ALBERT. R. MANN LIBRARY NEw YorRK STATE COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE AND HoME ECONOMICS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY EVERETT FRANKLIN PHILLIPS BEEKEEPING LIBRARY ———— THE ROLLER ENTRANCE BOTTOM BOARD | Which Makes Bee- Keeping Pleasant and Profitable CHAS. G. SCHAMU, D. D.S. Inventor and Manufacturer — 800. TULIP STREET, — LIVERPOOL, N. Y. SE § 582 , @ 39527 A Few Words of Introduction and Instruction to my Friends in the Bee Keeping Profession This Roller Entrance Bottom Board, like all other patents that are on the market, looks simple and easy; and we stand before them, wondering why we did not think of them before. The inventor was compelled to think up something, for he could be with his bees only on Fridays of each week, the re- mainder of his time was taken up practicing Dentistry. After studying bee nature for twenty (20) years and meeting with reverses such as bee-keepers all meet once in a while, i. e— bees swarming and clustering on the neighbor’s trees, when no one was around to hive them, possibly flying away to the woods with some virgin queen that the bee-keeper had overlooked, or old queen that he had failed to clip wings after mating. Dead swarms of bees in the spring caused from shortage of honey, lack of ventilation, moisture accumulating on the old fashioned bottom board, there freezing into ice, imbodying the old bees that will always accumulate under the frames during winter, making a dirty, musty mass when it thawed up in the spring; and another important point, during the height of the honey flow, no way to ventilate, then the trouble began, swarm- ing, the one thing that the amateur looks forward to with gleeful excitement, “bees are swarming,’ and the professional bee- keeper who looks in disgust saying, “If I only could stop my bees from swarming and keep them at work in the supers I would be money ahead. Some bee-keepers may say this does not trouble them. It may not, but go to their bee yard some fine May or June day, and don’t be surprised to find them hiving a swarm of bees. This has been the inventor’s experience and I am willing to confess, that swarming has given me some trouble in years gone by, but during the summer of 1912 and 1913 I did not hive a swarm in my out yard of seventy colonies. The looking for queen cells, and the fun of chasing a queen around in a strong colony to catch and clip her wings, and also the robbing problem in the spring and fall when honey is scarce, led the inventor to construct this Roller Bottom Board device, which controlls all the troubles mentioned here and many others. This Roller Entrance Hive Bottom makes bee-keeping more profitable because it has so many advantages over the old method of bee-keeping. It will keep your colony of bees in a ventilated condition at all times of the year. It is impossible to suffocate a colony that is wintered over this bottom béard, snow, ice, and sleet have no effect on it whatever, and in the hot summer days your colonies will not hang out on the front of the hive, a roaring mass, but will be at work out in the fields and inside of the hive, instead of exhausting their strength fanning their wings and life away in an effort to keep the colony cool and the combs from melting down. It allows stimulative feeding in a honey dearth, robbing can be instantly stopped by turning roller, as shown, in Cut No. I. Read most any Bee Journal or talk to any good bee keeper, and he will tell you what trouble he has had with the bees when once robbing is started. Closing and plugging up entrances, moving colonies to new locations away from the old stand, all of this is done away with. Just turn the roller to the Robber Entrance and your trouble is over. It positively controls swarms getting away. It insures the mating of the queen with the right kind of drone bee, this alone makes it a leading light in bee-keeping, because the bee-keeper certainly has a choice in his colonies that he prefers over others to breed from, the same as poultry and stock men, who select their best stock as breeders. It enables the bee-keeper to separ- ate the undesirable and useless drones, thereby getting rid of them and saving thousands of pounds of honey, instead of feeding and keeping the drones until after the honey flow. To screen them out you will find a large item when you stop to realize the amount of room and honey the drones consume. It allows for ample ventilation at the height of the honey flow. Bee-keepers are just awakening to the fact that ventilation is one of the main factors to help the bees store a large crop of honey. \Vith the Roller Entrance Bottom Board under your hives there is no lifting, no blocking, no work, only turn the rollers — a child can operate it. The bottom can be instantly closed for moving bees in and out of cellar or from one yard to another, no nailing entrances, hammer and screen wire, these are things of the past for this purpose. This Bottom Board was patented June 17, 1913 and June 23, 1914, with other patents pending. The inventor found it so satisfactory, that he was willing to spend a few hundred dollars in patents and a few hundred more in advertising. Several large apiaries are now entirely equipped with this device, also the inventor’s yard, where the Roller Entrance is doing away with manual labor. Why fret and worry about the out yard during swarming time, when it is so easy to have each hive watched automatically ?—Just stop and consider the word, what it means. It will positively do just what it means—auto- matically. Don’t worry, but use the 2oth Century invention and take life easy. Views of the Roller Entrance Bottom Board, showing the Roller turned to the robber entrance; three or four bees can guard the opening now. Cut No. 1. The drone trap roller is closed, it closes automatically the drone escapes that enter into the drone chamber from the inner side of hive. The drone escapes consist of two especially constructed Porter drone traps, made for the roller entrance bottom board. The top view of Bottom Board shows the opening, through which the bees Cut No. 1—For Robber Time—this position—Drone Escapes are closed automatically when Drone Chamber is closed for winter. work in summer, and in winter the dead bees that die of old age drop through away from the frames, keeping the colony in a clean, healthy condition. This cut shows the drone trap opened, ready to receive the male bees in the trap, and once in the cage never to get out until re- moved by the bee-keeper. Jo me — = Cut No. 2—Have Roller in this position during swarming time. Drone < = Trap now is in working order. ae This also shows the roller turned during swarming time, “@e~when the bee-keeper wishes to stop the undesirable , drones from flying out; when they find they cannot get out, the cn ying ‘ y g y «2 pass down through the escape into the drone trap, where they » see their finish as referred to above. A colony full of ,drone QR comb can be kept clear of drone bees, by trapping them out if the bee-keeper has not time to remove the drone combs. Every bee- keeper will have to confess that he may have his hives clean of drone comb one year and the next he will find lots of drone cells around the corners of the frames, where the rascals are hatching like fun. The drone trap attends to them as soon as they try to get out. Rear view of the Roller Entrance, showing how easy it is to ventilate a colony of bees, single or double ventilation. To feed for winter or stimulatively feeding, here is the space to hold feed, any kind of a dish will do, an old pan, where the bees will Cut No. 3—Single Ventilation for colonies that are not over strong, and the bee keeper wishes to give them a little ventilation from Rear. Cut No. 4—Can Ventilate With Top or Bottom Roller. take up the feed without the adjoining colony interfering with them. After placing the food in properly, close up the rear as shown in Cut No. 6 and Cut No. 1 front view, and the swarm feed will take care of the rest. Cut No. 5—Double Ventilation from Rear for height of honey flow. This bottom does away with buying all kinds of feeders to lay’ around in your way, after being used, which is an added expense. Here it is all in one, bottom board, feeder, ventilator, and drone trap. To ventilate with the Schamu Bottom Board it is done just as easy as it looks, absolutely no lifting and jolting the hive by prying same loose from the bottom board. Just reverse the square and ventilate to suit—much or little—same as shown in Cuts 3 and §; rear of bottom board closed when no ventilation is desired, same as shown in Cut No. 6. During the mating of virgin queens and when feeding bees to stimulate them, the rear is closed after placing feed underneath colony. The bees will take up the feed when the thermometer registers 10° below zero. Make the syrup fairly warm, so it will give off a little heat and the bees will rapidly go down to get it, otherwise they would starve. This method of feeding is so simple and the control of the bees at all times of the year so easy, thus doing away with all the numerous articles that a bee-keeper would have to buy to use occasionally, and store when not in use. Cut No. 6—Rear closed when mating virgin queens during time when feeder is used and for winter. It will pay all bee-keepers to have the Roller Entrance Board, if they did not use it except during feeding time it would pay for itself in one season. Stop and think for a moment: If you had 50 or 100 colonies that needed some extra feed to carry them over a honey shortage, or that you preferred to give Io pounds more for winter, should you feed out in the open, the strong and healthy bees would get the most and continue to feed to a point of gluttony. Take into consideration the cost of buying the feed, mixing it, fussing around to get the feed in shape for the bees, then the trouble begins, how to get it into the hives that need it and where you want it to go. Then consider the Schamu way of doing it. Open the rear of your Bottom Board, use any kind of dish or pan, fill it, place under your bees, and close, all done in two minutes, — which would you consider the modern way of feeding with least cost? or the old fussy way? For the city fellow that loves bees and nature. — Why should he have an argument with the neighbors during the summer months and make them feel bad, by having his bees swarm and cluster on the neighbors trees, the tree belongs to one and the bees to another if the latter sees them alight, if not, there is a question of law whose bees they are. By using the Schamu Bottom Board your bees will stay at home, for the queen cannot get out (the leader of the colony) and there is no clipping of the queen’s wings necessary as with the old style Bottom Board, for some of the best authorities will bear me out on this, that clipping the queen’s wings is detri- mental, so why do it if it is unnecessary? If she is clipped and gets out she is often lost if the keeper is not watching when using the old-fashioned Bottom Board. For the Professional Bee - Keeper. —The gentlemanthat makes his living with the honey bee and her products, who operates out-yards and colonies of bees therein amounting to hundreds of colonies, yes, possibly thousands, why should he be compelled to chase from one yard to another during the swarming time, and in each and every yard he visits, find the bees have superseded the old clipped queen and are hanging on some lofty limb that gives the owner an unlimited amount of trouble to get them down, possibly there are several swarms gone to the woods that he never gets back, lost money on such swarms and the honey for the season. Two Dollars and fifty cents would have saved the swarm, and think of the worry on his mind that he would have avoided if he had the Roller Entrance under each and every colony. When he is working in one yard of bees, he is thinking how many of the other’s are swarming and many a bee-keeper has come to his out-yard and found swarms hanging on the trees. Swarms getting away is positively impossible by the use of this bottom board. If by chance your queen gets down into the drone trap, the bees will feed her back of the wire until the bee- keeper liberates her. That is if they should, by chance, try to swarm, then it is an easy matter for the bee-keeper to leave the old queen caged in the drone trap for 5 or 6 days until the brood is all sealed over, then liberate her back into the hive, and the whole trouble is over. Or, if he wishes to, he can make a shook swarm out of it, if he is there. It is left entirely to the bee- keeper’s choice, in other words, he has his whole beedom under control every day of the year by using the Roller Entrance Bottom Board. For the Queen Breeder This article will make it possible for the queen breeder to rear Italians, blacks, carnolians, cyprians and what not kind of queen bees and mate them purely in the same yard positively 99 times out of a hundred, unless there are neighbors bees near by, if he uses the Roller Entrance and operates his Bottom Boards accord- ingly. If he wants to mate an Italian queen to a Carnolian or Golden Italian drone, allow the virgin queen and the drone he wishes to mate to free sailing, the remainer of rollers in the yard should be kept closed to trap all other drones during this period, likewise for other races. It is done just as easy as it sounds. If there is any queen breeder that does not believe the assertions made, have him come and see the results where the Roller Entrance is being used exclusively. Purely mated, tested breeding queens mated to select drones over the Roller Entrance, $25.00 each, at the Schamu Bee Farm. How to Operate the Roller Entrance Bottom Board During Swarming Time The inventor of this Bottom Board has thoroughly convinced himself that there are certain swarms and strains of bees, that nothing under the sun will stop them from swarming or rather trying to swarm. I have found some when they get that idea in their head of swarming that will go out when there are no cells, nor any virgins in the hive, yes even with the virgin queen on her mating flight they will follow her. Now here is the great advantage with this Bottom Board. When they do try to swarm there is no getting away to the woods, or onto a limb of a tree for the bee-keeper to climb up ladders and nearly sweat himself to death. All he has to do, if he is in the bee yard at the time when they try to swarm is to hive them on the return plan, i. e. when all the bees are out in the air, remove the old hive and in place put the empty hive with frames and foundation, or drawn comb, if you prefer, or several of the frames out of the hive you moved back. Place old queen in it, and let the bees come back and hive themselves, which they will do in 10 or 15 minutes. Or if you havn’t time to find the queen, place the supers from the hive the bees have swarmed out of with the honey in them and let the bees all cluster in and around them on the old stand, while the bees are coming back to the supers, find the old queen, and take the frame she is on, cut off queen cells if there are any on the frame with the queen, place frame and old queen in sectional brood chambers with foundation in the re- maining frames and place her back on the old stand under the bees, and supers of honey, the remainder of the old frames of brood and queen cells the bee-keeper can suit himself, make in- crease, or strengthen other colonies that are weak or cut off the queen cells and give back to the old queen. This is done easy when bees are out of your way. The strong point about the Schamu way is that the bees do not get away and that he can work when he feels like it, and when he has time. When using this Bottom Board you are not com- pelled to keep wasting time looking over hives for queen cells, for fear your bees are going to swarm. Just let them alone, when one does try and you are there attend to them, if you are not there, they will come back and wait until you can attend them. Another great point in favor of the Roller Entrance Bottom Board is, if the bee-keeper sees fit to make a shook swarm the bees cannot abscond the way they frequently do with the old- fashioned Bottom Boards. Absolutely no getting away. The printing of the 1914 Catalogue of the 2oth Century inven- tion was purposely held up until this item of swarming could be thrashed out positively. It is now ready for sale and shipment. It will do all that is claimed for it and can be purchased for $2.50 each until further notice. Once introduced the article will de- mand a five dollar bill to purchase it. Send all orders to DR. CHAS. G. SCHAMU, Box 48. Liverpool, N. Y. Testimonials. Clay, N. Y., June 30, 1914. Dr. C. G. Schamu, Dear Sir:— Last August I got two Bottom Boards of you, and was so well pleased that I ordered 20 more this spring and find they work to perfection. Have never had honey capped as early in this section. Every hive has a super ready to take off and so neatly finished. My bees never came out of winter quarters in poorer shape than this spring, owing to the early frost last fall. The 27th of June myself and son were out of town leaving the bees for my wife to look after. Being a sultry day by 9 o’clock she had had three swarms, the first just circling and returning to the old stand. The other two uniting and clustering on a large appletree limb. Each colony returned to their old stand and went to work in fine shape. At 10 o’clock another swarm issued, this time with a lot of ripe queen cells. They also returned. My wife is elated. She says for me to tell you, she would advise every woman bee-keeper to invest in Dr. Schamu’s Bottom Board. No more doning overalls or climbing ladders, as the bees hive themselves. She would not be without the Bottom Boards for double their price. I also find the improved drone trap to do all that it is claimed to do Wishing you success, IJ remain, Yours truly, WM. SCHUELKE. P. S.—If you wish you can publish this letter, as I am back of every word of it. F. W. LESSLER, Honey Producer Eight Apiaries Route 3 East Syracuse, N. Y., June 8, 1914. Dr. C. G. Schamu, Liverpool, N. Y. Dear Sir:— I have used some of your Bottom Boards and find that they work O. K. There is less swarming, and when they do swarm, they come back, when they can be shook, with no danger of absconding. They are fine for wintering and the feeder arrangement is worth a great deal. Anyone wishing to mate queens to certain drones can do it, if neighbors’ bees are not too close. They should be a big boon to queen- breeders. I expect to use several hundred another season. Yours truly, F. W. LESSLER. MAPLE LAWN APIARY. The writer, before using the Schamu Roller Entrance Bottom Board, has many times left his team work in the field to come home and hive bees that were swarming and if I did not appear at the proper time my swarm would be gone. never to return, quite a financial loss. Since I have used the Schamu Roller Entrance Bottom Board I have no trouble whatever and the bees do more work and produce more honey and are controlled 100 per cent better. This Bottom Board gives the bee-keeper complete control over bees, queen, and drones. Bee-keeping is now a pleasure. Respectfully yours, HERMAN A. SCHAMU. Photomount Cornell University Library Pamphlet Ce aa Binder G aylord Bros. The roller entrance bottom board which Makers orate LNT ‘ 21, 1908 3 1924 003 269 085 m mann DATE DUE DEMCO 38-297