290 



GLEANmOS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Nov. 



GETTING OFF SECTIONS, HIVE WKA- 



KING, DOOIilTTIiE'S HIVE, BOTTOM 



BOARDS, &c. 



fWANT a little light on a few questions that I 

 have not seen touched upon in Gleanings. How 

 , ilo you manage to get your sections capped over, 



Hiid then how do you get them oil' without getting 

 thLm uncapped ? My bi os would not cap the sections 

 all over, though they were in tlie hive (lower story) a 

 long time; and wlien I wanted to take them out they 

 all ibll to uncapping and filling thtniselves as last as 

 possible ; now, how can this be prevented ? 



The sections will all be nicely capped over, 

 if the yield of honey continues; if it stops, 

 they will remain unfinished, unless you feed. 

 If you remove the sections while honey is com- 

 inji in, the bees will make no attempt to un- 

 cap them, and the full blood Italians will 

 scarcely ever at any season. After the yield 

 has stopped, the blacks and hybrids, will 

 "grab" for every drop, just as soon as they get 

 an idea you are going to take it away from 

 them ; and your only remedy is to shake them 

 oft' just as soon as you get the hive open, if you 

 do not want the caps to the cells full of their 

 ragged perforations. 



You tell us how the new style of bevel is cut but do 

 not tell liow to cut them. How do you make the sli- 

 ding platform, or don't you use any at all ? If 1 have 

 any hives made the coming winter 1 want them made 

 light. Now, another thing right heie; if your hives 

 are halved in at the corneis instead of made on a mi- 

 Ire don't you have an open space, caused by the i>ev- 

 el, to till up with putty? I should think so. You 

 know what you said about mitred corners in Vol. II. 

 I think you were about correct. 



Since we have used the iron guage frame, 

 we put all hives together on a mitre, and for 

 the very reason that the covers and upper sto- 

 ries may fit with a water and wind proof joint. 

 When properly nailed, they are very strong. 

 Hive making will soon appear in the A B C. 



Please tell us liow to make division boards such as 

 Doolittle uses (not chaff cushions). Since reading 

 Cook's Manual and Mr. Doolittle's articles I have had 

 quite a leaning toward the Gallup frame, and the re- 

 port from Mr. D. in Oct. Gli^amngs lias almost con- 

 verted me, but before I Li come h convert 1 want to 

 ask if Mr. D's success is not more due to his skill and 

 a (/oo(nocrt?//2/ than to the hive, though lie gives the 

 hive the credit ? Five hun^lred anfl sixty-six lbs. ex- 

 tracted honey is an enormous amount for one liive. 



Friend Doolittle's division board, is only a 

 ,14 inch division board, and is stationary ; see 

 page 7. Slots are cut through it to allow the 

 bees passage into the side boxes. I think it 

 is his skill, energy and industry, rather than 

 his hive or locality either. Questions like 

 this, it seems to me, we are all, in a measure, 

 compelled to answer ourselves, individually. 

 If you can not decide, get a hive and try it. I 

 believe friend D. rather prefers you should try 

 one before investing in them largely. His 

 plan of working is with a small hive, and a 

 very small brood chamber. His largest form 

 of hive, contains only 30 two lb. boxes, and he 

 therefore is obliged to be on hand almost at 

 the very minute they begiu to be crowded for 

 room, to take out the filled sections and to put 

 in empty ones. I confess I like the idea ; it is 

 just what you must do if you are going to suc- 

 ceed. If you are one of those who will say, 

 " I know my hives are full, a great many of 

 them, but I really ctin not get time to take oft" 

 the honey," you will never do to follow Doo- 

 little. Now before we decide to give up our 

 hives friend C, and take D's, had we not bet- 

 ter take a cool square look at the matter. 

 While his hive is about the smallest, Quinby 



used about the largest, and besides his very 

 large brood chamber, he put on at once, boxes 

 to hold over 200 lbs. j^fter the enormous 

 yields that Quinby and hig neighbors made 

 with these great hives, and after he sent out 

 his circular stating that from one to two hun- 

 dred pounds of comb honey, or from two to 

 three hundred pounds of extracted could be 

 realized on an average from each hive in one 

 season, beginners were much inclined to 

 throw up the hives they were already using, 

 and adopt them. See page 104, Vol. II, and 

 page 19, Vol. III. These hives are the direct 

 opposite of Doolittle's. The one that gave 582 

 lbs. of honey Vv-as used with 33 of these large 

 Quinby frames. In the hands of the average 

 bee-keeper, the Q. hive has given just about 

 the same results as other hives. Capt. Heth- 

 erington with his apiary of over 1000 hives, 

 takes the large frames, and the large hives ; 

 Doolittle has the other extreme. Whom shall 

 we follow? I think we can test their ways of 

 working, generally, with the hives we have, 

 but it is quite likely we shall many of us, nev- 

 er be able to equal their work, even if we had 

 their hives, locality and all. Notwithstanding, 

 we are going to try hard ; are we not ? 



How do you use your bottom boards when you win- 

 ter in cellar? It seems to me tliey are not so conve- 

 nient as a plain board with a slot %x4 inches in front 

 of hive for an entrance. How do yon carry hives to 

 and from summer stands? take the hive and leave 

 the bottom board ? 



The season has been poor here, very fine in the 

 spring but too dry all through the summer and fall. 

 Fall flowers have not yielded much. Basswood al- 

 most nothing. Have 8 stands ; 7 are Italians and hy- 

 brids, 1 black. F. W. Comings. 



East Berkshire, Vt., Oct. 2d, 1877. 



When moving Simplicity hives, to close the 

 entrance we simply push the hive back on the 

 bottom board until the entrance is closed ; 

 have carried the hives in and left the bottom 

 boards, but once in a while we rind a colony 

 that "boils" out with such treatment. A bot- 

 tom board must be cleated to prevent warp- 

 iug; it should also be raised up from the 

 ground a little, and we want it closed all 

 round so that neither bees, toads nor anything 

 else can get under. Taking all into consider- 

 ation, is it not simpler to have bottoms and 

 covers, all one and the same thing V 



ma I #11 am 



BEES IN THE HOUSES AND GROCERIES. 



WjHAT measures can you suggest for keeping 

 bees at liome and preventing their wandering 

 ^ ^ into stores, &c., and setting lost ? I am losing 

 numbers daily in this way. Please answer in Glean- 

 ings. • " J. H. Thom, M. D. 

 Garafraxa, P. O., Canada, Sept. 25th, 1877. 



During a severe drouth such as we have 

 just had, it is one of the problems, to tell what 

 to do. To try to keep peace with our neigh- 

 bors, we wrote the following for our Medina 

 paper. 



ABOUT THE BEES. 



I am very sorry indeed that some of our 

 towns-people have been annoyed by the bees 

 during this severe drouth we are having. 

 When the flowers are all dried up, as at 

 present, bees are pretty apt to look about to 

 see if an honest penny can not be turned, else- 

 where ; for they are proverbially averse to 

 loafing, as everybody knows. They have one 

 other peculiarity, which it may be worth while 

 to consider, and that is, that they very soon 



