. These 

 drone combs do no harm above queen-ex- 

 cluders. Th^it is the only place I want 

 drone comb if I can help m3'self, and none 

 in the sections until after the swarming im- 

 pulse has passed, else the queen is apt to 

 go up into the sections, as all queens seek 

 to lay drone eggs before swarming. 



Mj' brood-chamber is adjustable by sim- 

 plj' moving the back board back in order to 

 put in more combs. The most of my comb- 

 honey colonies have eleven or twelve combs 

 from June to August, but may have ten in 

 September, or possibly only eight or nine 

 for winter. For extracting I space the 

 brood chamber to the width of any super I 

 wish to put on; or if for piling Bingham 

 frames, then put eleven below, and have a 

 case that will hold eleven or twelve with a 

 movable back inside, in order to wedge up 

 and tier up — the more the better if bees aie 

 in condition and a good flow is on. The 

 ten-frame Bingham hive has nearly the 

 same capacity for brood as the eight-frame 

 L. hive. The ten-frame L. hive is too 

 bulky for me to handle. I once, over twen- 

 ty-five years ago, tried an experiment for 

 comb honejs or trial between ten L. hives 



