THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



95 



Although there is much comb honey pro- 

 duced in California, the State and the Pacific 

 coast may be termed a greater producer of 

 extracted honey, and all of the improve- 

 ments of the times, it seems to me, point in 

 the direction of another radical improve- 

 ment in the near future. 



The queen excluder, and the bee escape, 

 shorten the road and cheapen the labor of 

 I)roduction, and point out the way for the 

 other improvement that will complete the 

 series. That improvement will be a stand- 

 ard, all-round-hive, equally adapted to 

 comb and extracted honey, and will admit of 

 easy and rapid manipulation. Rapid work 

 means that we handle a less number of 

 frames while extracting. If we reduce one 

 frame in a hive it makes (juite an item in a 

 large apiary, but if we could handle all of 

 the frames hi a suner as one frame it is easy 

 to understand the advantage gained. Per- 

 haps the next radical improvement will be in 

 this line. Be that as it may, no portion of 

 the country is better prepared for such an 

 improvement, or even the adoption of a 



standard frame, than is California. 



Rambleb. 



Redlands, Calif. Jan, 14, 1893. 



A Defense of the Self - Hiver and Some Crit- 

 icisms on R. L. Taylor's Use of the Queen 

 Trap Instead of a Hiver. 



O. H. DIBBEEN. 



" The inf>untain torrent is deep and wide — 

 But loud the clarion voice replied . 

 Excelsior I " 



^jg HAD expected a much more thorough 

 ^) discussion of the self-hiver question, 

 «^ than appeared in the March number of 

 the Review. I deem the hiver of paramount 

 importance in modern apiculture, not ex- 

 cepting the invention of the movable frame, 

 and believe that any one able to add any- 

 thing to make this important invention the 

 perfect success that it soon promises to be, 

 will confer a boon on the pursuit. 



When some writer in the Apiculturist, 

 some three years ago, called Mr. Alley's at- 

 tention to the possibilities of such a device, 

 he evidently recognized its great impor- 

 tance, and at once replied that such an in- 

 vention could not be made a success without 

 restraining the queen, which would " in- 

 fringe" on his patent for catching drones. 

 But what we have wanted, and still want 

 badly, is the perfect self-hiver, without any 



reference to any one's patents. When a sim- 

 ple hiver is possible, that will hive large 

 swarms, and is without serious objection, 

 that point can be easily settled. At any rate, 

 I have nothing to do with that matter here. 



At the time mentioned, I was confronted 

 with the problem of being over-stocked with 

 bees — having 250 colonies in a territory af- 

 fording profitable pasturage, in a good sea- 

 son, for not over 1.50 colonies. I decided to 

 start an out-apiary, but the difficulty of get- 

 ting a capable man, willing to stay alone for 

 five or six weeks, in a lonesome place, in the 

 woods, besides the expense; was quite a se- 

 rious matter. It is not to be wondered at 

 that I quickly became intensely interested 

 in the hiver as a probable solution of my 

 difficulties. In a short time Mr. Alley 

 brought out his original invention, and I had 

 him send me a sample, but was not entirely 

 pleased with it, and soon had one of my own 

 on a modified plan. That year, 1890, T had 

 100 in use at the out-apiary, but as the empty 

 hive was at the side, it proved a hiver in 

 theory only. The trouble appeared to be 

 that the queen failed to go through the es- 

 capes and tubes sidewise. After studying 

 over the matter, I concluded, for the next 

 year, 1891, to remodel my hivers so as to 

 place the empty hive on top of the swarming 

 hive, thus compelling the queen to run in a 

 natural direction, upward. This promised 

 to solve the difficulty, but after watching a 

 few swarms, another difficulty appeared. 

 While there was no difficulty in getting the 

 queen in front of the new hive, only very small 

 swarms could be secured. Of course, where 

 one could give immediate attention, by ex- 

 changing hives, etc.. good swarms could be 

 made. At the out-apiary, I could pretty cer- 

 tainly detect hives that had swarmed, and by 

 exchanging hives and shaking enough bees 

 off the combs of old hives, very good swarm- 

 ing could be made. I used some 200 hivers 

 that year, at both apiaries, and while I felt 

 greatly encouraged, I also felt that the hiver 

 was not perfect. 



For the season of 1892, both Mr. Pratt and 

 Mr. Alley came out with some new devices 

 that promised to lessen if not solve the dif- 

 ficulty. After studying them over for a 

 wh le, I decided that neither was perfect, 

 and concluded to confine my changes to ex- 

 periments with these and other untried de- 

 vices. I also tried several new devices of 

 my own the past season, with good success. 

 One plan is to put the new hive in front of 



