DIVIDERS.
The apiarian who adopts the storifying plan, should have Keys’s dividers, which consist of two copper or brass plates, about the sixteenth of an inch thick, fifteen inches wide, and fifteen and a half long; the odd half inch, being turned up, serves for the operator to lay hold of, when the plates are withdrawn. Care should be taken that the plates be perfect planes, well hardened by hammering, and of proper thickness. If they exceed the prescribed thickness, the bees may escape as soon as the plates are partially introduced or partially withdrawn; and if they be thinner, there will be the same chance of escape from their want of firmness and elasticity.
These dividers greatly facilitate the various operations which the apiarian has to perform, and at the same time secure him from the attacks of the bees.
He should be provided with one of the long-bladed spatulas or knives, used by apothecaries and painters, which he will find useful in separating the honey-combs from the sides of the hives or boxes. In some cases it will also be necessary to have an iron instrument, about ten inches long and half an inch wide, the end of which should be turned up about two inches and be double-edged, that it may cut both ways. This instrument, which should be fixed in a wooden handle, being passed between the combs, will enable the operator to separate them from their attachment to the bars.
Those who make use of the Moreton-hives,—a description of which is given in the chapter on Hives,—should be furnished with two strips of tin four inches by fifteen; these will protect the straw bottoms of the upper hives during the introduction of the dividers, and should be introduced one on each side, the hives having been previously dissevered by means of the spatula.
[CHAPTER XII.]
STORIFYING.
