92 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



tougher wood. The top-bar is 187/^x5-16x5-16. Each 

 end-cleat is 8^x56x5-16. 



It will be seen that the dummy is neither so long nor 

 deep as a frame. That makes it easier to handle, and be- 

 ing at the side of the hive it never makes any trouble. 

 While the cut-off top-bars in the frames work nicely, they 

 do not work so well in dummies, as I found upon trying 

 a number of them. 



HIVE-COVERS. 



At the risk of losing caste as a bee-keeper, I am 

 obliged to confess that I never got up "a hive of my own," 

 never even tried to plan one, but I have tried no little 

 to get up a hive-cover to suit me. A hive is so seldom 

 moved that I care less for its weight, but when I, or, more 

 particularly, my female assistants, have to lift covers all 

 day long, when hot and tired, a pound difference in 

 weight is quite an item. The first covers I had for 

 movable-frame hives were 8 inches deep and weighed 

 about 18 pounds. Needless to detail the different covers 

 I have devised and tried, with upper surface of tin, oil- 

 cloth, and wood, painted and unpainted. Although I 

 don't paint hive-bodies, I want covers painted. Most of 

 my covers just at present are the common plain board 

 cover, and I don't like them. Some of them are of two 

 boards united at the middle In- a V-shaped tin slid into 

 saw-kerfs, and I like these still less. A new board cover 

 is a nice thing. After a little it warps, and then it isn't a 

 nice thing. Put a cleat on each end so it cannot warp — 

 cast-iron cleats, if you like — and it will twist so that there 

 will be a grinning opening at one comer to allow bees to 

 walk out and cold to walk in, to say nothing of robber- 

 bees. 



TIN COVERS WITH DEAD-AIR SPACE. 



I have fifty covers that I like very much. They are 

 double-board covers, the boards being ^ thick, the grain 



