Suggestions

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section six of The American Bee Journal, Volume one, number three,
March eighteen sixty one. This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by
Christine Rucker the American Bee Journal, volume one, number three,

(00:23):
March eighteen sixty one. By various suggestions before the season opens.
It may be for the mutual benefit of beekeepers if
those who have met with difficulties in the manipulation of
hives will suggest a remedy. Sometimes this can no doubt
be answered at once by those who have had large experience.

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If not answered, and the remedy seems feasible, then many
might try it and report through the journal. For instance,
to keep frames firm, it is desirable that the frames
and immovable comb hives should be a ranged and kept
firm in their places. The writer has adopted, for want
of a better the following plan. An inch tack is

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driven halfway into the edge of the perpendicular end of
each frame, also into the edge of the top of
the frame, one at each end, so that one frame
cannot approach another within one half inch. In fact, When
a frame is laid down on one of its sides,
it stands on four legs. The two outside frames have

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a perpendicular division in the center, and on this division
is tacked a square inch of sheet lead. Now, when
all the frames are in the hive, a screw is
entered from the outside of the hive, so that the
end of said screw shall strike against this bit of lead.
It is easily seen that a screw on the two

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opposite sides may be turned far enough to press the
frames together, and thus a hive may be turned over,
and they will not move omit the tax on the
outside edge of the outside frames, and you will have
room enough after the screw is loosened to push the
comb aside to make room for the removal of a comb.

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It may be said that the tax will interfere with
the removal of a comb. The top ones will not, certainly,
and the writer has not found any difficulty in the tax.
Halfway down the sides, a little comb may project over,
but the head of the nails scrapes its way without
any damage. But avoid by all means placing a tack

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on the lower part of the frame, as when removed
the head of the nail would pass over the face
of the comb, and nine times in ten break the
caps off the cells. Another suggestion is will bees build
comb over paint? Some author has said they will not.

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If true, then frames can be painted on the edges
and underside, which which will make the removal of combs
much easier. Will someone try it and report honeyboards. The
writer has made use of a top to his hives,
which thus far has worked well. The difficulty is in
describing it so as to be intelligible. Suppose the board

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is twenty inches long and fourteen wide. It is clamped
at the ends. Let the clamps be fourteen inches long,
but the other part is in three pieces. The main
piece is say eleven inches wide. Upon the ends of
this piece, nail or groove on the clamps. Thus the
ends of the clamps will project over each side one

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and a half inches. Make two other pieces one inch
wide and long enough to have a tongue on each end,
which shall slide in the grooves cut out on the
inside of the clamps. If the clamps are grooved on
to the main piece, then the grooves are our already made,
And this is the best way. Now, when these pieces

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are put in place and pushed in close. You have
a honeyboard so that no bees can pass out when
put on the hive. It is not as wide as
the hive, however, by half an inch on each side,
and the clamps project over that much. Suppose you now
wish to put on surplus boxes. You can insert a

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knife and push out the pieces flush with the outside
of the hive, and then there is an opening the
whole length half an inch wide, and as the bees
go up on the inside of the hive without going
over a comb, they can avoid a crowd and pass
directly in the boxes, which of course have a corresponding

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opening in the bottom. The advantage found from this arrangement
has been that where drone comb is put on the
top to be filled, the width of the opening in
the top can be lesson to five thirty seconds of
an inch, and the queen prevented from depositing drone eggs,

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which she may do, especially when, as in my case,
very little drone comb is left in the main hive.
With one exception, drones are nuisances, and a half frame
of comb is enough for them. Catch one of them
coming out of a hive and he has a belly
full of honey, but catch one coming back, and he

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is empty, has digested all that he had, and apparently
comes back for more. I will conclude by asking those
who have not read mister Quimby's appendix to send for
one Its cost is, I believe, ten cents. It is
not only valuable in itself, but it is worth much

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more than its cost, if only to show how an upright,
straightforward apiarian can gracefully acknowledge an improvement that of movable combs,
and it is made plain to his senses by practical experiment.
I have yet to see the man who is more
reliable than mister Quinby, and anyone who has read his

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book and noted the carefulness of his statements in all
that pertains to beekeeping, will feel disposed to place a
high estimate upon his opinion In favor of Reverend mister
Langstross's Eclectic Hive, White Marsh, January eighteen sixty one apists

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end of section six