THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



189 



keepers to hold tight to their pocket books 

 until they know what they are paying for. 

 FoBESTviLLE, Mion. June 29, 1894. 



I!:"t^^>t^<r^ 



Swarm -Catchers Work Satisfactorily. 



J. A. GOLDEN. 



He who werts Miss Catclior doeth woll— 



And 'tother fellow's welcome quite to tell 

 That he who weds her not doth better. 



r^DITOR Re- 

 JZj view : When 

 reading your edi- 

 torial on page 16.S 

 of the June issue, 

 in regard to 

 swarm catchers, 

 thinks I to my- 

 self, W. Z. will 

 surely have some 

 o f the big bee 

 guns, who keep 

 bees by the hun- 

 dreds of colonies, and want to do all the work 

 of hiving them fhotiselres, rise up and say, 

 " your theory, Mr. Hutchinson, has not been 

 my experience ;" but, as your views of the 

 superiority of the swarm catcher over that of 

 the traps so nicely agree with ni)/ experience 

 along this line, I thought I would give a 

 word of consolation to the old bee-keepers 

 as well as the lady bee-keepers that do not 

 indulge in tree-climbing or like the straight- 

 ening out of swarms clustered together, 

 which so often occurs when the queen trap 

 is used, but prefer right down, unrulHed en- 

 joyment in swarming time. 



In a well regulated apiary of, say from 

 fifty to one hundred colonies, I should use 

 the swarm catcher ; larger apiaries require 

 additional assistance. I know that some say 

 that swarm catchers are l)ig heavy concerns 

 and a nuisance, which is a positive " not so " 

 in our experience. I don't know how much 

 brother B. Taylor's catchers weigh, but I do 

 know ours weighs only from 2'^o to ?> pounds 

 and they are not clumsy to handle. 



You have very wisely said in your editorial 

 that it is not necessary to stand around with 

 a swarm catcher in hand ready to jump and 

 ran, etc., etc. With properly arranged 

 catchers placed promiscuously in an apiary 

 of fifty colonies, one need not get on much 

 of a hustle to place catchers on from five to 

 eight hives should that many swarms all 



start at the same time, and succeed in get- 

 ting a queen in each catcher. 



Whether one-half or three-fourth of the 

 bees get out before the catcher is placed in 

 position or not, one can catch the queen, and 

 all her daughters will return and settle on 

 the wire screen of the catcher, when the 

 catcher can be set in the shade, the bees 

 sprinkled and cared for, thus the swarm 

 catcher has its superiority over the trap. 



I purchased a right from Mr. H. Alley, 

 and manufactured and used quite a number 

 of the traps, using the Chicago zinc, and no 

 queen escaped, but the zinc proved a great 

 hindrance to the worker bees when storing 

 nectar and pollen, consequently, no traps 

 are used by us except to clean out useless 

 drones. 



Now, Mr. Editor, as bees are very peculiar 

 animals, I shouldn't be surprised if we hear 

 conflicting experiences along this line, and 

 perhaps the self-hiver will be advocated as 

 the greatest of any device for the controlling 

 of swarms. Having never used one I can 

 say nothing for or against except that I sus- 

 pect a queen would slip through occasionally, 

 so, give us the swarm catcher now and all 

 the time, and there will be no doubling up 

 o'.' swarms nor ruffling of tempers. 



Reineesville, Ohio. June 20, 1894. 



The Best Size of Hives for use in Raising 

 Comb Honey. 



G. M. DOOLTTTLE. 



T SEE by the pa- 

 i pers of late 

 that the old ques- 

 tion of "size of 

 hives" is being 

 revived. Although 

 old, this is yet an 

 important subject 

 and one that the 

 thinking mind 

 will not put care- 

 lessly aside, for 

 in this question lies something that touches 

 the financial side of our pursuit to an extent 

 great enough to make it an object for us to 

 spend upon it some thought and experi- 

 ments. 



When I first began to keep bees, like near- 

 ly every one else, I adopted the hive used by 



