104 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



tion have never been extensively engaged in 

 comb honey production where ^ood crops 

 could be secured. Mr. Dibbern suggests a 

 " peep hole " in each side of the hive. I 

 should not mind so very much the getting 

 down on the hands and knees and peeping 

 through if the self-hiver gave any decided 

 advantages over the use of the queen trap, 

 but I must confess that I see none. Any 

 doubts that I had on the subject have been 

 swept away by the clear, practical reasoning 

 of Mr. R. L. Taylor. If there must be manip- 

 ulation after a swarm has been hived with 

 a hiver, and the queen trap allows us to ac- 

 complish the same ends with no more manip- 

 ulation — yes, less — what is gained by using 

 the hiver ? The idea that a hiver can be ad- 

 justed to a hive and left without further 

 manipulation, even though a swarm issued, 

 might possibly answer for the raising of ex- 

 tracted honey, but every practical comb hon- 

 ey producer knows that it would not answer 

 his purpose. 



With me, as a rule, swarms without queens 

 do not cluster ; but if one or more unite in 

 the air, the great mass of the bees will fol- 

 low the first few that return to their hive. A 

 few stragglers will return to their own hive, 

 but at least four-fifths will be in, or on the 

 outside, of one hive. I do not see, however, 

 that this has any bearing on the question of 

 hivers versus traps, except that with the traps 

 it is easy to learn which have swarmed, by 

 the presence of the queens in the traps, while 

 with the hiver this is impossible without a 

 careful search of the hivers. The simple 

 twisting around of the hive and looking into 

 it would not answer, as the queen and a few 

 bees might not be discovered without a care- 

 ful examination. 



EXTEAOTOKS AND EXTEAOTING. 



If a bee-keeper is going to buy an extract- 

 or, what kind shall he buy ? If he is a bee- 

 keeper in a small way, and expects to remain 

 such, it will not pay him to invest in auto- 

 matic-reversible machines, or any thing of 

 that kind. A plain, simple, cheap, but sub- 

 stantial extractor is all he needs. For the 

 money, I know of nothing better than the 

 Novice, made by Mr. Root. 



For the average bee-keeper, the one with 

 from 50 to 100 colonies, the Cowan would 

 probably answer as well as any. This ma- 

 chine is reversible, although it does not re- 

 verse automatically. The operator has to 

 swing the baskets by hand, but this is more 



quickly and easily done than to remove the 

 combs to reverse them. 



There are several practical, reversible 

 honey extractors, those in which the combs 

 may be reversed without removing the 

 combs from the baskets. Some of these ex- 

 tractors are automatic as well as reversible ; 

 that is, the baskets reverse by simply stop- 

 ping the machine and reversing it quickly 

 with a sort of a jerk that throws the baskets, 

 around in the opposite direction. The Stan- 

 ley and the machine made by Goold, Shapley 

 & Muir Co., of Ontario, Canada, are of this 

 style, but I doubt if invention will stop short 

 of a machine that can be reversed automat- 

 ically while in full motion. I do not know 

 that such a machine has been made, but Mr. 

 E. A. Daggitt, of White House Station, New 

 Jersey, has sent me drawings of two or three 

 arrangements by which this may be accom- 

 plished. I give an illustration of the one 

 that seems to me to be the best. The en- 

 graving makes all so clear that almost no ex- 

 planation is needed. By pressing down on 

 the lever A, the bar B is forced downwards. 

 The lower end of the bar is bent at right an- 

 gles and its point enters a groove cut in a 

 collar C, through which passes the main 

 shaft. (By the way, there are two points 

 that the engraver did not make quite cor- 

 rect. He has shown the handle A, with too 

 short a leverage and with a piece of cord at- 

 tached. I presume his idea was to have this 

 cord attached to a pedal to be operated by 

 the foot. This would be all right for revers- 

 ing in one direction, but how about the oth- 

 er ? Then he has shown the collar C, square 

 in shape when it should have been round 

 with a groove around its circumferance, and 

 the lower end of B would constantly remain 

 in the groove, and force the collar up or 

 down as the handle A was raised or lowered. 

 On the whole, however, he has done well and 

 has shown the idea so that I think it will be 

 understood.) To the collar is attached a 

 piece of metal D, having cogs upon one side. 

 These cogs fit into the cogs on the circum- 

 ference of the wheel F. To the opposite end 

 of the shaft to which the wheel F is attached 

 is a beveled-geared cog wheel that turns the 

 wheel G, and this is attached to the upper 

 end of a shaft that passes through the center 

 of the comb basket below. It will be readily 

 seen that a depression of the handle A, will 

 force down the collar C, and the cogs on D 

 will turn the wheel F, and the result will be 

 that the comb basket below the wheel G will 



