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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



upper and lower stories of a hive, but 

 the invention of the slatted honey-board, 

 with bee-space, permitted its use to 

 great advantage. And this slatted 

 honey-board, from its greater stiffness, 

 and the insertion of strips of queen-ex- 

 cluding metal in the open spaces, seems 

 to be the most satisfactory method of 

 application. 



I have always considered the ordinary 

 honey-board, of whatever make, an ob- 

 stacle to the immediate entrance of the 

 bees into the supers, and have discarded 

 them, placing the supers as near the 

 brood-frames as possible. 



My plan for working with the new 

 queen-excluding honey-board, in the 

 production of extracted-honey, i§ as fol- 

 lows : 



In the first place, the hive has much 

 to do with the proper manipulation of 

 this honey-board, and to get the greatest 

 amount of good from it with the least 

 expenditure of time and vexation, I 

 have adopted the new Heddon hive — 

 divisible brood-chamber, thumb-screws 

 and all. 



In the Spring a colony should occupy 

 two of these shallow cases, and if they 

 do not, I put them upon one, and work 

 them up into two as soon as possible. 



Until the middle of June, or until 

 white clover is in full bloom, I work to 

 obtain brood, and not only have the two 

 lower cases full, but much in the third. 



When I wish the storing of honey to 

 commence, I remove the upper cases, 

 put on the queen-excluders and the ex- 

 tracting supers, and get solid combs of 

 honey. From actual experience I know 

 that the bees will store at least one- 

 quarter more honey than where the 

 queen has free access to all the cases. 



If I have reduced the queen to only 

 one case, I enlarge the brood-chamber 

 by inserting another case below the 

 queen-excluder at any time, preferably, 

 toward the close of the harvest of white 

 honey. The queen-excluder is kept be- 

 low my extracting supers until I wish to 

 remove them. I then remove the queen- 

 excluding board, and insert aboard with 

 a bee-escape, and the next morning walk 

 out with my wheelbarrow and wheel in 

 the full cases, with scarcely a bee in 

 them ; and here I wish to say that the 

 best escape I have thus far found is the 

 invention of E. C. Porter, of Lewistown, 

 Ills. 



The Heddon hive, the queen-excluder, 

 and the bee-escape, enable me to conduct 

 an out-apiary with much less labor than 

 with old methods. 



The few colonies I have managed for 

 comb-honey are manipulated in the same 



way. I reduce the brood to one case, 

 and if there is any honey at all it goes 

 into the supers in the most beautiful 

 shape. 



If I used an old-fashioned, out-of-date, 

 hanging-frame hive, that necessitated the 

 use of cumbersome and vexatious divis- 

 ion-boards, the first thing I would do 

 would be to split up the old things into 

 kindling wood, and adopt something bet- 

 ter. — Read at the Vermont Conventlrm. 



Apiarist's f ort-SHoj and Bee-Room. 



E. L. PRATT. 



I am building a bee work-shop, and 

 have decided on the following plan : A 

 plank cellar, 10x14x6, with one small 

 light, on the south side ; entrance 

 through a bulkhead at one end. In this 

 I shall keep all my heavy tools when not 

 in use, and all restless nuclei, when 

 making up during hot weather. 



The building will be hip-roofed, set on 

 posts, and, when finished, 6 feet and 6 

 inches. The first floor will be cut up 

 into three rooms : 



A work-shop, 8x10, containing a 

 bench the long way of the room, a closet 

 for foundation and other materials that 

 should be kept out of the dust and dirt ; 

 racks and shelves enough to keep all 

 hive parts separate and out of the way. 

 Over the bench will be double sliding 

 windows ; at the right a large sash, and 

 at the left a door to enter the bee- 

 room. 



In the bee-room I shall have a low and 

 a high bench, with a double sliding sash 

 at the right. Besides the entrance to 

 the work-shop, there will be an outside 

 door to the bee-room, wide enough to ad- 

 mit a man with a colony of bees. 



The honey-room will be connected with 

 the bee-room, and arranged as conven- 

 iently as possible for extracting, etc., 

 with plenty of shelf and bench room. I 

 have not designed this room as a storage 

 room for honey. 



The loft will be used for a catch-all. 

 There will be one window in the gable- 

 end. 



The yellow Carniolans have become 

 our favorite bees, because of their many 

 good points. There are as many good 

 points in this strain of bees as are gen- 

 erally found in two ordinary races. They 

 are a long stride toward perfection. 



They have the true traits of the Car- 

 niolan race, and are as yellow as gold. 

 Besides being exceedingly gentle, they 

 are great honey-gatherers. They winter 



