BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
While upon the subject of frames, I may as well tell how I manage to have then entirely filled with straight combs which are built out to the end-bars and clear down to the bottom-bars, a thing I experimented upon for a long time before reaching success. The foundation is cut so as to make a close fit in length, and the width is about half an inch more than the inside depth of the frame. The frame is all complete except that one of the two pieces of the bottom-bar is not yet nailed on. The frame is laid on a board of the usual kind, which fits inside the frame and has stops on the edges so that when foundation is laid on the board it will lie centrally in the frame. The half of the bottom-bar that is nailed on lies on the under side. The foundation is put in place, and one edge is crowded into the saw-kerr in the top-bar. Then the lacking half of the bottom-bar is put in place, and a light nail at the middle is driven down through both parts. Then the frame is raised and the ends of the two halves of the bottom-bar are squeezed together so as to pinch the foundation, and nailed there. Then the usual wedge is wedged into the fine saw-kerf in the top-bar.
As already said, I am not sure but it is just as well, or better, to have the bottom-bar in one piece, with the foundation cut to fit close upon it.
## foundation splints
Now we are ready for the important part. Little sticks or splints about 1-16 of an inch square, and about \(\chi_{4}\) inch shorter than the inside depth of the frame, are thrown into a square shallow tin pan that contains hot beeswax. They will froth up because of the moisture frying out of them. When the frothing ceases, and the splints are saturated with wax, then they are ready for use. The frame of foundation is laid on the board as before; with a pair of plyers a splint is lifted out of the wax ( kept just hot enough over a gasoline stove), and placed upon the foundation so that the splint shall be terpendicular when the frame is hung in the hive. As fast as a splint is laid in place, an assistant immediately presses it down into the foundation with the wetted edge of a board. About 1V2 inches from each end-bar is placed a splint, and between these two splints three others at equal distances (Fig. 31). When these are built out they make beautiful comls, and the splints do not seem to be at all in the way (Fig. 32).
Five splints in a frame works all right for medium brood foundation, but in 1909 I filled a number of frames with light brood foundation, and tsed seven splints in a frame.
A little experience will enable one to judge, when putting in the splints, how hot to keep the wax. If too hot there will be too light a coating of wax.
It must not be understood that the mere use of these splints will under any and all circumstances result in faultless combs built securely down to the bottom-bar. It seems to be the natural thing for bees to leave a free passage under the comb, no matter whether the thing that comes next below the comb be the floor-board of the hive or the bottom-bar of the frame. So if a frame be given when little storing is going on, the bees will deliberately dig away the foundation at the bottom; and even if it has been built down but the cells not very fully drawn out, they will do more or less at gnawing a passage. To make a success, the frames should be given at a time when work shall go on uninterruptedly until full-depth cells reach the bottom-bar.
In Fig. 33 will be seen two such frames of splinted foundation that have been built out and filled with honey. The upper one is built out solid to the frame all around, while the lower one has a hole at one of the lower corners, through which a queen can play hide-and-seek.
In Fig. 33 are two that have been built out and filled with brood. They are built out solid to the wood, excepting one hole in each at one of the lower corners, but these two holes are covered up by the fingers so that you cannot see them. Look carefully at the frame at the left hand,and you will see at least three places where the capping is slightly elevated, because of the splints beneath.
## Brood to the top-bar
Incidentally your attention may be called to this comb as a fine specimen of one well filled with brood. It is literally _filled_, all the cells, sealed and unsealed, containing brood. It shows that there is no necessity for shallow frames to have brood clear to the top-bar. At the time when it is desired to get bees to start work in sections, the brood will be up so high in the combs that bees will start in the sections just as promptly with standard frames as with those that are shallower. _-filter_ the bees have been at work storing for some time, the brood in the standard frame will not be as near the top-bar as in a shallow frame, but that will be no hindrance to the _continuance_ of storing in supers.
For a long time it puzzled me to understand why others should say that in a Langstroth frame a space of one or two inches would be left under the top-bar where no brood would be reared, while in my lives, in the height of brood-rearing, frame after frame would be filled with brood clear to the top-bar. It was urged that the trouble arose because the frame was too deep. Finally it was suggested that horizontal wiring allowed enough saggiting so that the upper cells were stretched just enough so they would not be used for brood. In my frames, with foundation-splints, there was no chance for stretching, and so the row of cells next to the top-bar and bottom-bar could alike be used by the queen.
Even if brood were not reared in the upper part of a Langstroth frame, I should still prefer that depth for comb honey, whatever might be true as to extracted honey. At one time I had two hives with shallow frames, and the amount of pollen in sections filled over those shallow frames was greater than in all the other thousands of sections filled over the Langstroth frames.
Please do not understand that all my combs look like the four in Figs. 32 and 33. Many of them do, but more do not, because so many of them were built in seasons of comparative dearth.
There is another way to get conts built down to the bottom-bar. Suppose you have a comb with a passage-way under it more or less of its length. Cut it free from the bottom-bar, and then cut straight across an inch or more above the bottom-bar ; then turn this piece upside down and let it rest on the bottom-bar. The bees will immediately fasten this piece to the bottom-bar (of course it must be at a time when bees are working freely), and very soon they will fill in the gap above the piece.
## 4.3. Hive-dummy.
A good dummy is a matter of no light importance. It is handy to fill up vacant space, its chief use being to make an easy thing of removing the first comb from a hive. With self-spacing frames there can be no crowding together of the frames so as to give one of them extra room, as is the case with loose-hanging frames, and if a hive be filled full of self-spacing frames it will be about impossible to remove the first frame after a fair amount of propolis is present. A dummy at one side is the thing to help out.
An eight-frame dovetailed hive is 12% inches wide inside. Eight frames spaced 13% inches from center to center will occupy 11 inches, leaving at one side a space of 1% inches, abundance of room to lift out the first frame easily. A dummy put into that space will keep the bees from filling it up with comb, and it ought never to be difficult to lift out the dummy. If a dummy a trifle more than a fourth of an inch thick be put in, leaving a fourth of an inch between dummy and frame, there will be left between the dummy and the side of the hive a space of a little more than half an inch, a space that the bees will never fill with comb in such a place. As propolis accumulates, however, this space will become less.
The dummy should be light and at the same time quite substantial, and the one I use fulfills these requirements (Fig. 43). The principal board of the dummy is 16% x 8% x 5-16, of pine. The other parts are of some tougher wood. The top-bar is 18% x 5-16 x 5-16. Each end-elect is 8% x 2/2 x 5-16.
It will be seen that the dummy is neither so long nor deep as a frame. That makes it easier to handle, and being at the side of the hive it never makes any trouble. If I were making new dummies, I think I would make the principal board 15 inches long instead of 10%. It would be easier to handle, and bees are little inclined to fill in comb at the ends of the dummy. While the cut-off top-bars in the frames work nicely, they do not work so well in dummies, as I found upon trying a number of them.
## Hive-overs.
At the risk of losing caste as a bee-keeper, I am obliged to confess that I never got up "a hive of my own." never even tried to plan one, but I have tried no little to get up a hive-cover to suit me. A hive is so seldom moved that I care less for its weight, but when I, or, more particularly, my female assistants, have to lift covers all day long, when hot and tired, a bound difference in weight is quite an item. The first covers I had for movable-frame lives were 8 inches deep and weighed about 18 pounds. Needless to detail the different covers I have devised and tried, with upper surface of tin, oil-cloth, and wood, painted and unpainted. Although I don't paint hive-bodies, I want covers painted. Some of my covers just at present are the common plain board cover, and I don't like them. Some of them are of two boards united at the middle by a V-shaped tin slid into saw-kerfs, and I like these still less. A new board cover is a nice thing. After a little it warps, and then it isn't a nice thing. Put a cleat on each end so it cannot warp--cast-iron cleats, if you like--and it will twist so that there will be a grimning opening at one corner to allow bees to walk out and cold to walk in, to say nothing of robberbees.
## 11.7. tin covers with dead-air space.
I have fifty covers that I like very much. They are double-board covers, the boards being 3% thick, the grain of the upper and lower boards running in opposite directions, with a 3% dead-air space between them; at least it would be dead-air if it were not for cracks, and I do not consider the cracks a necessary part if the covers were properly made. The whole is covered with tin and painted white. The lower surface is perfectly flat, with no cleat projecting downward, for such cleats do not help rapid and easy handling. Such a cover is light, safe from warping and twisting, is cooler in summer than the plain board cover, and warmer in winter. The greatest objection is the cost: I think they cost 35 cents or more each. Two of these tin covers will be seen at Fig. 3. The oce at the right showing the under surface of the cover.
Fifty other covers are made on the same plan and covered with zinc. These are not painted. So long as they remain whole there is no need of paint, and whenever there seems to be a possibility of their approaching anything like a leaking condition they can be covered with paint. The same might be said of the tin, only I expect the zinc to stand the weather unpainted much longer than the tin would.
_Fig. 30--Bulled Queen._
At Fig. 38 may be seen two of these zinc live-covers. The one at the right shows the upper or zinc surface. The left one shows the under or wood surface ; and if you look at the right end of this last cover you will see that the upper layer of thin board projects three-fourths of an inch so as to serve as a handle. One of these covers weighs five pounds.
A cover sent me by the A. I. Root Co. covered with paper and painted, has been in use several years, and so far it seems to stand as well as zinc or tin. Possibly this paper may do as well as the metal and save expense. I would rather pay a good price for a good cover, rainbow, bee-proof, non-warping, non-twisting, with a dead-air space, than to take a poorer cover as a gift.
The hundred covers I have mentioned were made specially to order, but I am glad to see that the A. I. Root Co. have now on their list a cover made on the same principle.
## 11. Hive-stands.
My hive-stands are simple and inexpensive (Fig. 39). They are made of common fence-boards 6 inches wide. Two pieces 83 inches long are nailed upon two other pieces or cleats 24 inches long. That's all. (Of course the longer pieces are uppermost, leaving the cleats below. Two similar cleats, but loose, lie on the ground under the first-mentioned cleats. This makes it equivalent to cleats of two-inch stuff, with the decided advantage that only the loose clear will rot away by lying on the ground, without spoiling the whole stand. These stands are leveled with a spirit-level before the hives are placed on them, (sometimes not till afterward), being made perfectly level from side to side, with the rear one or two inches higher than the front. Each of these stands is intended for two lives, with a space of 2 to 4 inches between the two hives. It is much easier to level a stand like this than to level one for a single live. There are other advantages.
This putting in pairs is quite a saving of room; for if room were allowed for working on each side of each hive, only two-thirds the number could be got into the row. But so far as the bees are concerned, it is equivalent to putting in double the number; that is, there is no more danger of a bee going into the wrong hive by mistake, than if only a single hive stood where each pair stands. If hives stood very close together at regular intervals, a bee might by mistake go into the wrong hive, but if a colony of bees is in the habit, as mine sometimes are in the spring, of going into the south end of their entrance, they will never make the mistake of entering at the north end, as you will quickly see if you plug up, alternately, the north and south ends of the entrance. When the north end is closed it does not affect the bees at all, but close the south end, and dire consternation follows. To the bees the pair of hives is much the same as a single hive, and they will not make the mistake of entering the wrong end.
A space of 3 feet or so is left between one pair of hives and the next pair, so as to leave plenty of room for a seat.
## groups of four hives.
In two of the apiaries there is a still further economy of room by placing a second row close to the first, the hives standing back to back. That, you will see, makes the hives in groups of four. I do not know of any arrangement that will allow a larger number of hives to stand on a given surface. The difference in the amount of travel in the course of a year in such an arrangement as compared with one without any grouping, is a matter not to be despised.
## shade.
Trees shade most of the hives at least a part of the day, and at one end of the home apiary the trees were so thick that I cut out part of them. I had previously thought that shade was important, and that with sufficient shade there was never any danger of bees suffering from heat, but after having combs melt down in a hive so densely shaded by trees that the sun did not shine on it all day long. I changed my mind. I value the shade these trees give, not so much for the good it does the bees, but for the comfort of the operator working at them. I don't believe bees suffer as much from the hot sun shining directly on the hives, as they do from having the air shut off from them by surrounding objects. I have had combs melt down in hives, the honey running in a stream on the ground, one of the hives at least being in a shade of trees so dense the sun never shone on it, and I suspect it was for lack of air. A dense growth of corn was directly back of the hives and a dense growth of young trees and underbrush in front. I didn't know enough to notice this, although when working at the bees my shirt would be as wet as if dipped in the river. I had the young trees thinned out and trimmed vp, the corn-ground in grass, so the air could get through, and I now work with more comfort, and no comb has melted down for 30 years.
Sometimes I have found it desirable to shade one or more hives singly. An armful of the longest fresh-cut grass obtainable is laid on the hive-cover, and weighted down with two or three sticks of stove-wood. But I do not think anything of the kind is needed on double covers.
For hives that are not in the shade, especially during certain parts of the day, a movable shade (Fig. 58) is a great comfort to the operator when the sun shines with blistering heat. Four standards are made of 7-16 inch rod-iron. Take a piece of the iron 6 feet 2 inches long; bend the upper end into a ring or eye, and sharpen the lower end. Twelve inches from the point or lower end lend the rod at right angles. Two inches higher up bend again at right angles, leaving the rod straight except that knee of two inches, upon which you can set your foot and drive it in the ground as when spading.
The cloth used for the shade is about as large as an ordinary bed-sheet, and is usually the linen lap-robe, which is always at hand, and on which a string is kept tied on each corner so as to be always ready to set up in a twinkling. This string has both ends tied around the cloth at the corner, leaving the string in the form of a loop. The loop is thrust through the eye of the standard, looped back over the eye, and there you are.
When the sun is not far from the horizon, only two standards are used, from which the lap-robe hangs as a wall between the operator and the sun.
I used to read about feeding meal in the spring. I tried it, put out rye-meal, and not a bee would touch it; Raited them with honey, and if they took the honey they left the meal. Finally, one day, I saw a bee alight on a dish of flour set in a sunny place. It went at it in a follicking manner as if delighted. I was more delighted. At last I had in some way got the thing right, and my bees would take meal. The bee loaded up, and lugged off its load, and I waited for it and others to come for more.
They didn't come, and that was the first and last load taken that year. I cannot tell now exactly when the change came about, neither do I know that I have done anything different, but I have no trouble now in getting the bees to take bushels of meal. I suppose the simple explanation is that there was plenty of natural pollen for the few bees I had in the first years, but not enough for the larger number of colonies I had later.
About as soon as the bees are set out in the spring, I begin feeding them meal, although some years I do not offer any substitute for pollen. For this purpose I like shallow boxes, and generally use old hive-covers 4 inches deep. These are placed in a sunny place about a foot apart, one end raised three or four inches higher than the other. This may be done by putting a stone under one end, although I generally place them along the edge of a little ditch where no stone is needed, and they can be whirled around as if on a central pivot. One feed-box is used for every 10 to 20 colonies, although I am guided rather by what the bees seem to need, adding more boxes as fast as the ones already given are crowded with bees.
## substitutes for pollen.
I can hardly tell what I have not used for meal. I have used meal or flour of pretty much all the grains, bran, shorts and all the different feeds used for cows in this noted dairy region, including even the yellow meal brought from glucose factories for cow-feed, although, if this last were known, it might be reported that I filled paraffin combs with glucose and sealed them over with a hot butcher-knife. I think this glucose meal is perhaps the poorest feed I have used. As to the rest I hardly know which is best, and I have of late used principally corn and oats ground together, partly because I was using that for horse and cow feed, and partly because I think it may be as good as any.
When the feed-boxes are put in place, in the morning, (and I commence this feeding just as soon as the bees are out of the cellar), I put in each box at the raised end about four to six quarts (the quantity is not very material) of the feed. The more compact, and the less scattered the feed the better. The bees will gradually dig it down till it is all settled in the lower end of the box, just the same as so much water would settle there. This may take an hour, or it may take six, according to circumstances. As often as they dig it down, I reverse the position of the box, just whirling it around if it stands on the edge of the ditch. This brings the meal again at the raised end of the box. When the bees have it dug down level there is little to be seen on the top except the hulls of the oats, and what fun it is to see the bees burrow in this, sometimes clear out of sight.
It is always a source of amusement to see the bees working on this meal, and the young folks watch them by the half-hour. By night the oat-meal and finer parts of the corn are nearly all worked out, and after the bees have stopped working, the boxes are emptied, piled up, one on top of another, and at the top, one placed upside down so that no dew or rain may affect them. If I think it is not worked out pretty clean, I may let them work it over next day, putting three or four times as much in a box. When the bees are done with it, there will be empty oat-hulls on top, and the coarse part of the corn on the bottom. It does not matter if it is not worked out clean, for it is fed to the horses or cows afterwards.
After the first day's feeding, the boxes must be filled in good season in the morning, or the bees annoy very much by being in the way, and throughout the day, while the bees are at work, if I go among the feed-boxes to turn them, or for any other purpose. I must look sharp where I set my feet, or bees will be killed, as they are quite thick over the ground, brushing the meal off their bodies and packing their loads. Before many days the meal-boxes are deserted for the now plenty natural pollen, although if you watch the bees, as they go laden into the lives, even when working thickest in the boxes, you will see a good many carrying in heavy loads of natural pollen.
It seems to be a beneferent natural law, that bees do not like to crowd one another in their search for pollen or nectar, or else the meal-boxes would be untouched and all the bees would work upon the insufficient supply of pollen. In consequence of this law it is necessary to furnish a sufficient number of boxes, for although the bees will work quite thick if only 5 boxes are left for 150 colonies, they will work scarcely thicker if only one box is left.
_Fig. 32-Combs of Honey._
out-door feeding.
I have fed barrels of sugar syrup in the open air, and it is possible that circumstances may arise to induce me to do it again, but I doubt.
There are serious objections to this out-door feeding. You are not sure what portion of it your own bees will get, if other bees are in flying distance. Considerable experience has proved to me that by this method of feeding, the strong colonies get the lion's share, and the weak colonies very little. Moreover, I have seen indications that part of the colonies get none, both of the weak and strong. You are also dependent on the weather, as wet and chilly days may come, when bees cannot fly.
As already mentioned, when the bees are brought out of the cellar, colonies are marked that are suspiciously light, and their immediate wants supplied as soon as possible. But with 8-frame lives there will be a good many colonies that will run short of stores before there is any chance for them to supply themselves from outside.
## 6.3. **Stimulative** **feeding**.
Some would say that I ought to practice stimulative feeding for the sake of hastening the work of building up the colony. But it takes a good deal of wisdom to know at all times just how to manage stimulative feeding so as not to do harm instead of good; and I am not certain that I have the wisdom.