rHE BEE-KEEPERS' Bit VIEW. 



215 



Bees Can Escape Pretty Lively When Going 



One at a Time,— Poor Seasons To Be 



Expected. 



B. TAYLOK. 



EDITOR Review : 

 I have been 

 studying that arti- 

 cle of Bro. C. W. 

 Day'on's on bee es- 

 capes in July Re- 

 view. I regard 

 friend Dayton as 

 one of the most phil- 

 osophical and in- 

 teresting of theoret- 

 ical as well as prac- 

 tical writers on api- 

 arian subjects, but I cannot agree with him 

 on the need of a large outlet to escapes, and 

 I have reason for believing that his idea of 

 the bees crowding through a Porter es- 

 cape " four abreast and two deep " is 

 purely imaginary. My reason for so be- 

 lieving is that after many year's trial 

 of an escape in which the passage is so small 

 that only one bee at a time can get through, 

 I find it will empty a super of many or few 

 bees as quickly as an escape of any size or 

 shape. 



I have just finished taking off my comb 

 honey crop for 181)4, and it reminds me of 

 an old lady who, when told that her harvest 

 of wheat was not worth cutting, relieved her 

 feelings by exclaiming : " Well, thank God 

 the neighbors are no better off." I have no 

 need of expressing myself that way, for 

 while the bee-keepers here have as a rule 

 made a complete failure in getting a crop of 

 any kind of honey, the Forestville apiary is 

 able to report a small crop (fifty pounds per 

 colony spring count) of nice white honey. 

 The drouth spoiled every thing except bass- 

 wood, which yielded honey for two weeks, 

 and ill this short time some of the colonies 

 stored and sealed three, 1'4-section supers of 

 No. 1 honey. Finished combs did it ; with- 

 out these I should have had no finished hon- 

 ey worth mentioning. This honey we have 

 just removed from the hives, using four Por- 

 ter, and about 25 handy escapes. The Por- 

 ter does its work perfectly, and so does the 

 little handy escape which is so small that 

 only one bee can get into it at a time. We 

 would put '.'0 or 2.^) escai)es on as many hives 

 in the forenoon of one day and the next 

 morning go and take the fifty or more su- 



pers away without the bees ever seeming to 

 know they were robbed. What strange 

 thoughts comes to our mind when we remem- 

 ber that there are old leading bee-keepers 

 who yet decry the value of escapes. 



What a strange thing is man and his prej- 

 udices. I am ready to admit that after 

 having spent thirty years trying to improve 

 old things and nmke better new ones, that in 

 the whole I have made but little advance, as 

 I am compelled to accept the hive that I in- 

 vented thirty years ago as better in many 

 ways for practical use than any thing of 

 later date. But there are several new things 

 that are of great value, and of these the es- 

 cape will hold its own for all time. 



And now, brother inventors, I give our- 

 selves the credit of being the most indispen- 

 sable to civilization of all classes of men. 

 Just reflect what the world would be with the 

 inventor and his work left out. No houses 

 to live in, no clothes to wear, no books or 

 papers to read. Just stop and think the sub- 

 ject up for yourselves and decide whether 

 the inventor, who has laid awake while oth- 

 ers slept, should not be honored; and yet, 

 let inventors be modest, for no one person 

 has added little more than a fraction to the 

 great work of improvement. But I believe 

 the bee escape to be now practically perfect. 

 To put them on one day and take off the 

 cleaned supers the next morning, is what I 

 regard as perfection and any thing that 

 would work in shorter time would, in my 

 opinion, be detrimental to the best results ; 

 for we need, not only to get the bees out of 

 the supers, but to get them out in such a way 

 as to leave the colony unaware of its loss 

 and then there will be no cross, combative 

 feeling stirred up in the bees. Either the 

 Porter or handy escape I now know will do 

 this work to perfection. Mr. Dayton is en- 

 tirely right when he says that any escape on 

 the perforated tin or wire cloth plan is mis- 

 leading to the bees and wrong, to which I say, 

 from experience, amen. Tlie best escape is 

 one in which the bees have no possible hope 

 of getting to the brood nest except through 

 the escape. Now, Mr. Editor. I do not want 

 this rambling article to be construed to be 

 in any way a hostile criticism of Bro. Day- 

 ton, for I believe I could talk for a week with 

 him with an interest and satisfaction that 

 would be impossible with most men. Mr. 

 Dayton is not only a thinker but his thoughts 

 at once go in search of the mysteries that 

 conceal utility. I have read his philosoph- 



