158 



glea:n^ings in bee culture. 



May 



do not cut them all so exact, it will not mat- 

 ter a great deal for this hive, as you will 

 presently see. 



After your boards are all cut up, put on 

 yoar rip siw, and split them up 3 inches 

 wide ; but instead of cutting them square, 

 cut them on about the angle shown below. 



HOW TJ CUT THE STUFF FOB SIDING. 



If you find any bad knots or shakes, do 

 not split them, but pile them up nicely at 

 one side, to be used as rough bottom boards. 

 This ripping can be done either on the foot 

 power saw or with the hand ripper ; we use 

 the latter, and I think it does the work more 

 rapidly. To cut the pieces on the bevel, you 

 are to screw a bevel shaped piece on the saw 

 table. 



PLATFOKM FOR GIVING THE SIDING THE 

 PROPER LEVEL. 



Two Avedge shaped pieces, of which only 

 one is shown at C,are used to give the board 

 the proper inclination ; the other one is sup- 

 posed to be where you see the nail lioles, at 

 D. A is where the saw comes up through, 

 and B is a square bar that the edge of the 

 rough lumber is rested against. It is fasten- 

 ed to the table by screws put through the 

 table top from the under side into these 

 pieces C. With the hand ripper, we screw 

 the two pieces fast to the two light wooden 

 bars tliat constitute the only wood about 

 the machine. 



A B C 



The first piece that comes off. will be like 

 A; turn it over, and run it through again, 

 and it will be like B ; the next opperatiou is 

 to split each piece, like C. This you Avill 

 have to do with the hand ripper, for the foot 

 power saw, would not reach througli so far. 

 If you do not split the pieces exactly in the 

 middle, it does not matter, and a very thick 

 one occasionally will be all tlie better, to 

 give the hive strength witliout extra 

 expense. You can plane this siding by 

 hand very cheaply, or it may be done on the 

 cigar box planer ; if on the latter, you will 

 be obliged to reduce them to a uniform 

 thickness unless you choose to save out the 

 thickest pieces, and plane them afterward 

 with the planer a little higher. Plane only 



the one side just left by the saw. If you are 

 not going to use this siding at once, pile it 

 up crosswise, as coopers do their staves, 

 until it is thoroughly seasoned and straight. 

 Our chaff hive is built by nailing these 

 pieces of siding to corner posts with planed 

 side outward, of course. As nails have a 

 fashion of drawing out when exposed to the 

 sun, (some carpenters say the sun pulls them 

 out,) we will drive them all from the inside, 

 and then, if "Old Sol" tries to pull them out 

 by the feet, he will have a tough job, and 

 will only draw the heads up tighter. The 

 corner posts that we use are made of solid 

 wood, and are cut fi"om 3 inch plank. The 

 plank should be so clear from knots and 

 shakes, that there will be no danger of the 

 pieces breaking while nailing into them. 

 Cut your plank, which should be as wide as 

 you can get it, into pieces 22 inches long. 

 Now with the beveling platform that I 

 showed you in hive making, you are to cut 

 out the corner posts in this way : 



HOW TO MAKE THE COKNEK I'Ot^TS. 



You will observe that the saw goes in at 

 each side until the cuts meet, so as to take 

 out pieces like fig. 2. After you get them 

 all out, you are ready to nail up the outside 

 of the hive. Lay two of your corner posts, 

 as shown above, on your work bench and 

 have them 2 feet and 2i inches apart. To 

 get these dimensions without measuring, I 

 would nail a couple of strips to the beucli 

 just the right distance apart ; also a tliird 

 across the end, that we may always have the 

 hive square and true. The chaff hive is not 

 quite square ; it is 1 inch naiTowei' on the 

 side where the entrance is, therefore, when 



EXTERNAL yilELL, AND CORNER POSTS OE 

 CHAFF HIVE. 



you are nailing the back and front, you are 

 to slip a strip of wood 1 inch wide between 

 one of your posts and your stop. Our siding, 

 you remember, is just 2 feet long ; well, the 

 "pieces on both front and back go clear up 



