The Thomas Hive.
Mr. Editor:—I wish, with your permission, to correct some few errors which have appeared in the Journal with regard to the Thomas hive in Canada.
Mr. J. H. Thomas, in the July number of the Journal, says—“It is the principal hive in use in Canada.” Again, in the correspondence of the Bee Journal, September No., page 71, Mr. H. Lipset says—“The Thomas hive is all the go in Ontario.” How is it that men will make such extravagant statements? Now for a few facts, as the bee-men say.
One of my neighbors, an intelligent and scientific bee-keeper, having been bred to the business, received a hive from Mr. Thomas, and after giving it four or five years’ trial, says he would not use the hives if he could get them for nothing.
A Mr. Conger, of this county, whose son was an agent for the Thomas hive, told me lately that he had thrown the Thomas hive aside, in favor of a hive similar to Langstroth’s shallow form.
Mr. Walter Taylor, of Fitzroy Harbor, Ontario, formerly an agent for the Thomas hive, wrote me last winter that he would get his bees out of the Thomas hive as soon as possible, as he had found the shallow Langstroth hive was “just the thing.”
I know of no person, making bee-keeping a “business,” who uses the Thomas hive. After all, the Canadian bee-keepers ought to feel proud of having a man among them who has produced the “best bee hive in America.” Where are Dr. Conklin, D. L. Adair, and J. M. Price with his revolvable, reversible—and so on to the end of the chapter? Echo answers—nowhere!
This has been a good year for bees in this part of Ontario. Yet a man living five miles from here, and using the Thomas hive, says it has been a very bad season.
I commenced in the spring with forty-five hives, several of them being very weak from want of honey. I now have eighty-seven good stocks and sixteen hundred (1600) pounds of box honey, besides about ten frames full. Two stocks that did not swarm produced eighty-five (85) pounds each, of box honey. My first swarm of the season, which came off June 13th and was put in an empty hive, stored sixty-six (66) pounds of honey in boxes, besides losing a frame of honey which melted down with the extreme heat which prevailed this summer.
The foregoing, of course, does not come up to the big stories we read in the Journal; but it is very good for this section of Ontario, and pays very well.
My hives contain nine frames, 16¾ inches long and 8½ inches deep, inside. The frames run from front to rear. The hive is similar in shape to Langstroth’s shallow form. I obtain earlier swarms and more surplus honey than any other person in these parts using a deeper form of hive. While I put boxes on the top I would not use any other form of hive. I think that Alley’s new style of Langstroth hive is the best for obtaining surplus honey in boxes that was ever invented. I constructed two hives last year, as an experiment, similar to Mr. Alley’s. One of these gave me the sixty-six pounds before mentioned.
W. Baker, in the September correspondence of the Journal, says that his bees swarmed without making any preparation. Many of mine did the same thing this summer. In opposition to this, on examining a hive five days after a swarm left it, I found a laying queen, and from the number of eggs I saw, I should think she had been laying twenty-four hours at least.
In looking over the Bee Journal, I am surprised to see that so many bee-keepers still use a pan of chips, old rags, rotten wood, &c., with which to smoke their bees. I use a pipe, which for convenience and efficiency, I think cannot be surpassed, notwithstanding Mr. Thomas to the contrary. It consists of a tin tube, six inches long and one inch in diameter, having a funnel soldered to the inside, about 1½ inches from one end, as shown in the annexed figure:
The funnel or cone is punched full of small holes. Into each end of the tube a bored plug, a and b, is nicely fitted. The plug b is cut so as to be easily held between the teeth. To get the smoke, draw out the plug b, fill the space c with some combustible material, then with the plug a in the mouth, it may be lighted with a match, like a common pipe. When lighted, insert the plug b in its place, and blow away. I have used cut tobacco till lately, but now find dry corn silk much better. The advantage of this pipe is, that it can be held in the mouth, and the smoke directed where it is wanted, while the hands are free to operate with. This is a great convenience, especially in taking off boxes.
George Cork.
Bloomfield, Ontario.
[For the American Bee Journal.]