1877. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUI^E. 



ISl 



mental work, is of course in no way essen- 

 tial to the success of the establishment pe- 

 cuniarily. 



The good and desirable qualities of the 

 house apiary, are first, it is always sheltered 

 and dry, and if the building is kept painted, 

 the hives will always be in good repair ; 

 this is (piite an advantage over out-door 

 hives. The hives can be much more quickly 

 opened, as they need no other covering than 

 the chaff cushions in winter, and a single 

 sheet of duck in summer. Secondly, sur- 

 plus honey, either extracted or comb, can 

 be removed in much less time, for we have 

 only to remove it and store it in the centre 

 of the room, instead of the laborious car- 

 rying that has to be done with out-door 

 hives. Also empty combs, combs filled for 

 destitute colonies, empty frames, frames of 

 section boxes, and in short everything need- 

 ed in working about the hives may be stored 

 in the centre of the room, within arms reach 

 of everyone of the 3G hives. Furthermore 

 we can handle the bees and do all kinds of 

 work with them during rainy and wet weath- 

 er when the out-door hives could not be 

 touched. 



Nay, farther ! we can handle the bees by 

 lamp light after the duties of the day are 

 over, and we have repeatedly made new 

 colonies thus, to avoid tl;e robber bees that 

 were so aimoying in the day time, during a 

 dearth of pasturage. By closing the glass 

 doors, and opening the oiiter doors, we can 

 work in perfect freedom from robbers at 

 any season of the year. Artificial swarm- 

 ing, queen rearing, etc., can be carried on 

 very expeditiously, and at a small expense, 

 for the reasons we have mentioned. It has 

 been said that the bees sting worse in the 

 house, than in the open air. This may be 

 the case under some circumstances, but we 

 think not as a general rule. The house gets 

 unpleasantly filled with smoke from the 

 smoker, but it will be but little expense to 

 have a box in which to set the smoker, hav- 

 ing a smoke pipe communicating with the 

 oi)en air. 



Many house apiaries are constructed of a 

 square or oblong shape, but our objections 

 to such, woidd be the difficulty of getting 

 the bees out of the corners of the room, 

 (this might be obviated by having a square 

 house with the doors at two opposite cor- 

 ners) and the increased danger of having 

 both bees and queen get into the wrong 

 hives. From the engraving of the house 

 ai)iary and diagram of the ground plan giv- 

 en below, it will be seen that only 3 hives 



are on a side. The bees from the central 

 one, will of course recognize their own en- 

 trance, and those at each side, being the end 

 of the row, will also find theirs without 

 trouble. To make the entrance to each hive 

 still more conspicuous we take adviintage of 

 the battens on the building, as will be seen 

 from the diagram. The building is made of 

 pine or other boards one foot in width, and 

 these boards which are put on up and down, 

 constitute the entire frame of the building. 

 Six of them put as close together as they 

 will come conveniently, form one of the 

 eight sides, and the cracks are covered with 

 a beveled batten, one edge of the corner 

 boards being beveled slightly, that the bat- 

 ten may close the corner crack also. 



DIAGRAM OF INTERIOR OF HOUSE APIARY. 



A, represents one of the heavy outer doors, 

 and B, the light door with glass sash ; these 

 doors are the same, on both the east and 

 west sides of the building. G, is the shelf 

 that runs entirely around the room, on which 

 the hives are placed. It is about 3i feet 

 from the floor, and should be about 18 inch- 

 es wide. The hives are made by a simple 

 division board E, that holds a pair of metal 

 rabbets on its upper edge, one facing each 

 way; the combs are hung on these, and 

 when all are in place, a sheet of glass F, 

 bound with tin around its edges, closes the 

 hive by being hung in the rabbets the same 

 as are the frames. The top of the hive is 

 closed by the usual sheet of duck. During 

 winter and spring, the bees are protected by 

 thick chaff cushions laid on the duck sheets. 

 It will be seen that these sheets of glass face 

 the spectator on all sides of the room, and 



