1878. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



187 



[Chaff Mvc; continued from Jast month.'] 



This rim, when nailed true and square, is 

 to be fitted to the tops of the corner posts ; 

 the posts can be given the proper bevel, with 

 the circular saw, before the siding is nailed 

 on. This bevel is the same as that of the 

 siding. The top pieces of siding are to be 

 of pretty good thickness, that we may nail 

 this rim securely to it, as well as to the posts. 

 It may be well to state here, that the top 

 pieces of siding are nailed on first ; 7 pieces, 

 of the dimensions we have given, form the 

 hive. Before nailing in the last piece, you 

 are to cut the entrance in the upper edge. 

 This entrance is to be 8 inches long, by f 

 wide. The cut below will make it plain. 



Having now completed the outer sliell, we 

 will see about the inside. 



INSIDE OF CHAFF HIVE. 



This, as well as the outside, is all made of 

 cheap cull lumber. I would, by all n^eans, 

 advise getting out your boards a little wide, 

 and sticking them up until thoroughly sea- 

 soned, as I have mentioned before. Cut your 

 stuff in two in the middle, so that you can 

 handle it readily, and then, with the hand 

 ripper, rip the boards i inch wider than you 

 need, and cut them up to the exact length. 

 When this is done, and your boards are all 

 piled up square and true as before, you are 

 ready to split them through the middle. It 

 is not necessary that the boards be planed 

 on more than one side, for the back side of 

 all of them is next the chaff, and as the 

 rough surface would tend to impede the cir- 

 culation of currents of air, I do not know 

 but that I would rather have them unplaned. 

 Neither is it important to have the boards 

 split exactly in the middle ; in fact, one ejid 

 I had in view, while inventing this chaff 

 hive, was to avoid the necessity of having to 

 be so exact, as we must be with hives where 

 both inside and outside are exposed to view. 

 You see as we go along, that while the in- 

 side dimensions of the hive are to "a dot," 

 tlie boards constituting it may be of all sorts 

 of thicknesses, and lengths too, or at least a 

 part of them, for nearly all the joints are lap 

 joints. As before remarked, it is very im- 

 portant that the back and front of the hive, 

 are at the right distance apart, and this 

 proper distance is 18i inches; to insure this 

 every time, we make tlie side boards, with a 

 shoulder as shown below. 



OXE OF THE SIDES OF THE INSIDE OF THE 

 CHAFF HIVE. 



It will be observed that four of these 

 boards are used, two above, and two below. 



The width of these boards, when finished, 

 is to be just 9i inches, by about 19+ long. 

 We will cut the shoulders on the planed 

 sides, of course, because they come inside of 

 the hive. The ends are of unequal length, 

 for the upper story contains a greater num- 

 ber of frames than the lower. The bottom 

 ones are 141 in. long, and the upper ones, 20f 

 in.; both are 9i in. wide. In the Simplicity 

 hive, we were obliged to cut a rabbet into 

 the upper edge of the end boards ; but with 

 these, we simply nail the tin rabbet directly 

 on their upper edges. The rim before men- 

 tioned, forms the back to those in the upper 

 story, and a strip, nailed on to connect the 

 two stories, forms the back to those in the 

 lower story. This inside work is all 

 made of i or f inch stuff. The bottom 

 of the lower story is also made of 

 this same thin stuff, and in nailing it on, it 

 does not matter, if the boards lap over and 

 project, both at the sides, and ends too. The 

 diagram below, a transverse sectional view 

 of the chaff hive, will, I think, make it all 

 plain. 



DIAGRAM OF CHAFF HIVE. 



Both tlie outside and inside are nailed up 

 separately, and then they are put in place, 

 and nailed togetlier, the only points of at- 

 tachment being the rim which rests on the 

 top edge of the upper story, and the bottom 

 of the lower story, which rests on a couple 

 of strips that are attached to the siding on 

 either side, and to which the bottom is nail- 



