SOME HOME MADE “NEW IDEAS,” SPECIALLY ADAPTED TO NOVICES.
BY R. L. JOINER.
Friend novice:—Enclosed find 75 cents for the next year’s crop of “Gleanings.” I have just sewed 1874 together and I would not take $5.00 for it if I couldn’t get another. My bees are sound asleep in their pit at present, and will remain there until about “St. Pathrick’s day in the mornin’.” I took the precaution this fall of planking the top and sides of the pit, also of putting two doors in the front end, something as described in Dec. Gleanings. My observing neighbors tell me that I had better have let well enough alone, and buried them in the dirt as usual, but I thought a permanent place if as successful, would be better. If you remember, I used to have trouble about my bees swarming as soon as strong. Well as you told me, I found regular and thorough extracting a perfect remedy, but I soon had my hives jam full of brood. The two story plan was “no good,” as my hives are practically three story ones now. I did not want to get new hives and I could see no way of building a story, like Pat’s house “on behint.” I solved the difficulty in this manner, I moved the hive half its width to the right or left and set another hive exactly like it, by its side, with the entrance the same way, and took half of the combs from the old stock and placed them in (without any care which hive had the Queen) and filled up each with empty combs, and run them through the height of the season in that manner, supplying the Queenless one with brood from the other as I extracted, and carefully destroying all Queen cells as I extracted each week. Of course I only practised this with Queens that were very prolific and had their hives boiling over with bees, and united again as soon as honey failed and the brood was sufficiently contracted. I foresee and forebear all the objections that will be urged to this plan, and the main one will be, “Why didn’t you let your Queenless hive hatch a Queen?” Well, I’ll tell you, I wanted to see how much honey I could get from 25 stocks of bees even if some of the stocks did live in what we call out West a “double house.” I don’t pretend that it is any better than the “long idea” plan, except that when I wanted to contract my stock I had no “empty rooms” to carry into winter quarters. I am satisfied that the mammoth yields are from mammoth colonies. My yield is called enormous here but is small to what some report. I started with 17 colonies that had to be fed until June 15th. I increased by dividing, to 25 Queens, and gave 3 of them, double colonies as before described. I got 2150 lbs. of honey, 2000 lbs. of which was choice, and put 24 colonies into winter quarters well supplied with stores. I wasted the time of four of the best, for four weeks of the best part of the season trying to get some box honey. All I got for my trouble, was my pains, and the natural swarms, which I summarily returned, after throwing those honey boxes as far as I could send them, extracting every one of their sealed combs full of honey and destroying their queen cells. Let those who can, raise box honey, I had rather raise extracted for 4c per lb. than to wait all summer for box honey and then get none, for a dollar a pound. The boxes were put on “according to Hoyle,” they had nice starters, they were tight, and all right every way only the bees would not move in. I am afraid they are the Novice breed and aren’t in the box honey business. After I took off the boxes and took their honey, didn’t they work though?
Well Novice, I’ve spun this yarn long enough now and am not half done, if you get tired reading why throw the whole away. If I ever come within fifty miles of Medina I am going to stop and see you and bore you worse than I do by letter. I’ll tell you how I sold my honey.
Wyoming, Wis. Dec. 16th, 1874.
Don’t go to the expense of coming here, friend J., it would hardly pay you we fear, but do keep on giving us just such sketches from your Apiary. We do believe you have hit on a plan that will prove many times quite practicable. For instance the Simplicity hive with, Langstroth frames, so long as one story will hold the bees, is to us the simplest, and easiest handled of any thing we have ever used in the shape of a bee hive, and we have studied long and earnestly in regard to some plan of uniting two of them side by side. All of these plans required too much tinkering. If we made holes for communication, through either hive, bottom board, or cover, these holes would have to be plugged up at other times, and would look ungainly. Your plan of using them without other means of communication, than through the entrance, we confess is novel and so far as your experiment is concerned, seems quite practicable.
He who shows us how we can keep pace with modern improvements, and still keep the hives we have already in use, is truly a benefactor. To use the Simplicity hives thus, both entrances should be turned to the south, and the two hives placed close together. The covers in this case should be hinged to the front so as to turn up against the grape vine trellis, or hinges may be dispensed with entirely. In the height of the season, both hives can be pushed, well forward over the bottom boards, thus making the entrances the whole length. Should this prove “too much entrance,” bank sawdust up by the outside corners. In making so many new colonies last season, we governed the size of the entrances to exclude robbers, almost entirely with sawdust, and it answered the purpose more completely to our satisfaction, than any other plan we have ever used. Also, when the nights became cool, we banked sawdust clear around the hives, to close the cracks between the hive and bottom board. We are a great friend to sawdust; it keeps down the weeds, gives you a clean place to work, is clean and orderly for a small dooryard for the bees, and enables you to make just such an entrance as you desire. Beg pardon we forgot sawdust wasn’t our topic.
Our Standard hive with its permanent bottom board without cracks, and its capacity for 18 or 20 combs without any fussing etc. etc., would perhaps be best, but then, “we haven’t got ’em,” as friend J. says, and just at present we rather prefer to use the hives we have already in use.