1876. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



237 



as our tVieud Perrine says ia his advertise- 

 ment. "Well!" said we, "That won't do at 

 all,"' so we took out the filled cases and put in 

 some tilled with white fdii. What do you 

 think y They made it yellow also, and then 

 we knew it was the source from which they 

 gathered the honey. These bees are at work 

 in the morning, long before the rest, and they 

 come home covered with yellow dust. Not 

 only have they made the wax yellow, but the 

 wDod of which the section boxes are compos 

 ed is stained as if with yellow dandelions. 



6i/t— Our neighbor Dean makes his section 

 boxes of thin stull' nailed together, and for 

 co.mb guides he simply saws through the top 

 bar and perhaps a half inch in depth into the 

 end bars, and drops into the slit, a piece of 

 plain sheet wax ; his section honey is beauti- 

 ful. He has from about 50 stocks, about 500 

 lbs. of the comb honey, and about 3500 ex- 

 tracted. Has sold the greater part of his crop 

 at about 13)-2i ii^n^^ ~0 cents, at wholesale. 

 He has secured considerable from the red 

 clover crop of August, xlfter making a call 

 at Mr. Dean's, we all paid a visit to Mr. Rice 

 of Seville. He has a house apiary built for 68 

 colonies, and has really succeeded this sum- 

 mer in making it Avork with the extractor. 

 His plan has been to shake the bees on the 

 floor for the lower tier of hives, and on the top 

 of the frames for the upper tier. For the lat- 

 ter he stands on a chair. He is certain he can 

 extract thi honey from double the number of 

 colonies in a day, but is equally sure that the 

 bees sting twice as badly as they do when 

 outside ; says he has to use much more smoke. 

 His wife who assisted, says this is hardly fair, 

 for the time when they beliaved so badly, was 

 toward the close of t.he season, and that the 

 first time extracting, they seemed as gentle 

 and pleasant about it as one could wish. He 

 uses the Standard frame in his house, and as 

 an illustration of how differently folk 5 will 

 work, we will mention that he uses section 

 frames such that four will just slip inside of 

 one Standard fram:;. These sections are nail- 

 ed, and are much like Mr. Dean's, but the top, 

 bottom and sides, are all alike in width — about 

 1}<1 inches. Frames (iiled with these sections, 

 placed next the glass division boards, make a 

 very pretty sight indeed. Mr Rice has now 

 something like 110 colonies, and has taken 

 about 5000 lbs. of extracted, and about 800 in 

 the section frames. The crop has been nearly 

 all sold in his own neighborhood, or at least 

 in the neighboring towns. We are both go- 

 ing to try hard to make the house apiary a 

 success in wintering, and if we do, it will be 

 quite a success after all. He agrees with us, 

 that the bees store honey during cool nights, 

 to better advantage than they do out doors. 

 If you keep a sharp look out, you may get a 

 view of this new house apiary. The entrances 

 to his hives are like our own, two inch auger 

 holes, and we btlieve he flnds them quite sat- 

 isfactory. 



14f7i — In recording the following experi- 

 ments to determine the precise value of a chaff 

 covoi'ing, we hope our readers will not think 

 we are recoraaiending them to follow us, for 

 v\'e are only giving the results as we did in 

 regard to the green house, and house apiary, j 

 fo; what they are worth. "Wo have now, ' 



working successfully, a hive with 10 hexagon- 

 al frames such as are given on the cover of 

 our last No., and we find no fault with it ex- 

 cept the difficulty of handling the frames. In 

 fact we are so accustomed to get out any 

 comb by simply i-aising the light cover and 

 quilt and picking it up, that we fear we 

 shall never get reconciled to anything but the 

 metal corners. When we get home before 

 dinner is ready, we are in the habit of opening 

 a hive and going to work, and the very min- 

 ute that Blue Eyes shouts, we wish to be able 

 to put every thing in place, and go along. Do 

 your women folks and children like to wait 

 for papa when every thing is all ready and on 

 the table ? Well if we should have a Quinby 

 hive open when the summons came, the dinner 

 would be all cold before it could be "fixed up" 

 without killing any bees. This little hive — 

 two of the frames will scarcely make a square 

 foot of surface — was peopled with the brood 

 and bees of a very wca'-^ colony, that in an or- 

 dinary L hive, could scarcely send to the 

 fields enough bees to keep them in food. Well, 

 at the time of transferring, we put fdu. in 

 every other frame, but as a very cold storm 

 came on, we decided next morning to put the 

 brood all close together. As we approached 

 the hive, we found the bees at the entrance, as 

 with our heavy colonies ; and on removing 

 the quilts we found them as warm as could be 

 desired down in their bed of chaff, and to our 

 astonishment the cells were raised into fair 

 comb on every one of the five sheets. Since 

 then this little colony has sent out a working 

 force much like the heavy stocks. Of 

 course the}' are to be wintered just as they are. 

 If the}'^ increase so much this fall, as to be 

 crowded outside, they will doubtless manage to 

 crowd in before very cool weather. Without 

 doubt the six sided — r-carly round— frame has 

 much to do with the success of this, but we 

 cannot see how it can be adopted for a work- 

 ing hive, without much inconvenience. 



We to-day paid a visit to several of our 

 neighbors, and found Mr. Shane busy making 

 crates or cases lor shipping comb honey in L. 

 frames. These cases are made of lumber that 

 he purchased for §11.00 p?r M. It is planed 

 down to about ^4 and then boxes made to hold 

 40 or 50 combs just as they hang in the hive, 

 with a pair of handles at each end to carry 

 them by. These handles are simply a prolong- 

 ation of the sides of the box, whittled round 

 and smooth, so as to be easy for lifting so 

 great a weight — 2 to 400 lbs. To keep the 

 combs apart, the rabbets along the sides are 

 notched just right to admit the projecting 

 ends of the top laar, and a three cornered strip 

 notched in a similar way, is nailed along 

 the bottom. When the cover is screwed on, 

 every frame is secure in .its place. H(; re- 

 ceives the same price for comb lioney put up 

 in this way, as for that in the sections — ~0c. — 

 bnt receives the frames and cases back. Their 

 L. frames weigh just J>^ lbs. each. Our metal 

 cornered frames weigh only 3 oz., and contain 

 about 20 square inches more comb surface in- 

 side, although the outside dimensions are the 

 same. If we could be sure of this price for 

 comb honey in the frames, perhaps it would bo 

 the most economical Avay in which it could be 

 produced for both consumer and producer. 



