THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



47 



WHEBE AND HOW TO lUJILD HONEY HOUSES. 



A honey house should be at the side of 

 the apiary. There seems to be no 

 question upon this point. The bees are more 

 easily watched, and it can be more easily 

 approached with a team when bringing in 

 supplies, and in shipping honey. 



If in a locality where a cellar is needed in 

 wintering the bees, the place for the cellar 

 is under the honey house. The cellar ought 

 to be near the apiary and needs a cover over 

 it. The honey house must also be near the 

 apiary and needs a good foundation. Put- 

 ting the cellar under the honey house accom- 

 plishes both objects. 



It costs but little more to build two stories 

 high, and the upper story furnishes an excel- 

 lent store-room for hives, supers, sections, 

 empty combs, and the thousand and one 

 things that accumulate in an apiary. 



A large share of the lower floor is needed 

 for a shop, and the balance is for a honey 

 room. There is one point upon which I 

 neglected to touch in my leader on this topic, 

 and none of the correspondents have touch- 

 edit, and that is, shall the extracting be done 

 in the honey room ? If we are too keep the 



honey room at a high temperature, a la Doo- 

 little, when it contains comb honey, such a 

 room would not be a very comfortable place 

 in which to extract the honey. Aside from 

 this, I see no objection to having the ex- 

 tracting room and honey room all in one. 



As to materials used and methods of 

 building, much depends upon circumstances, 

 and what is available in each locality. I was 

 quite interested in the plan proposed by 

 Mr. Shuck, that of making the cellar and 

 house walls of cement. 



PBOTEOTION FOB SINGLE-WALL HIVES. 



Mr. A. I. Root believes that no method of 

 protecting bees that calls for loose pieces 

 and packing to be put on in the fall and 

 taken off and stowed away in the summer, 

 will ever become popular. I think anyone 

 will admit that there is one objection to this 

 method, that is, the labor of adjusting, re- 

 moving and stowing away the packing ma- 

 terials. We must rememt)er, however, that 

 this labor comes, not in the hurry and rush 

 of the honey harvest, but in the compartive 

 leisure of the spring and fall ; and need not 

 be skilled labor, at that. Mr. A. I. Root ar- 

 gues for a chaff hive, one in which the walls 

 are permanently packed with chaff or saw- 



dust. The advantage claimed for this hive, 

 and it is an advantage, is that it is always 

 ready for winter. There is no packing nor un- 

 packing and no litter. Once packed, always 

 packed. But to go into the harvest with 

 bees in chaff hives brings to my mind the 

 figure of a man burdened with an overcoat, 

 but striving to keep up in the harvest field 

 with his fellows who are working in their 

 shirt sleeves — perhaps these are rolled up. 

 We need our overcoats, wraps and furs in 

 winter, but when returning warmth calls us 

 to the fields to labor, these outside garments 

 are laid aside — we pull off our coats, roll up 

 our sleeves, and enter the contest unincum- 

 bered. As extra clothing would hamper our 

 movements, so is the mangement of an api- 

 ary hampered by the use of heavy, cumber- 

 some chaff hives. I know there are methods 

 of management in which the unwieldy, stand- 

 still character of the chaff hive proves no 

 obstacle, but such methods are not the most 

 expeditious. It seems as though there has 

 been, if there isn't yet, a disposition to look 

 upon the idea of " handling hives instead of 

 combs " as though it were more theoretical 

 than practical. It isri't. Gradually, meth- 

 ods embodying this idea are coming into 

 use. There is the plan of hiving swarms by 

 allowing them to return to the old location ; 

 how it is simplified if the hive is readily 

 movable. The Heddon method of preven- 

 ing after-swarming is practically impossible 

 with chaff hives. Chaff hives are illy-adapt- 

 ed to tiering-up, either in raising comb or 

 extracted honey. As the years go by, spe- 

 cialists are establishing out-apiaries ; and 

 some are beginning to practice moving their 

 bees to better pastures, when circumstances 

 warrant the move. The chaff hive com- 

 pletely blocks the road to progress in these 

 directions. In short, I can't understand 

 how anybody, all things considered, can 

 prefer a chaff hive. 



Earnestly as I advocate the use of light, 

 readily movable, single-wall hives, I am by 

 no means inclined to leave them unprotected 

 in the winter or early spring. My favorite 

 method of protecting them in the winter is 

 that of placing them in the cellar, but I want 

 them out on their summer stands as soon as 

 it is warm enough for the bees fly. A flight 

 in the open air, a little freshly gathered 

 pollen, honey and water seem to put new 

 life into the bees and encourage brood rear- 

 ing as nothing else will ; but, as we always 

 have cold snaps after this, I would protect 



