382 



APPENDIX. 



But when, these flowers begin to yield honey, the frames may he put into a larger 

 hivg with two or three empty frames, and the boxes taken off. This inferior honey 

 will serve for winter stores as well as the other, and is worth one-third less in mar- 

 ket. In the spring, if thought best, tlic number of frames may be reduced again to 

 six or seven, antj will give an opportunity to take away most of the drone-comb, 

 and leave cells in abandance for raising workers. If worker-combs are taken 

 away, they should be saved for new swarms — the drone-cells, when white, for 

 surplus boxes. Where there is.no buckwheat raised, the swarms might as well bo 

 hived in a full-sized hive^at first, as it would make no difference when they secured 

 their winter stores. 



The top easiest made, of which I have a few, is %-inch board, 21>^ inches long 

 by 14 wide, damped at the ends, and a rabbeting cut around the. edge, like the 

 top described for the common hive ; the passages to the surplus boxes are inch 

 holes. These boards, notwithstanding the clamps, will warp a little, being kept 

 moist by the bees on the under, side. These will barely answer. Another, that 

 will keep its shape better, is made of several pieces. Two of them are 21>^ inches 

 long by X}4 wide ; the others, 11 inches long, and two 6 inches wide, and two 4>^ 

 inches wide. The nails are driven through the narrow strips edgewise into tha 

 ends of the others. It presents this appearance. The 

 open spaces are for the passages for the bees into the 

 boxes, which set over them, and are covered with a box 

 that fits on this rabbeting, similar to those for the other 

 hive. The boxes are already described on pages 51 

 and 52. 



Both kinds of the tops— I might say honey-boards — 

 described, are simply laid on the top of the hive. . Others 

 make them with heavy clamps on the under side, where they project over the ends 

 of the hive, but I have found such inconvenient on some occasions. This point is not 

 very important. 



I have now described the hive as I use it, yet I am not sure but I should make an 

 alteration if I were to start again. It would be only to take an inch off the height 

 of the frames, making them nine instead of ten inches deep, and have one or two 

 more jn number. The difference is. so trifling, however, that I have no idea of 

 changing now. The combs would not bo quite .as heavy when filled throughout, 

 and less liable to break in moving. I have had an accident in that line on a warm 

 day. Part of the combs in two stocks settled down on the bottom of the frames, 

 and. then leaned against the next one, leaving a space of some inches at the top, 

 which the bees had commenced filling, before discovered, with new combs. Hence 

 it was necessary for some surgical operations, not in sotting broken bones, but 

 broken combs. I provided myself with sphnts twelve and a half inches long, half 

 an inch wide, and one-fourth in thickness. With the help of an assistant I got the 

 combs back into the frames straight, and put two or three upright splints between 

 it and the next frame, which kept it steady till the bees secured it by waxing it fast 

 again at the top. 



As an additional support to these combs, and to give a chance for the bees to 

 change position between different combs in winter, I 'have made a division in the 

 frames the present summer (1858). I tried two methods like these. 



w»/-y,M„i.../pp!m} 



The horizontal one is simply a triangular strip' like the one at the top. The bees 

 leave spaces on the top side for a passage, and begin another comb again on the 

 angle, under side. The other division is a square of three-fourths of an inch, sawed 

 in two diagonally, and set up in the middle with the flat surfaces one-fourth of an 

 inch apart. Of their utility, on the whole, I am yet in doubt. Several of my own 

 and neighbors' swarms, put into these frames with the horizontal division, have not 

 followed the angular edge uniformly. Those divided the other way on some 

 occasions go-straight, on some others on one side, and crooked nearly at right 

 angles on the other. The divisions may not be the cause of the variations, yet 

 ^here is room for suspicion in that direction, because last year (1867), with frames 

 without any, I had much better work. In these whole combs I made passages for 

 the bees through them by cutting a half inch hole through each with a small knife, 

 in November. There is not a tenth part of the difficulty attending it that ouo 

 unaccustomed to it would suppose. But still it requires some courage ; and I would 



