1878. 



GLEANIN^GS IN BEE CULTURE. 



73 



season. I gave the credit to the imported 

 queen, but after all, it may have been a 

 frame or tvo of the large worker comb. I 

 did tell you my friends, that the ii worked 

 all right ; it was beautiful compared with 

 our natural combs. Of course we get a 

 good many more bees, with o cells to the 

 inch, but which is better? many small bees, 

 or not quite so many, a little larger? 

 I confess I donotkuov. lam well satis- 

 fied that the bees raised in the 5 to the inch, 

 are full as large as the bees reared in natur- 

 al comb ; those reared in the 4i may be a 

 little larger than natural. Who will tell us 

 more about it? I once stood an L. comb on 

 end, against the side of a tall Am. hive, 

 for the purpose of making a nucleus. The 

 comb sagged in, tovvard the side of the hive 

 making one side concave, and the other 

 convex. When the queen became fertile, 

 and filled both sides with eggs, in due time, 

 we had a shower of yellow Italians, but to 

 my surprise a great part of the workers, 

 seemed scarcely larger than a house fly. 

 As tlie little fellows flitted about, they 

 looked so comical, we shouted with laugh- 

 ter, and when they commenced to bring 

 pollen, much vvas the merriment occasioned 

 among the children, at their queer appear- 

 ance. An examination of the comb, show- 

 ed very clearly, just what brouj:?lit about 

 these small bees ; the concave side of the 

 comb showed a patch of small cells, caused 

 by the wall being contracted by the sag- 

 ging, and small bees were seen biting their 

 way out through the caps. 



Again ; one of our readers once sent me a 

 piece of comb containing worker bees in 

 drone comb. It was put in a hive, and the 

 bees hatched out, but they were so much 

 larger than the rest of the bees in the hive, 

 that they could readily be picked out. I 

 think there is little doubt, but that we can 

 by this means get larger bees ; the small 

 ones carried small loads of pollen ; why 

 should not the large ones carry large loads? 

 I do not know how we shall get up to drone 

 size very well, unless we can get some of 

 the queens to promise not to lay any drone 

 eggs, even if the cells are large ; if "we can 

 do this, perhaps ^ve shall not need the Apis 

 Dorsata, at all. Thank you friend Hunter, 

 for suggesting the idea. 



HOW TO MAKE TME SHEETS TO COVER 

 THE FRA.?i[ES. 



ENAMELED CLOTH VERSUS DUCK. 



^ NOTICE that you do not use the honey board (so 

 |C|| called), on your hive; is it dispensed with now on 

 ^ the Langstroth? I think the bees will wax the 

 duck, or muslin, so that it will be difficult to take it 

 off to examine them. E. W. Bowe. 



Tiffin, Ohio, Feb. 6th, 18V8. 



On page 330, of last year, I mentioned 

 that I had been experimenting with en- 

 ameled cloth, in place of duck, and that 

 when the enameled surface was placed next 

 the bees, they did not take the trouble to 

 cover it with propolis. 



Somewhat contrary to my expectations. 

 it answers excellently for winter also ; this 

 is perhaps owing to the influence of the 

 chaff cushions, for no frost ever gets to the 

 sheet over the cluster, when used in the 



chaff hive. I am so much pleased with the 

 enameled cloth, that we are now using it 

 instead of the duck. It is so thin that it 

 is less liable to kill bees than -the duck, and 

 it is really a little cheaper, for we get it in 

 bolts of 12 yards each, 45 inches wide ; this 

 cuts up without waste. To have the cloth 

 close the top of the hive perfectly, so that 

 not even an inquisitive bee can push his 

 "physiognomy'* out any where, is quite a 

 little problem, and I will tell you how we 

 have done it. 



SIMPLICITY HIVE. ENAMELED CLOTH. 



Let fig. 1, represent a top view of an 

 empty Simplicity hive, and fig.2, the sheet 

 of enameled cloth, with the strips of tin 

 folded on each end. A, is the space cut 

 out of the end boards, to hold the metal 

 rabbets, and B B, are strips of tin i of an 

 inch wide, folded twice over the end of the 

 sheet of cloth. These strips of tin are cut 

 just long enough to drop into the channels 

 A. You will observe that a corner is 

 left where the rabbet is cut out, that takes 

 the tip ends of the tins, and holds them 

 securely up against the ends of the hive. 

 No'-v almost all kinds of cloth will shrink 

 after using, and besides, it is difiicult to 

 cut cloth to such exact dimensions as we 

 can wood or metals. Accordingly, we make 

 our sheet a little long, and to bring it 

 straight and smooth over the tops of the 

 frames, we roll the surplus over one of the 

 tin strips one or more times. Tliis allows 

 us all the room we shall ever need, and yet 

 we can take up all the "slack ;'"' that fixes 

 the ends bee-tight. Xow the sides are li- 

 able to dravv in some, especially, when we 

 stretch the cloth lengthwise. This could 

 be fixed, by making the v idtli a little full, 

 but if we did this, we should cover the ends 

 of the tin strips that fit in the corners, and 

 this makes it difficult to get them into 

 place quickly. It can all be nicely arranged 

 by making the sheet broader in the middle, 

 as shown in the cut. Perliaps a i inch 

 should be added to the middle of each side. 

 With this arrangement, you can close a 

 hive of hybrids in a second, and if any bees 

 are left above, they are level with the top of 

 the hive and have no cavity to get into, 

 from vvhich they must be picked out ; there- 

 fore if they do not get off and down to the 

 entrance, of their own accord, they can be 

 very quickly brushed off, before putting on 

 the cover. As this thin sheet of cloth is but 

 little protection, I vvould always have the 

 thin chaff cushion in the cover to be placed 

 over it, except in very warm weather. Re- 

 member no bees are ever to touch the chaff 

 cushions, under any circumstances. N^ow 

 we have solved the problem of keeping the 

 bees from building bits of combs on the top 



