Let as many pieces of sound one and a half

Let as many pieces of sound one and a half

Now for the hives. First, let as many pieces of sound one and a half, or two-inch plank as you have hives to set upon them, be cut long enough to reach from the boarding on the rear and ends of the building, to one inch beyond, and projecting over the front of the outer strip last described. Let these pieces of plank be well and smoothly planed, and laid lengthwise across the aforesaid strips, not less than four inches apart from each other - if a less number of hives be in the building than it will accommodate at four inches apart, no matter how far apart they may be - these pieces of plank are the ferms for the hives, on which they are to sit. And, as we have for many years adopted the plan now described, with entire success, a brief description is given of our mode of hive, and the process for obtaining the surplus honey. We say surplus, for destroying the bees to obtain their honey, is a mode not at all according to our notions of economy, or mercy; and we prefer to take that honey only which the swarm may make, after supplying their own wants, and the stores for their increasing family. This process is given in the report of a committee of gentlemen appointed by the New York State Agricultural Society, on a hive which we exhibited on that occasion, with the following note attached, at their show at Buffalo, in 1848:

"I have seen, examined, and used several different plans of patent hive, of which there are probably thirty invented, and used, more or less. I have found all which I have ever seen, unsatisfactory, not carrying out in full, the benefits claimed for them. "The bee works, and lives, I believe, solely by instinct. I do not consider it an inventive, or very ingenious insect. To succeed well, its accommodations should be of the simplest and securest form. Therefore, instead of adopting the complicated plans of many of the patent hives, I have made, and used a simple box, like that now before you, containing a cube of one foot square inside - made of one and a quarter inch sound pine plank, well jointed and planed on all sides, and put together perfectly tight at the joints, with white lead ground in oil, and the inside of the hive at the bottom champered off to three-eighths of an inch thick, with a door for the bees in front, of four inches long by three-eighths of an inch high. I do this, that there may be a thin surface to come in contact with the shelf on which they rest, thus preventing a harbor for the bee-moth. (I have never used a patent hive which would exclude the bee-moth, nor any one which would so well do it as this, having never been troubled with that scourge since I used this tight hive.) On the top of the hive, an inch or two from the front, is made a passage for the bees, of an inch wide, and six to eight inches long, to admit the bees into an upper hive for surplus honey, (which passage is covered, when no vessel for that purpose is on the top.) For obtaining the honey, I use a common ten or twelve-quart water pail, inverted, with the bail turned over, in which the bees deposit their surplus, like the sample before you. The pail will hold about twenty pounds of honey. This is simple, cheap, and expeditious; the pail costing not exceeding twenty-five cents, is taken off in a moment, the bail replaced, and the honey ready for transportation, or market, and always in place. If there is time for more honey to be made, (my bees made two pails-full in succession this year,) another pail can be put on at once. "Such, gentlemen, in short, is my method. I have kept bees about twenty years. I succeed better on this plan than with any other."

Fonte: Rural Architecture. Farm Houses.