THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



441 



1 think I should construct it of wood 

 above ground, and till it in on all sides 

 and above and below with about 2i4 

 feet in thickness of dry sawdust, the 

 floor above ground, and double or 

 treble doors, of course. — Allen 

 Pringle. 



I will give a description of my own, 

 which I think is as good for the pur- 

 pose as any in Ontario. The building 

 is 12x25 feet, two story. To begin at 

 the beginning, I excavated 4 feet 

 deep. I then built a stone foundation 



2 feet thick, and a little above the 

 surface of the ground. Upon this 

 foundation I put up two balloon 

 frames of 2x4 inch scantling, one 

 frame on the inside of the foundation 

 ■wall, and the other on the outside. I 

 sheeted up the inner sides of these 

 two frames with inch boards. I had 

 now a frame-work standing on the 

 stane wall— or rather two frames, that 

 «n the outer ma^rgin 2x14 inch scant- 

 ling, 16 i.nches apart and sheeted up 

 inside. The inner frame-work was 

 the same, but sheeted up on the re- 

 verse side. I had thus a vacant space 

 over the centre of the stone wall of 

 some 14 inches walled up on either 

 side with inch boards ; tliis space I 

 filled up with sawdust, and lathed 

 and plastered inside and outside. Be- 

 ginning at the outside : I have first 

 a coat of lath and plaster, then 4 

 inches of dead air space, then an inch 

 board, then 14 inches of sawdust, then 

 another inch board, then a dead air 

 space of 4 inches, and the inner coat 

 of lath and plaster. The ceiling is 10 

 feet high, and made as follows: I 

 laid on joists 2x8 inches, lathed and 

 plastered below and floored with 

 rough inch boards on top ; imme- 

 diately over the first joists and on 

 this rough floor I laid another set of 

 joists, the same in size, and filled the 

 spaces between flush to the top of the 

 other set of joists with sawdust, and 

 then laid a tongued and grooved floor 

 over all. The ceiling, beginning from 

 above, then consists of first, the floor, 

 then 8 inches of sawdust, then a rough 

 floor, then 8 inches of dead air space, 

 and finally the coating of lath and 

 plaster, which forms the ceiling of 

 the bee- house proper. I divided the 

 upper story into two rooms, lathed 

 and plastered also. The inner wall 

 on the foundation, however, only runs 

 to the top of the first floor, so that the 

 ■walls of the upstairs rooms are simply 

 a 2x4 inch scantling, frame plastered 

 inside and outside. These upstairs 

 rooms afford dry, warm storage for 

 comb honey". I laid a Portland cement 

 floor on the bee-house below, and 

 cemented the stone wall inside, which 

 effectually excludes any soakage from 

 without. I have an inner and an 

 outer door on the bee-house, and be- 

 tween these I put a 4-inch thick straw 

 mat, made to fit the doorway. This 

 mat. of course, I put away in the 

 summer and replace it with a wire 

 screen door, for I do all my extracting 

 in the bee-house— and a delightfully 

 cool spot it is in the hot weather 

 which prevails then. Two sub-earth 

 ventilators— 8 inch tube— and led up 

 from a ravine to the rear of the build- 

 ing, give ample bottom ventilation. 

 The upper ventilation consists of two 



tubes of 8tove-piping,running through 

 the ceiling and root. Through a hole 

 in the upper floor I drop a thermome- 

 ter into the bee-house and keep it 

 suspended midway between the ceil- 

 ing and floor. To find the tempera- 

 ture below, all I have to do is to go 

 upstairs and draw up the thermome- 

 ter. In each of these ventilating 

 tubes I have a common stove-pipe 

 damper, and by simply opening or 

 closing the damper I can regulate the 

 temperature below at the same time I 

 am examining the thermometer. This 

 bee-house being plastered inside and 

 overhead, a coat of whitewash in the 

 spring keeps it sweet and clean. I 

 have used this house for wintering 

 bees for some six years, and I never 

 lost a colony in it except from starva- 

 tion or queenlessness, and I do not 

 think the bees consume more than 6 

 pounds of honey to each colony in five 

 months' confinement. It is so nearly 

 perfect that, if building again, I 

 would make no change except to sub- 

 stitute concrete for sawdust, which 

 would make it last many years longer. 

 This house will accommodate 200 

 hives. There is a chimney starting 

 at the upper floor, and into this I ran 

 one of the ventilators the first year I 

 used it, but I found that the vapor 

 from below condensed in the lateral 

 pipes and filled them with ice. After- 

 wards I used upright tubes, and have 

 had no trouble with them since. 

 From this description some may think 

 my house too costly. All my outlay 

 was the cost of the material, for I 

 drove every nail and put on every 

 trowelful of plaster there is in the 

 building with my own hands.— E. 

 McKnight. 



If we were building a bee-house we 

 would prefer to have a good cellar 

 under it frost-proof, and have the 

 walls above the cellar at least 20 

 inches thick. This gives an oppor- 

 tunity of wintering either in the 

 cellar or above, or if desired in both. 

 A cellar 12 feet square inside would 

 hold 100 colonies, or if you use both 

 cellar and the second story it would 

 hold 200. We find the second story 

 very valuable for extracting purposes, 

 work-shop, storeroom for honey, etc. 

 In fact without some such place for 

 storage, with a large apiary, it would 

 be very diflicult to manage, But if 

 you have all the storage you require, 

 and every facility for carrying on your 

 business so that nothing is required 

 excepting simply a winter repository, 

 it may be made all above ground by 

 putting up a wall of 2x4 scantling, 

 and filling the 20-inch space between 

 the walls with dry sawdust or some 

 equally good packing, A very cheap 

 arrangement might be built under 

 ground if the drainage was good, and 

 the soil sandy so that no water would 

 trouble. This might be called a cave 

 by some, by merely building a stone 

 wall around it and roofing it over 

 with timber and earth sufficiently 

 deep to prevent the cold from getting 

 in ; or it might have a packing of 18 

 inches of sawdust, and at least 2 feet 

 of chaff, but 30 inches would be much 

 better than roofing over.— Editor of 

 Canadian Bee Journal. 



For tlie American Bee JoumaL 



Uniting leal Colonies. 



J. E. FOND. 



I have tested this matter quite 

 thoroughly, and would say that two 

 weak colonies united in the spring 

 will, in my experience, live no longer 

 than either would have lived alone. 

 The queen and colony seem to need 

 young bees in the hive to cause brood- 

 rearing to go rapidly forward, for 

 without them there seems to be alack 

 in that respect. For this reason 

 (which I believe correct] I always 

 draw a frame of brood from a strong 

 colony and give to the weak one, pre- 

 ferring, if I can find such, a frame 

 from which the bees are just emerg- 

 ing. 



I have built up in this way to 

 full strength by July 1, quite a num- 

 ber of colonies that did not have bees 

 enough on the first of March, to cover 

 one-third of both sides of a Langs- 

 stroth frame ; and I have united colo- 

 nies, both much stronger, and having 

 a good queen, that ''^ petered out" 

 completely in three or four weeks. In 

 case, however, I had no colony strong 

 enough to spare brood, I should unite 

 to save a queen. 



Foxboro,o Mass. 



For tbe Amerlcsn Bee Joonial. 



Tlie Season in Nortliern Oliio. 



T. F. KINSBL. 



Up to June 20 there was no surplus 

 honey. It was too cold in fruit 

 bloom for bees to fly, and too wet 

 during white clover bloom for any 

 nectar to be secreted. The red clover 

 was very sweet — but is there such a 

 bee as a " red clover queen V" If a 

 drouth, preceding clover bloom, short- 

 ens the bloom, bees seem to work on 

 red clover. I have seen black bees 

 and yellow-banded ones on red clover, 

 but ordinarily the bees are not found 

 on red clover. 



Only one-third of my bees have 

 swarmed, and they, except four, were 

 made swarms according to Mr. Simr 

 mina' method. On July 1 I had a 

 natural swarm, and desired to test 

 Mr. Hutchinson's method. They were 

 hived on four Langstroth-Simplicity 

 frames, with 1-inch starters, and 

 closed up with a division-board on 

 each side ; a zinc queen-excluder laid 

 on top, and an extracting super put 

 on top, immediately filled with drawn 

 foundation. It was a large swarm, 

 and was forced " up stairs " for want 

 of room. In the evening of July 2 I 

 examined them, and found 10 pounds 

 of honey in the super. 



Bees now are working on basswood. 

 and fly and work from sunup till 

 sundown. I think that Mr. Demaree 

 told the exact truth when saying : 

 " If honey— nectar— was plentiful, it 

 would be difficult to keep bees out of 

 the sections." Bees, like men, can- 

 not make something out of nothing. 



Mr. Doolittle once said that he pre- 

 ferred 2.5 colonies ready for the honey 



