580 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



they would have surely found it, and this 

 shows the necessity of uniformity. 



No bee-keeper using perforated zinc 

 for queen-excluding should rear queens 

 from larva, and here I must enter a pro- 

 test against queen-breeders who offer 

 for sale queens whose places are supplied 

 by queens reared invariably from larva 

 too old to develop perfect, fully-developed 

 and hence prolific queens. Such queens 

 may be known by the smallness of the 

 thorax, and may be expected to pass a re- 

 liable, queen-excluding zinc occasionally. 



The queen- breeders referred to have 

 a good many colonies, and all they do is 

 to take out queens and let the colonies rear 

 more. No good queens can be reared in 

 this way, and bee-periodicals and apiar- 

 ists should alike frown down these men. 



No queen, virgin or laying, that was 

 properly reared from the egg, can pass 

 my zinc. At least in five years of ex- 

 tensive experience in the use of queen- 

 excluders, queen-traps, etc., I have never 

 known one to get through it, nor have I 

 ever heard that any one else among the 

 hundreds that have used it, have had a 

 fully-developed virgin queen to get 

 through it, which is evidence conclusive 

 that perforated zinc can be made practi- 

 cally queen-excluding, and yet not be ob- 

 structive to worker-bees. 



A perforated zinc can also be made 

 that will exclude drones and allow the 

 passage of the queens, but I do not know 

 if such zinc can be made use of to any 

 great extent. Time will determine. 



New Philadelphia, Ohio. 



AilTantaps of aa Ontsiile Case, 



E. L. PKATT. 



Double-walled hives are often confused 

 with chaff hives. There may be advan- 

 tages in chaff hives when properly con- 

 structed, but the double-walled hives 

 can be worked to such better advantage 

 that they are much more desirable. 

 Chaff hives are generally made of heavy 

 lumber, and, being permanently packed 

 with absorbing material, are very clumsy 

 to manipulated, and awkward things to 

 move about. Then the packing is liable 

 to become damp and sour, which is one 

 of the worst things about a chaff hive. 

 With the outside case very thin material 

 can be used in both walls, which is a 

 great saving in lumber and freight, 

 besides rendering the hives easy of 

 manipulation and safety in Winter. 



The secret of successful out-door win- 

 tering is to rid the cluster of the mois- 



ture as soon as thrown off from the 

 bees. Bees will stand any amount of 

 cold if they can be kept dry and sweet. 

 Diarrhea is largely due to moisture gath- 

 ering closely about the cluster during 

 long cold spells. When the temperature 

 moderates, or the bees move to take 

 food, this water is licked up by the bees, 

 and by over-loading their stomachs with 

 this foul condensed breath the bees con- 

 tract what is termed bee-diarrhea. 



Moisture will always collect on the 

 coldest wall inside. When chaff is used 

 between the two walls it, of course, be- 

 comes damp on the outside by absorp- 

 tion, and the dampness will gradually 

 work its way through until the packing 

 is thoroughly saturated, when it will 

 become very cold and frosty. With thin 

 hives and thin outside cases, the mois- 

 ture is at once taken away from the 

 bees and condensed on the inside walls 

 of the outside case. When the sun 

 strikes the hives it will warm up the out- 

 side cases,. and the frost collected in the 

 cases will melt, run down the sides and 

 out of the hive. 



By using cushions stuffed with chopped 

 hay or straw over the frames, a double 

 hive can be kept as dry and clean as they 

 are at any time during the Summer. 

 This condition is very necessary to win- 

 ter bees successfully. 



Another valuable feature about an 

 outside case, is the ease with which 

 colonies can be built up in Spring, es- 

 pecially when closed-end frames are 

 used inside the winter case. 



The cases work in well when feeding 

 in early Spring or during the Summer 

 and Fall, and there is no need of shade- 

 boards when the outside cases are used. 



In the production of comb-honey, the 

 cases are a great aid, and the supers are 

 always comfortable for the bees to work 

 in, and if cold nights come on during 

 gathering time the bees are not driven 

 from the supers. 



There are many other minor points of 

 advantage about the outside cases, and 

 Southern as well as Northern bee-keep- 

 ers can use them to good profit. The 

 time is close at hand when %-inch stock 

 will be superseded by % stock in the 

 manufacture of bee-hives. 



A perfect bee-hive should be cheap, 

 light in weight, and durable, easy of 

 manipulation, and should hold movable 

 frames of standard Langstroth size. It 

 should not be too large nor too small, 

 but of a size best adapted for securing 

 all of the honey in neat, salable shape. 



For either comb or extracted-honey, 

 the 8-frame size is about right, though 

 we have been very successful with seven 



