March 1®, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
201 
article. Skeps are more profitable I find when the whole 
top surface is exposed for supering purposes. Bars can 
either be used in them, or they may be dispensed with, 
but if a loose straw top is used, then bars may with advan¬ 
tage be used beneath; frames are unnecessary, and may 
be discarded. The usual 4-inch hole for supering and 
feeding purposes generally seen in large skeps is far too 
small in the spring and summer to allow free passage to 
the hosts of eager workers carrying their stores to the 
supers. Stocks in skeps winter well, swarm early, work 
well in supers, and straw is very preservative of bee life. 
Skeps, it is true, do not admit of manipulation so well as 
the frame hive, but without such interference give equally 
good results when equal care and attention are bestowed 
upon them, thereby proving the futility of excessive inter¬ 
ference. The management of skeps and frame hives, 
according to the system which it is here desired to incul¬ 
cate, is very similar, except that in the one an occasional 
advantage—which is not present in the other-—is given to 
the ability to remove each single comb. 
Frame hives must be made of good sound timber, and 
may contain either deep or shallow frames. Twelve frames 
are quite sufficient for one body box, whatever the size of 
frame may be. If the standard frame is adopted the 
necessary size for the brood nest must be secured by 
using another tier of frames above or under the former, 
but as this matter has already been discussed only a few 
weeks ago it will not now be necessary to enter into any 
further details about the hive itself. One word of advice 
may be given, and that is that the greatest virtue in a hive 
is simplicity, and I may add that the hive is rarely in fault 
when good results are not attained, but generally the 
blame can be brought home to the manager. Now, of 
appliances it is not very easy to write, so great is the 
difference of opinion as to what is a necessity and what a 
luxury only. I give my own ideas, gained by practical 
experience in the apiary and from conversation with other 
practical men placed in a similar position. A pan for 
boiling or reducing sugar to syrup is required, and ought 
to be made so that it may be used for steaming the wax 
extractor in the manner pointed out some months ago. 
Everybody knows the trouble occasioned if old combs 
have to be reduced to wax by the old method. Many know 
the ease with which it may be done if a “ wax extractor ” 
can be used. A pan for boiling syrup and a wax extractor 
combined cost about 10s., if made in a very homely way 
something less. 
Section racks in the proportion of .six at least to every 
stock which it is proposed to work for comb honey must 
be made or purchased, and for simplicity, effectiveness, 
and cheapness those described last year under the heading 
of “ Section Racks, and How to Make Them,” cannot be 
excelled. Feeders of the round tin kind to hold some 
a lbs. of syrup at least will also be required, and can be 
made by any village tinman at a small cost—2s. each, at 
the outside. These feeders will hereafter be described in 
detail as clearly as possible. Crown boards are not 
required, but felting is. All coverings for hives should be 
of a pervious nature, so that damp generated in the hive 
by the bees or present through the state of the weather 
may pass freely away. 
A few extra floorboards and cases for containing 
sections are all that necessity demands or expediency 
requires in a small apiary when comb honey is desired. 
Cases for holding finished sections should be made to 
contain twelve sections at the most; the risk of damage 
in transit is then reduced to a minimum. In an apiary 
where new or extracted honey is principally produced 
rather different appliances will be required. I may say 
that it is evident to me that it is far more satisfactory and 
more profitable to work either for run or extracted honey 
or for comb honey, not to produce some of the one and 
some of the other. 
An extractor may be purchased if the bee-keeper thinks 
that he can profit by it. If used in a proper manner, and 
with judgment, if honey is only extracted from super 
frames, and from these only when the cells are sealed and 
the honey is ripe, it may be an advantage. On this point 
I cannot speak with certainty; but honey may be run 
from the combs in the old-fashioned way, and the result 
will be a good uniform quality—if equal care is taken— 
not to be distinguished from that which has passed 
through the extractor, but the comb must be destroyed. 
The preservation of the comb is the main advantage of 
using an extractor. Super body boxes, containing frames 
similar to those in the permanent body boxes, will be 
required. Four of such super body boxes will not be too 
many for each stock. The frames in these super boxes 
may, of course, be different in size to those in the body 
box used for brood rearing, but it will be found more useful 
to have them of the same size, and identical in all respects. 
In the super boxes, however, the frames may be placed a 
little wider apart, say ten frames in the super where there 
are twelve in the body hive. The management of stock, 
both for producing comb and extracted honey, will be 
given in a future article. It is now sufficient merely to 
point out what are the appliances necessary to carry out 
the system of management which appears to be the most 
profitable. With the exception of section racks and cases 
the appliances necessary for the production of run or 
extracted honey will be identical with those required for 
comb honey in sections. Sections and vessels for holding 
the honey will, of course, be required, but these do not, 
as we have before explained, form part of the original or 
capital outlay. 
It is now easy to reckon up what ought to be laid out 
on the purchase of hives and appliances. Bees may be 
bought at such various prices that it is hardly possible to 
quote even an average price, but from £1 to ,£1 10s. 
ought to purchase a good stock, and a swarm in May will 
be of the same value, the price of swarms gradually 
declining as the season advances. A swarm must be large, 
and be obtained in May or early June to be profitable. 
The extra outlay is easily recouped by the better results. 
An apiary may be started in a far less expensive manner, 
but with this we must deal in a future paper.— Felix. 
SPRING MANIPULATIONS. 
I HAVE a hive of bees containing twelve bars, and last summer, 
although the bees were strong and the bars always full of honey, I 
could not induce them to go into the super. I found the bars had had 
no comb or foundation put in, and consequently the combs had been 
made across the bars, so that it was impossible to take them out without 
breaking the combs. I intend, about the beginning of April, to drive 
the bees into an empty hive, cut out the comb, put in some foundation, 
return the bees to the old hive, and place some of the comb, full of 
honey, on the top of the bars. This I could do without fear of robbing, 
as the super cover would prevent that. 
Would you kindly inform me in the nest issue of the Journal if this 
would be the right thing to do, as my knowledge of bee-keeping is but 
limited ? 
Any advice you could give me on this matter would be much appre¬ 
ciated.—G. 15. 
[We should certainly not treat the stock as you propose. All -such 
manipulations in spring are injurious and sometimes fatal. There are 
two alternative metho Is of procedure each better than the one pro¬ 
posed. 1, To allow the stock to swarm and to send out a cast : to hive 
this cast and place the hive close to the old stock ; on the twenty-first 
or twenty-second day after the issue of the swarm to drive out all the 
bees from the stock and unite them to the cast, the old hive being 
broken up, as it will then contain nothing but honey, pollen, and a little 
