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hive till done feeding. A close-fitting 

 hive with a contracted entrance pre- 

 cludes all robbing. 3. Just pour in 

 the sjTup while the feeder is in jjosi- 

 tion on the hive. — G. W. Demaree. 



1. For spring feeding the syrup 

 should be tliin. Make it of A sugar. 

 2. Leave the feeder in place, but give 

 the bees onlj' what is necessary. 3. 

 Refill the feeder while on tlie hive, and 

 save the trouble of removing it. — The 

 Editor. 



!««»»«I««HT«II««II»II!tg»I»gTTTT] 



MANIPULATION. 



Easy and Prolitable in ^Veil- 

 Adapted Hives. 



Written for the American Bee Jawnval 



BY REV. L. L. LANGSTROTH. 



Although 1 was present at the Detroit 

 Convention of bee-keepers in December, 

 1885, where Mr. Heddon first called atten- 

 tion to the system of management with his 

 " new hive," 1 heard him too imperfectly to 

 get any adequate conception of his inven- 

 tion. My head trouble returninti soon after, 

 and lastinf! nearly two years, 1 lost all in- 

 terest in bee-matters, and it was only in 

 February last (my attention being recalled 

 to this hive), that I was impressed with the 

 idea that it might be a great step in advance, 

 in practical bee-lseeping. From the very 

 start 1 saw that many abused the power of 

 manipulation given by the Langstrotli hive, 

 because they tailed to see that progress lay 

 in reducing the necessary manipulations to 

 a minimum. In the latest work of our 

 honored Dzierzon, his wonderful acquain- 

 tance with the habits of bees, seems, to 

 Americans at least, to be greatly wasted 

 upoU a hive and system of management 

 which would make our honey cost more 

 tlian it would sell for. 



To manipulate with whole cases of frames 

 instead of by single frames, seemed to me 

 a very wide extension of the principle so 

 much insisted on in my first work on bees, 

 published in 1853, that a hive ought not to 

 require one single unnecessary motion 

 either for the bee or its owner. 



Influenced by such considerations, I de- 

 termined to see the actual workings of the 

 Heddon hive in his apiary at Dowagiae, 

 Mich. As the weather on my arrival there 

 was too cold to handle bees, 1 carefully 

 studied the hive. From what I know of the 

 habits of bees, and construction of hives, 

 just as a short examination of a Munn hive 

 shows me that it is worthless either for 

 amateur or practical uses— so the longer I 

 studied the Heddon hive, the stronger was 

 my belief that it would accomplish what he 

 claimed for it. 



As soon as I could see bees handled in 

 these hives, and could handle them myself, 

 all my favorable preposessions were fully 

 contirmed, and knowing how little I could 

 count upon the continuance of health, I felt 

 that in justice to the public, as well as to 

 Mr. Hetldon, I ought to put this opinion on 

 record, by writing to some of my bee-keep- 

 ing friends. 



I think tliat no one who knows how I 

 was deprived of tlie legitimate fruits of my 

 own invention, will be surprised that 1 

 should feel it to be a "positive duty to use 

 what influence I may liave among bee-keep- 

 ers, to secure for Mr. Heddon both the 



honor and the profit to which he seems, not 

 only to me, but to so many of our best api- 

 arists at home and abroad, to be justly en- 

 titled. 



Siium Cuique—" TO each ms own." 



From my earliest recollections my dear 

 father enjoined this as a sacred duty upon 

 his children— and I believe that all who 

 know what X have done and written in con- 

 nection with bees, will bear me witness that 

 I have not departed from the spirit of his 

 teachings. It was this strong sense of duty 

 to give honor to whom honor is due, wliich 

 made me desire, even before I had any cor- 

 respondence with Mr. H. about his liive, to 

 go to Dowagiae and judge of it for myself. 

 I will now describe some of the most im- 

 portant things that I there witnessed : 



1. Before I saw the easy working of his 

 frames (even in hives which 7iad been occu- 

 pied fcyr several years by bees), with close- 

 fitting uprights (t prefer this French term 

 to our word, ends), I could not conceive 

 liow they could possibly be handled as 

 rapidly or safely as the Langstroth frames. 

 The propolis trouble alone seemed to forbid 

 this. Judge of my surprise then to find, 

 that by leaving no space for bees to get be- 

 tween the uprights and the cases holding 

 the frames, and by keeping the touching 

 surfaces of the uprights so closely pressed 

 together by the thumb-screws, as to leave 

 no joint open wide enough for bee-glue, he 

 had actually reduced the propolizing pro- 

 pensity of bees to a minimum ! 



My knowledge of the trouble and delay in 

 manipulating all the previous styles of 

 close-fitting uprights, led me to think that it 

 would be quite difficult to handle the Hed- 

 don frames. To find that I was mistaken 

 on this point, was a greater surprise than 

 the way in which the propolis dithculty was 

 met. In handling Langstroth frames of the 

 standard depth (and still more with deeper 

 frames), bees are often hurt between the 

 uprights and ease— a thing impossible with 

 the Heddon arrangement, while at the same 

 time the uprights of his case— as they go 

 down into the hive, when a frame is put 

 back— only push the bees away instead of 

 pinching them between their closing sur- 

 faces. When the Langstroth frames are 

 put back, even by experts, it often happens 

 thatthey must readjust the spacing, to get 

 room for the last frame, whereas, the Hed- 

 don frames always go to their proper places. 

 As a matter of fact then, the Heddon frames 

 can be safely handled with more rapidity 

 than any in jirevious use ; thus securing all 

 the advantages of close-fitting uprights 

 without their old inconveniences. 



2. I was actually charmed to see how 

 quickly the queen can be found in this hive. 

 There is really no place where she can hide 

 behind either tlie uprights of the frames, or 

 on any of the frame pieces, or on the combs, 

 which by a single inversion of their contain- 

 ing case, have all been made to completely 

 fill the frames. Alarmed, now, by the in- 

 troduction of both light and smoke into 

 such a shallow case, .she u^ually glides at 

 once to the bottom-board to hide herself be- 

 tween it and the bottoms of the frames. Jf 

 she does uot show up when the case is lifte<l 

 otf, she can, as 1 have seen, be readily 

 shaken out from such shallow and uniformly 

 straight combs, so as to be easily secured. 



To catch a queen witli so little trouble, 

 and with no danger of robbing, seems al- 

 most too good a thing to be believed, until 

 it is actually witnessed, and the mere 

 thought that such a feat is possible, must 

 recall to many of my readers tlieir weary 

 queen-hunts, "in the old styles of hives, un- 

 der the broiling sun, and with the hateful 

 annoj'ance of robber bees. 



3. Another important feature in this hive 

 is the remarkable rapidity with which the 

 exact condition of affairs, in the brood- 

 chamber, can be ascertained. In less time 

 than is needed to remove and replace a sin- 

 gle frame in otlier hives, a Heddon brood- 

 section can be lifted off, and from its being 



shallow enough to allow a good view of the 

 combs from both above and below, even 

 without shaking out the bees— the quantity 

 of brood and honey, and everything else 

 essential to be known, having been learned 

 by a few glances of an expert's eye— the 

 section may be replaced before any robbing 

 can be done. 



4. The shape, size and lightness of the 

 parts composing this hive, greatly facilitate 

 all necessary manipulations in the apiary, 

 and must therefore make it peculiarly ac- 

 ceptable to all who for any reason wisli to 

 economize their physical strength. A weak 

 person who cannot handle many hives 

 needs it, and tlie strong man also needs it, 

 that he may make all his strength tell, in 

 the management of the largest possible 

 number of colonies. 



5. Thesimplewayof holding the frames so 

 firmly in place by thumbscrews, admirably 

 tits this hive for safe transport. I use the 

 word transpoit in its widest sense, so as to 

 include every movement of any of the parts 

 of the hive, from the simple lifting off of a 

 section, to the carrying of a hive with bees 

 for any purpose, to any distance, however 

 short or long. I have seen a frame filled 

 with comb, tossed about the room, and 

 thrown out of a second story window— also 

 a whole section of such frames slid, and 

 even kicked about a room, and all with- 

 out any injury to the combs. 



6. lam strongly Impressed with the great 

 advantages, wliich seem to me must cer- 

 tainly be gained by one of the leading fea- 

 tures of Sir. Heddon's invention and sys- 

 tem of manai;ement, viz : the divisible 

 brood-chaniber— bat as this is a point on 

 which the season (April 17) gives me no 

 opportunity to speak from actual observa- 

 tion, I relegate it to the many able bee- 

 keepers who can speak from their own ex- 

 perience, remarking only that when capa- 

 cious brood-chambers and surplus apart- 

 ments are desired for any purpose, they can 

 all be readily obtained in the best form, by 

 the Heddon hive and system. 



7. Perhaps there was no feature in the 

 Heddon hive which surprised me quite as 

 much as the facility it affords for the use of 

 the extractor. Indeed, when I first gave it 

 my attention, I was so ignorant of Its scope, 

 as to suppose that it was a conceded point 

 that it could only be used profitably for the 

 production of comb honey ! This is one of 

 the points where I cannot speak from my 

 own actual observation ; but those in Dow- 

 agiae, who have had the largest experience, 

 affirm confidently, that, in a given time, 

 they can actually extract more honey by the 

 Heddon system than they could with their 

 Langstroth hives, and give these reasons 

 for their belief : 



Nearly all the bees can be easily shaken 

 out of the combs of the extracting sections, 

 and these quickly carried to a safe place, 

 where the few bees not shaken out, will 

 soon leave them. The eight frames of a 

 section may then be turned out in a stand- 

 ing position upon a table.by a .single motion, 

 their regular .shallow combs uncapped witfi 

 unusual rapidity, and all their contents ex- 

 tracted at the same time ; and nearly all of 

 this worli can be done under cover. Need 

 anything more be said on this subject, to 

 those who have followed the tedious routine 

 of shaking and brushing off the bees from 

 each separate comb in the sun, and exposed 

 to robber bees ? 



8. It need hardly be said to any good bee- 

 keeper, who has carefully weighed the 

 above points in favor of tlie Heddon hive 

 and system of management, how greatly it 

 reduces in an apiary the liability of robbing. 

 Those who have the Heddon hives will have 

 no use for any bee-tent, when thej' can so 

 easily find the queen, or can shake out the 

 bees from any section when necessary, to 

 examine it at leisure under cover. 



In reading this enumeration of benefits to 

 be had from Mr. Heddon's invention, it 

 might seem that if I have not exaggerated 

 them, any one of a number of them must be 



