60 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
honey board between the brood cases, when the 
bees have hatched out of the upper case and 
the combs are all sealed up we may extract 
them, but the preferable course is to leave the 
case on the hive till fall. In making ready 
for winter we shall then find use for it, and if 
not then it is to be put away for next season’s 
•use in building up colonies. 
After the harvest is over, and the honey 
taken from the hives, the bees in the new 
colonies, having only one brood case, should 
be united where increase is not desired. To 
unite full colonies of bees proceed as follows 
take from one of the colonies (after being 
moved a few feet each day until near each 
other), the queen ; in nine days cut out the 
queen cells, when one hive can be set upon the 
other ; there will be no quarreling or necessity 
to cage the remaining queen. In this manner 
the entire stock of the beekeeper can be 
reduced to any desirable extent, we consider 
this course infinitely preferable to the use of 
non-swarming hives, even if such hives could 
be made, as the net result in comb honey and 
honey in brood combs is invariably larger by 
this arrangement. 
I have found that a hive or brood case that 
is just right for a swarm, is also just right for 
wintering, but only about one half as large as 
it ought to be in the spring. If the contracted 
brood case is too shallow, or if it contain less 
than 750 square inches of comb surface, the 
bees will store much pollen in the sections, 
the above space is therefore the limit of profit- 
able contraction. But if the brood case con- 
tains over 850 square inches of comb surface, 
another evil appears in the form of too much 
drone comb that will be almost certain to be 
built where starters alone in brood cases are' 
used as advised. If the ordinary ten framed 
Langstroth hive is used in which to hive old 
swarms, we may get a little surplus comb 
honey from it but oftener none. Division 
boards should be used in such hives or the 
unnecessary space filled up with dummies. 
Then to make the contraction system a success, 
a queen-excluder should be put on the hive in 
all cases before hiving a swarm, and at least 
one super of partly filled sections. In fact the 
practicability of the system is only fully 
assured by the use of the new wood and zinc 
honey-board. 
Construction of Honey-Boards . — A simple 
frame is made as large as the hive or brood 
case having a groove cut on the inside to 
receive the ends of the slats and the side slats, 
and the slats are so placed as to cover the 
spaces between the brood frames ; they are set 
in the frame so they will reEt not over one- 
fourth of an inch above the top bar of the 
brood frames. The zinc is let into thin saw 
cuts in the edges of the slats. Four strips of 
zinc with a single row of perforations are used, 
two on each side, and four strips having two 
rows of perforations, are placed in the middle 
of the boards for an eight-frame hive; this 
gives twelve rows of perforations for the bees 
to pass through, I have made the boards with 
strips of zinc having only one row' of perfor- 
ations or eight rows in all, for an eight-frame 
hive; these have done very well but 1 feel sure 
that eight rows of the perforations are not 
enough on very strong colonies. The boards 
as here advised are no hindrance to the passage 
of the bees in storing honey in supers, nor of 
bees with pollen for that matter, fully aa 
much honey will be stored through them as 
without them, they also prevent brace combs 
from being attached to the cases of sections so 
that the operation of tiering up the cases is 
always quickly and easily done. I believe 
their use to be indispensable to the most 
uccessful produce of comb honey. 
* 
HOW AND WHY PLANTS PKODUCE 
HONEY. 
(a PAPEK BEAD AT THE VERMONT CONVENTION.) 
American Bee Journal. 
Self-fertilisation takes place where the seed- 
vessel and. pollen are together on the same 
flower, and come in contact, and cross- 
fertilisation occurs when pollen from one 
flower is carried to the seed-vessel of another 
flower. The reasons why nature desires to 
cross plants is to secure greater height, 
weight, and vigor, and more seeds. Most 
plants are spoiled by self-fertilisation, the 
the same as close, breeding in animals ; some 
plants usually self -fertilise, as the pea, lettuce, 
onion, and ground-nut; but large new varieties 
of peas are obtained by cross-fertilisation. 
The means whereby nature obtains cross- 
fertilisation are three : -wind fertilisation, as 
in grasses; insect fertilisation, as in most 
flowers; as in honey-suekles. The prepotency 
of the pollen from another plant over that 
from the plant itself, is among the curious 
features of plant life. Plants also obtain 
cross-fertilisation by having the pollen and 
seed-vessels on separate plants, as in the case 
of willows. On separate parts of the same 
plant, as in corn, when in the same flower it 
is attained by having pollen ripen before the 
seed-vessel ; or vice versa, as in the plantain, 
fire-weed, gentian, and verbena. There must 
be some great benefit in cross-fertilisation to 
offset the great waste of valuable pollen in 
some flowers, and small, closed flowers of 
violet have 100 grains, while the peony has 
three and one half million grains. 
In relation to the means taken by nature to 
entice insects to plants, it is to be noticed 
that wind fertilised plants are dull in color, 
destitute of odour, and contain no honey, as in 
the case of pines and all conifers ( hemp, hop, 
and grasses. Large, conspicuous flowers are 
visited much more frequently, and by a 
greater variety of insects, than small, incon- 
spicuous ones. Bees probably distinguish 
flowers by bright-colored leaves. When 
