1883 



GLEAlflNGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



367 



quently referred to by some of your contributors. 

 If the spermatic filaments of the drone remain 

 some time upon the surface of the cg-g-, it is easy 

 to conceive that the bees can remove them before 

 they get into the micropyle of the egg, and hence 

 drones instead of workers. 



THE CHAFF - HIVE PROBLEM BROUGHT UP AGAIN. 



1 wish to make some suggestions for the improve- 

 ment of your standard chaff hive. You will remem- 

 ber, that years ago you asked for some practical 

 way by which the frames could be inserted in the 

 top story so that it would not be necessary to remove 

 them all in order to got access to those below. 

 I think that this can be done, not only without in- 

 jury to the main features of your hive, but with an 

 increase of storage room above for frames or sec- 

 tions, besides other advantages. Let me begin by 

 saying that the doubling the case of the upper story 

 is not only unnecessary for the protection of the 

 bees below, but a positive injury to them, in the 

 winter at least, by making that upper story like a 

 damp cellar, and preventing it from drjing out as it 

 always does when made of a single thickness.. This 

 is one reason why the chaff cushions in your hive 

 are so often damp, when in those I have made they 

 are comparatively dry. Let your top stoi-y be mvde 

 of single thickness, and you not only get rid of this 

 evil, but have much more storage-room, cither for 

 frames or sections. Not only so, but you gain just 

 the room which you need for easy instead of cramp- 

 ed access to the lower story. There is good room 

 for your arms, for want of which, even when there 

 are no frames to remove from the upper story, I 

 always dislike to manipulate with your hives, espe- 

 cially if there is much work to he done. Suppose, 

 now, that you have all the room which would 

 be gained by a single thickness of the walls of that 

 story. I will show you how to arrange that space 

 for frames, by a simple plan which I used very suc- 

 cessfully more than ]'> years ago. My upper stories 

 were made of only '/^-inch stuff, and were strength- 

 ened by four posts, screwed one into each corner. 

 These posts did not come up level with the sides of 

 the cover, but were kept just enough below lo allow 

 frames to rest upon them (a, a), a little below the 

 frames wliicVi' sit from^ 

 front to rear in the upper* 

 story (h, h, h). To sustain 

 these frames, thin raiH 

 of hard wood, about three 

 inches wide, with upper 

 edges beveled to a sharp 

 edge, were fastened up 

 against the corner posts. 

 The dotted lines represent 

 these rails. You will see that the space in front and 

 rear of the upper frames was utilized for holding 

 storing-frames, which also prevented the bees from 

 building combs between the upper set of frames 

 and the front and rear walls of the upper case of 

 the top story. In the hives I used, in order not to 

 use frames resting on the corners, of a different size 

 from the standard L. frame, the lower story was 

 made to hold 13 frames, in a brood-chamber IS'sX 

 IS'^, instead of 18>3xl4ig; but there will be no need 

 of your chaff hives holding more than ten below.* 

 If you wish to get access to any frame below you 

 need only remove one or two above, moving some of 



* By using smaller frames than the staiulaid L., or ihimmies 

 instead of frames, any standard L. hive mii^'lit Ije made on this 

 plan. 



the others nearer together, and there is nothing to 

 prevent you from lifting out the lower frame, the 

 rails on which the upper ones rest being no hin- 

 drance at all. 



In this way you avoid all the heavy lifting, and 

 other trouble incidental to the plan of the old two- 

 storied hive, when you flesire to get access to the 

 lower story. If you still, for any reason, desire to 

 have the upper walls of your chaff hive double, you 

 can avail yourself of this plan, by making the air 

 space very narrow; but in my opinion the hive is 

 much better if single thickness above. There was a 

 time when I would have tried to patent this plan; 

 but while I neither question the absolute right of 

 any inventor to patent any original patentable de- 

 vice, nor the absolute wrong of parties who know- 

 ingly infringe upon valid patents, as a matter of 

 plain business common sense I would advise against 

 patenting devices which can so easily bo appropriat- 

 ed by others, as almost every thing connected with 

 bee culture must necessarily be. 



SOMETHING IN REGARD TO PATENTS. 



Where the manufacturing of any patented article 

 requires costly buildings and machinery, and heavy 

 capital, men will think long and often before they 

 attempt to infringe upon it; for in their costly plant 

 they give ample guarantees to those who will defend 

 their rights. On the contrary, if a man could invent 

 the most useful article that human brains ever de- 

 vised, but which could be easily and cheaply made 

 by almost anyone, in order to reap any substatial 

 benefit from his patent he must expect, as the rulp, 

 to engage in almost endless litigation, and to spend 

 one foitune in trying to make another. I hope, my 

 dear friend, that you will make at least one chaff 

 hive on the plan I have suggested, and put it to the 

 test of iictual use in your apiary. 



Last year, iu this place, at this time, the weather 

 was most propitious, and the fields and roadsides 

 white with clover; but it had no perceptible fra- 

 grance, and the bees in my neighbors' apiaries had 

 to be fed to be kept from starvation! This year, 

 notwithsanding the frequent and drenching rains, 

 our houses are sweet wilh the smell of clover; and 

 in the intervals when they can work, the bees are 

 accumuliting stores at a great rate. 



Wilh kind regards to Mrs. Uoot and family, and to 

 each laborer in your industrious hive, I remain as 

 ever, Yours respectfully, 



L. L. Langstroth. 



Oxford, Duller Co., O., June, 1883. 



Sure enough, frieiul L., on page Vi of your 

 book we liiKl this very matter recorded, even 

 away back as long ago as 18.12, as you say. 

 It seems to me strange that during all the 

 discu.ssion we liad"in the matter, no one even 

 suggested that you noticed the same thing. 

 Since you speak of it, it seems to me that I 

 must have seen it and afterward forgot it so 

 far that it only seemed to me that some 

 writer had suggested the possibility of 

 drones removing the spermatic filament 

 before it had made its way into the Q^g. 



In regard to your improvement on the 

 chaff hive, after my experiments with the 

 hoop hive, which you may remember, I felt 

 somewhat doubtful in regard to the bees 

 storing honey as well in an upper story made 

 of a single thickness of thin boards. For a 

 powerful colony, your arrangement would 

 give an immense crop of honey. But after 



