1883 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



19 



MAKING THE BEES WEAR SHIRTS. 



ANOTHER OF FRIEND HASTY 'S FANCIES. 



MAVEN'T they been without any thing on long 

 enough? Dark ages indeed, when our pets 

 ' have to go naked! " 1 don't like to associate 

 with men who haven't any shirts," said an African 

 savage, in making a little speech to the missiona- 

 ries. They had recently taught him to wear the gai-- 

 ment in question. And, friend Koot.if a lot of your 

 high-toned Italians should take a notion to come, 

 and visit my black and hybrid aristocrats, how it 

 would take them aback to have the proud natives 

 aforesaid turn up their little honey-snouts and say, 

 "We don't like to associate with bees that haven't 

 any shirts." 



On the whole, I might as well confess that I have 

 not got as far yet as to make each individual bee 

 wear a shirt; but the colony in its collective capaci- 

 ty wears one. The shirt is a substitute for the up- 

 per story of the hive. It is a recent invention of 

 mine, but I am so very much pleased with it that I 

 think it has come to stay clear to the end of the 

 show. You remember that the elder Grimm was 

 very emphatic about having the covers of the hive 

 raised during a yield of honey, asserting that he got 

 a great deal more honey by so doing. Well, raised 

 covers are liable to let a storm beat in sometimes, 

 and liable to be neglected until robbing breaks out, 

 I should say. And I'll warrant that nine-tenths of 

 us neglect to raise the covers at all, and so lose 

 whatever is to be lost in that way, probably a lai-ge 

 amount. Perfect super ventilation is assured by 

 using a shirt instead of an upper story to cover the 

 sections; and no evil results follow, as far as I see 

 yet. Just lay across the brood-frames two quarter- 

 inch strips, and set on the sections, either in broad 

 frames, racks, or in any other way imaginable. 

 Whether the super fixings are of a size to fit that 

 particular hive or not, doesn't make a "dit o' biffer- 

 ence;" the neat muslin shirt, like charity, covers 

 all. A roof, surmounted by a good-sized stone, is to 

 be placed on top of all, of course. In making the 

 first trir.ls I wondered whether the bees would eat 

 holes in the muslin, or propolize it. They never do 

 either one. Where the fabric is pressed directly up- 

 on some chink close to where they are working, 

 they propolize, but do not make holes. Before put- 

 ting on the shirt I take care that the sections are 

 suflBciently sided up with something, that no very 

 large holes exist; and this!, with what restraint is 

 put upon the air by filtering it through a thickness 

 of muslin, seems to be just inclosure enough. 



I am aware that one might reason in this way: 

 Letting air more directly into the sections will cool 

 them; and if cooler, the scales of wax will not be 

 workable, and comb-building will stop. But all the- 

 oretical points have to go by the board when actual 

 practice contradicts them. Comb can be built when 

 the air immediately surrounding the cluster is quite 

 cool. Of course, a novelty must undergo a longer 

 test (and a more general one) than this has had be- 

 fore being accepted by the fraternity at large. 



Now as to the way of making and putting on the 

 garment. Permit me to give the way I intend to put 

 them on next season, instead of the way I put them 

 on last season. Get the cheapest muslin, costing 

 about 6}i cents a yard. There is a kind which is tol- 

 erably heavy, but freckled with brown spots, which 

 la most desirable if you can find it. With the aid of 



a sewing-machine make the material up into large 

 tubes somewhat like shirt-bodies. Let the width of 

 each be a little more than enough to go around your 

 largest super, and the height several inches more 

 than the height of the supers, when tiered up as 

 high as you expect to tier them. You want now 

 some thin wooden strips. If none are at hand, rip 

 up some lath on the foot-power saw, making strips 

 say I4 inch thick. Take four pieces, the same length 

 as the four sides of your hive, and with a few wire 

 nails and the strips fasten the lower end of the cloth 

 tube, or shirt, securely over the top edge of the low- 

 er story. In use, the surplus length of the shirt is 

 to be folded over the top of the super, and held there 

 by the weight of the roof. When desirable to look 

 in, just take off the roof and let the upper end of 

 the shirt drop down. 



Besides the main advantage hoped for, of increas- 

 ing the honey crop, the sections are easier to get at 

 than in many upper-story arrangements. You can 

 also adopt any new and desirable thing in supers 

 or sections that comes along, without changing your 

 hive. By means of this device I intend next season to 

 put pound sections on a good many hives that were 

 made for l!4-pound sections — the demand for the 

 smaller size being so much the greater. 



As to the durability of muslin exposed to the 

 weather, I have had a pretty good illustration. In 

 the fall of 18T9 I made some saw-dust cushions di- 

 rectly upon the outside of the hives. I didn't think 

 them of much use, but have left some of them on 

 ever since, to test the weathering qualities of cot- 

 ton. I believe none of them have given way, except 

 where something was banked up against them at 

 the bottom, in such a way as to hold wet. 



It just seems to me that I can catch a good glimpse 

 of the coming hive. A bottom, smooth on one side 

 for summer, and made into a sawdust tray on the 

 other side for winter. A one-story chaff-packed 

 body, sized to suit one's frame, and wide enough to 

 cut all the capers that come along inside of it. A 

 flat roof, chaff-packed also, and clad with a big sheet 

 of tin; a light narrow rim to inclose the folded cush- 

 ion of chaff in winter, and a shirt to cover the su- 

 pers in summer. 



CRITICISING. 



It is changing the subject a good way, but it's a 

 matter I've been thinking of, of late — the way we 

 junior class of bee-folks have of pitching into friend 

 Heddon and friend Doolittle, and other seniors when- 

 ever our experience does not just tally with theirs. 

 It must seem to them at times that this is a rather 

 hostile world. Now, we don't mean it in that way. 

 We are just as proud of them as need to be, all the 

 time. They are suffering from "that fierce light 

 that beats about a throne." Perhaps, however, wo 

 would seem a little less like a troop of boys throw- 

 ing half-bricks, if we should contrive to say a kindly 

 word now and then. To practice as well as preach, 

 I have been much pleased by the quality of the 

 plants I got from friend Doolittle; much larger and 

 nicer ones than those obtained from a leading nur- 

 seryman of high repute. 



LAST MONTH'S QUESTIONS. 



I was too nearly out of thin foundation to spare 

 enough to fill a super with full-sized pieces when I 

 tried the sections without separators. Remember, I 

 did not give my experience as an exhaustive set of 

 experiments, but only as a series of dodges to get 

 out of a corner. I have, however, repeatedly had 

 bees work on one side of the foundation in a section 



