1907 



GLEANINGS IN GEE CULTURE. 



1441 



honey harvest is small where the bees have 

 to liy from three to five miles to cemeteries 

 or parks, and gardens are scarce in large 

 cities because ground is too valuable. 

 Brooklyn, N. Y. 



THE 



ASPINWALL N0NSWAR3IING 

 HIVE. 



A Second Year's Test at the Vernon Burt 

 Yard; what One of the Most Extensive 

 Bee-keepers in the United States Thinks 

 of the Hive. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



By referring to page 399 of our issue for 

 March 15, this year, one will see several il- 

 lustrations showing the Aspinwall hive after 

 one season of test; but, unfortunately, the 

 photo at that time failed to show the vital 

 feature of the hive — namely, the slatted di- 

 vider that is inserted between each pair of 

 frames and sach row of sections. Mr. Burt 

 has given the hive another severe test for 

 another year; and while the colony was 

 booming at its height we took some more 

 photographs showing its external and inter- 

 nal construction. These we present here- 

 with. 



It will be recalled that the Aspinwall hive 

 is different from any other that was ever in- 

 vented. While it employs some well-known 

 old principles, it uses one feature that is cer- 

 tainly novel. This is the slatted divider, a 

 sort of frame in which are mounted a series 

 of perpendicular slats | inch wide, | thick, 

 ancl f apart. One of these dividers is insert- 

 ed between every alternate comb. First 

 there will be a divider, then a comb, then a 

 divider, then a comb, and so on. The prac- 

 tical result of this is that every comb is sep- 



FIG. 1.— ASPINWALL NON-SWARMING HIVE. 



arated from its neighbor by one inch. There 

 would be no need of having perpendicular 

 slats bee-spaced apart except that these must 

 necessarily be used to keep the bees from 

 Duilding porob between the two others. It 



will be seen that the brood-nest is broken up 

 into a series of divisions, each division con- 

 sisting of one comb of bees and brood; but 

 these divisions are not separated, but are 

 made homogeneous with the others by the 

 cluster of bees reaching from one comb to 

 the other between the slats. Just why this 

 splitting-up of the brood-nest should stop 

 swarming may not be entirely clear; but, ap- 



FIG. 2. — ASPINWALL HIVE WITH COVER RE- 

 MOVED SHOWING POSITION OF „ "^*" 

 FRAMES AND DIVIDERS. 



parently, these slatted dividers have the ef- 

 fect of keeping the bees all in the hive, no 

 matter how hot the weather, where they do 

 not seem inclined to swarm; but. on the con- 

 trary, work and store honey in the supers. . 

 Last year and this year were rather poor, 

 but Mr. Burt, in order to bring on swarming 

 conditions, jammed in the feed day after day, 

 to see if he could not force out a swarm; but 

 the bees stayed contentedly at work. While 

 this with one colony is by no means a con- 

 clusive test, the fact that he could not force 

 the colony to swarm, which was a powerful 

 one, is somewhat significant. 



THE ASPINWALL BROOD-FRAME. 



Fig. 4 shows at the top an Aspinwall frame, 

 and at the bottom one of the slatted divid- 

 ers. One will notice that there are four in- 

 stead of one end-bar. But those next to the 

 comb are one inch wide, or the same width 

 as the top-bar of the frame, while the outer 

 end-bar is If wide, and therefore wider than 

 the others. The purpose of these extra bars 

 is to give a large cluster of bees around the 

 ends of the combs as well as between them. 

 It will be seen, then, that every comb is sur- 

 rounded with a large amount of animal heat. 

 As there is a lot of space inside the hive, 

 there is no need of the bees clustering out- 

 side, where they become discontented and 

 finally swarm. 



The same scheme of separating the sections 

 above, that is employed in the brood-nest, is 

 used. It will be noted that these slatted di- 

 viders not only separate the rows of sections. 



