300 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



nary lath is 11 wide, you will have a frame 

 quite similar in appearance to the broad 

 frames that hold the sections, except their 

 being roughly made. When this is done, you 

 are to tack stout cloth all round the sides 

 and bottom as showen in the engraving, and 

 as you tack it on, it is to be filled with chaff, 

 so as to make a sjrt of soft cushion. You 

 had better use duck for this purpose, as our 

 division board may be required to stand 

 some severe pulling, to tear it loose from 

 the propolis, when it is to ba removed. You 

 will need to pucker or gather tlie cloth slight- 

 ly at the corners, that they may not draw in 

 when the board is finished. Wlien this is 

 done, nail securely on each side a thin board 

 about 3-16 in thickness, filling in between 

 the two witli chalf . Now our board is finish- 

 ed when we have fastened a small roll of 

 duck to each end of the top bar, to close the 

 groove in the metal rabbet. To get this roll 

 on securely and in neat shape, it is put on 

 the top bar before it is nailed to the rest of 

 the fr ime. The tacks that hold the outside 

 end of this strip of cloth, are di-iveii into tlie 

 end of the top bar, and the cloth is then 

 rolled over the lieads so as to entirely con- 

 ceal them ; the other end, is nailed between 

 the top bar and the end bar as, in fact, is the 

 end of the long strip of cloth also. 



CHAFF CUSHION DIVISION BOAKD. 



• Tills division board, if made of the proper 

 diniiinsions, should fit nicely and easily, in 

 any liive. It will stand securely wliere 

 placed, fits air tight even if the hives should 

 vary a tride in size inside, and yet can be al- 

 \yays taken out easily, because the chaff 

 cushions are yielding. Wlien used to con- 

 tract the space of a small swarm or nucleus, 

 itj c m be easily pushed up until the bees fill 

 their apartment, and it leaves a warm 

 smooth flat side toward the bees. I prefer 

 the baar.l side to cloth, because if combs are 

 built beside it, they are always smooth and 

 flit, and the bees can never bite through the 

 board, as they will in time through even 

 duck, when used for a division board. If 

 you wish to use them for dividing two colo- 



nies in the same hive, the division is perfect, 

 and no bee ever gets round or over them, to 

 kill a queen in the other apartment. But 

 the principle use of these boards, is to fix an 

 ordinary hive for out-door wintering. For 

 this purpose, we put one against each outside 

 wall of the hive ; if the colony is not a full 

 one, push them toward each other mitil it is 

 a full one on a smaller scale, put your chaff 

 cushion on top, and they are in a very good 

 winter nest. 



If you wish to feed a nucleus so as to build 

 and raise brood during cool fall weather, you 

 can do it nicely using these division boards. 

 Place one on each side of the bees up to one 

 side of the hive, and feed liquid food in the 

 empty part, by means of the wooden feeder. 

 Have the apartment for tlie bees contracted 

 so that some will be crowded out around tlie 

 entrance, and fold a sheet of duck so as to 

 perfectly close the space above the frames. 

 Get them to wax it all tiglit with propolis if 

 they will. They will soon find the way to 

 and from the feeder, by piissing round the 

 lower corner of the division board at the en- 

 trance of the hive, and iis the warm ak can 

 in no Avay escape, they are to all intents, 

 getting their honey from outside. With 

 such an arrangement in Simplicity liives, I 

 have been building colonies up beautifully 

 during the present month of Oct., and by 

 feeding nothing but a syrup made of grape 

 sugar. Where the space was contracted so 

 as to "squeeze" the bees out at the entrance, 

 except when very cool, I have succeeded 

 equally well, with but space for three 

 frames. 



BZs'SrS SISSSIJIjB. This plant grows 

 in great profusion in many of the Southern 

 and middle States, but the i)rincipal reports 

 seem to come from Virginia, and the valley 

 of the Shenandoah. As it blossoms fully four 

 months in the year, and produces a beautiful 

 white honey, it would seem that it m'iglit 

 well deserve a place among the plants on a 

 honey farm. If we are correct it needs but 

 little coaxing to cover whole farms, and in 

 Va., we are told there are hundreds of acres 

 of it growing wild, as a weed. Over 200 lbs 

 of white box honey have been reported from 

 it, from a single colony, in one summer. A 

 field of blue is no doubt a very pretty sight 

 to the bee-keeper, but to the farmers who 

 find it a great pest, it may not look so hand- 

 some. We have really no right to make our 

 honey farm a nuisance to the neighborhood, 

 by bringing in foul weeds ; so perhaps you 

 had better take your bees down where it 

 grov;s, iusl jad of sending for seeds. 



