76 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



right time when it swarms so early that the 

 queeus of the after-swarm, if such are al- 

 lowed, become fertile, aud the first or prime 

 swarm has its combs completed, before the 

 opening of the main harvest. 



4 — Tlie ideal colony must not be over-pop- 

 ulous. A hive is over - populous when its 

 working force is too great in comparison to 

 the dimension of the hive and to the num- 

 ber of wax-building bees. 



Such a condition is intolerable to the bees 

 and they try to help themselves by loafing. 

 Their instinct teaches them to begin this 

 loafing even before the hive is over-popu- 

 lous. The bees seem to see that the combs 

 are filled and capped, that bees are daily 

 hatching and that they will soon be crowded. 

 A colony in such a condition will never per- 

 form the wonders in gathering honey that we 

 may expect from one less populous. Such 

 a colony feels instinctively that its abode 

 will soon be too small, and the swarming 

 fever sets in, and we know that when that is 

 awakened the bees will continue to loaf. 

 At the most, only as much honey will be 

 gathered as is needed for making the swarm- 

 ing prepartions. A colony with the swarm- 

 ing fever is of little value as a honey gath- 

 erer. 



5 — The best honey gathering colonies are 

 not kept at home during the best honey 

 flow by the nursing of too much brood. 

 If there is too much brood in proportion to 

 the working force, most of the honey gath- 

 ered will be consumed by the brood. The 

 bee-keeper whose bees rear a large amount 

 of brood during the main honey harvest, or 

 near its close, will find, as he stands before 

 his colonies at the close of the harvest, that 

 although they are strong in bees and the 

 combs faultless, the latter will be empty and 

 will stay so." 



Mr. Cravenhorst has promised to tell in the 

 next issue of his paper how, by taking ad- 

 vantage of the foraging points he has swell- 

 ed his harvest to the very highest notch; and 

 Mr. Spaeth has promised to furnish the 

 Review with a translation. 



The Latest Improvement in Self - Hivers. 



The bees being compelled to pass through 

 an empty hive before reaching their own, 

 when the Pratt self-hiving plan is used, is 

 regarded as an objection. Of course, a 

 little time is needed for the bees to pass 

 through the empty hive, and to that extent it 

 is objectionable, but even that objection is 

 in a fair way to be removed, as shown by 

 the following article from Mr Pratt publish- 

 ed in Gleanings. 



"I am sending you by mail one of the 

 185)3 patterns of the Pratt automatic hiver. 

 You will see that I have greatly cheapened 

 the construction, and attached it to a honey- 

 board, all in complete condition to put di- 



rectly on a hive when received. Many of the 

 purchasers last season did not understand 

 how to attach the hiver to their hives, and 

 there were some who could not understand, 

 although it was explained to them very care- 

 fully. I therefore deem it necessary to sup- 

 ply the escape-board and excluder all com- 

 plete, with directions to place on the hives 

 in the simplest form. 



With these facts in view I have endeavored 

 to construct the device complete in itself, 

 and you will readily understand the advan- 

 tage this hiver I am sending you has over 

 all the others. 



THE LATEST, PEATT. SELF - HIVEB. 



First, you will notice that it is in two parts 

 (divisble at H), making it convenient to 

 pack and mail at a very moderate cost. 

 These two parts intersect and form the 

 honey (or escape) board to cover an eight- 

 frame Dovetailed hive, and can be fastened 

 together by the receiver with three or four 

 nails or not, as he sees fit. As you notice, it 

 is a cheap and light board. I have reduced 

 the escape triangle (H, C) to two simple 

 pieces of %Ti%: also the zinc surface that 

 covers the triangle is less than half that of 

 the orignal. The entrance through the 

 board, connecting the triangle with the col- 

 ony, can be as I have it, or three or four \}4 

 inch holes, as you see fit to make them. 



You will also see that I have attached the 

 excluder D to the front end of the board, 

 with entrance there, and discarded the old- 

 style separate piece. This is much better, 

 as it not only does away with loose parts 

 but affords better ventilation. It is impos- 



