106 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



such brief attention in connection with hives for honey production as mj 

 limits will permit. 



While queen rearing is a legitimate department of bee-keeping, yet the . 

 characteristics of the hive best adapted to that branch is of special 

 interest to so few, that I would not be warranted in taking time on 

 the topic, even if I could hope to make any valuable suggestion touching 

 it. The hive in use for other purposes will generally be found sufSciently 

 serviceable for this one. 



This brings me to the important point of this subject, the hive best 

 adapted to the production of honey. I confine myself to a discussion of 

 the brood chamber and that chiefly in relation to general principles. 



The successful production of honey is the one overshadowing object 

 of apiculture, and to this in my estimation all others ought to be made 

 unhesitatingly to bow. 



For my use, at least, there are certain qualities which a hive for this 

 purpose must not possess. 



1. It must not be expensive. Fifteen or twenty cents should purchase 

 lumber enough of sufficiently good quality for body, cover and bottom. 

 Lumber called "shipping culls," of white pine, is good enough for the 

 body and a grade or two better will do for covers and bottoms, if the 

 best of it is selected for covers. The apiarist must not be seduced by one 

 or two good crops into failure in point of economy. 



2. It must not be cumbersome. Its bulk and weight should be as small 

 as may be, loose parts and projections should be avoided except where 

 that is impossible. A hive that cannot be handled easily by one man 

 when it contains a colony of bees with stores enough for winter is, as a 

 rule, to be shunned. There may be an exception where the hive is seldom 

 or never to be moved summer or winter. Even the risk of the displace- 

 ments of the combs would, I think, better be obviated by fixed frames. 



3. It must not be complicated. Slides, drawers and such like traps 

 never work well inside of a box occupied by bees, and if they would, they 

 could hardly accomplish anything which may not be more easily attained 

 by simplicity. 



Besides these negative points there are, in my view, some positive qual- 

 ities to be sought for in any hive at all well calculated for an apiary to be 

 conducted for the highest net profit. The first and most important of 

 these is that the hive be fitted to conveniently repress the production of 

 bees that can only detract from the net income. No doubt there are 

 localities where, on account of the continuous character of the honey 

 flow, or from the fact that the late crop is abundant and equally valuable, 

 or nearly so, pound for pound, with that of the early crop, this matter 

 may not require consideration, but in localities like central Michigan 

 where the June and early July honey from white clover and basswood is 

 nearly twice as valuable pound for pound as that gathered in the 

 fall ; and where the fall crop is generally scant or entirely wanting, and 

 in any case a period of thirty or forty days of entire dearth between 

 basswood and fall flowers, it is of the first importance. 



I have heretofore attempted to show, and have, at least, about con- 

 vinced myself that it costs two lbs. of honey to rear one pound of brood, 

 and that as a Langstroth frame is capable of containing two pounds of 

 brood, therefore, I hold that one such frame of brood costs four pounds of 

 honey. Moreover, it needs no argument to show that five such frames 



