1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



275 



vast difference whether he can alone 

 handle 500 or 1,000 colonies or must 

 hire costly help. 



It is obvious that the single-story 

 deep Quinby or Jumbo hive is superi- 

 or in all these things to the two-story 

 hives. 



Unfortunately for the craft, very 

 many of the innovations in apiary ap- 

 pliances have been the result of en- 

 thusiasm, plus good propaganda, plus 

 commercial possibilities. To prove 

 this one only needs to follow through 

 the bee press the growth and devel- 

 opment of the sundry things now in 

 use, and others once popular but now 

 long forgotten. 



All too often the sincere and hon- 

 est inventor cr designer was not a 

 close observer and the deductions 

 from such facts as were observed 

 were erroneous. Examples of the 

 statements in both of these para- 

 graphs can be found all about us, but 

 it is needless to cite them here. 



During the past few years Dr. Phil- 

 lips and Mr. Demuth have done much 

 original work on the habits (behavior) 

 of bees and their relation to practi- 

 cal bee culture and we already have 

 beneficial results in their application 

 to the wintering problem. 



In his day Mr. Quinby was probably 

 the closest observer and the soundest 

 in his deductions of anyone. The 

 conclusions he reached in hive pro- 

 portions and sizes have proved sound 

 for over fifty years. And the users 

 and advocates of the Langstroth hive 

 are beautifully proving for us that it 

 is not right in proportion or size. 



It is well that hives should receive 

 our careful consideration, but before 

 we go to inventing new ones let us 

 see if they are new, and before we 

 revive old ones let us see why they 

 were discarded. They may have had 

 merit and needed only a better under- 

 standing of bee behavior in using 

 them. And before we ask the editors 

 to consider reams of manuscript, and 

 use up pages of costly space in their 

 papers, let us each inform ourselves 

 of what has gone before, both in me- 

 chanical appliances and in operative 

 practices. Our old and tried things 

 may be good enough, but our prac- 

 tices may not be right, perhaps based 

 on mistaken ideas of bee behavior or 

 from wrong deductions from observed 

 facts. Some of us may have to de- 

 pend on others for the careful obser- 

 vation and the accurate deductions and 

 some of us may have to depend on 

 Others for the history and the editors 

 are often too busy to dig it out, so 

 we must all help. 



Providence, R. I. 



Honey Storage 



Mr. Morley Pettit : 



Dear Sir — I am obliged to put in a 

 settling tank system, and as I under- 

 stand your new central plant is thus 

 equipped, I would be obliged if you 

 would tell me the size of tank you 

 use, the material out of which it is 

 made and whether you have it above 

 the extractor and pump up the honey, 

 or whether it is below the extractor, 

 so that you have to hoist the honey 

 from the basement after it is put up 



in containers. I hope you can give 

 me the above information, and also 

 the number of seasons in use and the 

 drawbacks you have found so far. 

 Also, if tanks are made of galvanized 

 iron, give the gauge. 



Ontario. 



Our storage tanks for honey are 33 

 inches in diameter and almost 5 feet 

 high — as high as two sheets of gal- 

 vanized iron would make them. The 

 diameter was determined by the width 

 of ordinary doors through which they 

 might have to be taken. The iron is 

 gauge 24 or 22, I am not sure which. 

 The first one was made of 26 gaur^e 

 iron, and was considered too light, 

 although it is still doing duty. Each 

 has a close-fitting lid of the same ma- 

 terial, and a e ood large gate of the 

 most approved type, opening directly 

 upward and not turning on a side 

 pivot as the cheaper ones do. I re- 

 fer to the ones used on extractors, 

 which are all right for size, but are 

 not at all satisfactory for controlling 

 the stream from a tank holding 

 nearly two thousand five hundred 

 pounds of honey as theie do. 



We consider it requires at least 

 three days in ordinary summer 

 weather for the honey to settle satis- 

 factorily, so you should have enough 

 of these tanks for at least three days' 

 extracting. Against the partition 

 which separates the honey room from 

 the extracting room w; have built a 

 bench 3 feet 3 inches high for a row 

 of tanks. This leaves just enough 

 space between their tops and the ceil- 

 ing for a man on a step-ladder to lean 

 over and skim them. Then, for filling, 

 the scales are set on a table at which 

 the operator can sit in comfort with- 

 out stooping to the floor, as would be 

 necessary were the gates lower down. 

 The honey pipe from the pump rises 

 to the ceiling in the extracting room, 

 goes through the wall and delivers 

 the honey over the top of the tank. 

 It is galvanized iron gas pipe, 1 inch 



diameter, with rubber hose on the 

 end for changing from one tank to 

 another. 



By the arrangement described 

 above as compared with gravity de- 

 livery from extractor to store tanks 

 we save much tiresome lifting, and 

 stair-climbing, at a slight expense of 

 engine power. I think it was in 1913 we 

 started using the pump and gravity 

 clarifying. We used the large tanks 

 exclusively first in 1916. The pump 

 hastens granulation, and if allowed to 

 run without enough honey to ex- 

 clude air will churn the honey; but 

 this is easily regulated. Gravity clari- 

 fying is not sufficient for honey which 

 is to be sold liquid in glass ; but for 

 bottling it should be heated and is 

 easily strained in connection with 

 that operation. The large tanks as 

 described are an unqualified success, 

 so far as we can see ut present, and 

 extracting, as we do, all at the home 

 place. MORLEY PETTIT. 



Ventilation of Hives 



I am building my own hives and 

 supers, but buy factory-made Hoff- 

 man self-spacing frames 19^6 in. top- 

 bars. The hive-bodies I build are 2 l / 2 

 inches longer on the inside than the 

 frames, in order to give me space for 

 double walls at both ends of the hive. 

 I have a half-inch air space from the 

 outside end walls and then nail a 

 half-inch thick board for support to 

 lay the frames on. Both these inner 

 walls are raised 1 inch from the bot- 

 tom-board for letting the air pass to 

 and from the hive. Both outside end 

 walls have one inch hole bored in the 

 center and these holes are covered 

 inside with wire screening to keep 

 robber bees from entering the hive. 

 These holes are also handy for lifting 

 the hives. 



The idea is that when a cold wind 

 strikes the hives (I face all my hives 

 south), it cannot penetrate directly 



fforts to get pictures of the bees 



