14 Farmers’ Bulletin 1215. 
EQUIPMENT RECOMMENDED. 
The hive generally used in the clover region is the 10-frame 
Langstroth, and all the practices described in this bulletin are based 
on the use of this hive, which is the standard for the United States. 
Hives having deeper frames or a larger brood-chamber may be used 
without great difference in the methods here described, but no hive 
smaller than the 10-frame Langstroth should be used in this region. 
This hive is not patented and is now sold by all the dealers in bee- 
keeping supplies. Care should be exercised to get accurately made 
hives and frames. The spacing of the frames should be accurate 
and the parts of all the hives should be interchangeable. 
The combs of the brood-chamber should be all of worker-sized 
cells. This may be obtained best by the use of full sheets of comb- 
foundation, and no beekeeper of this region can afford to use merely 
starters of foundation. The frames should be carefully wired to 
strengthen the combs. Detailed directions for arranging the sheets 
of foundation in the frames and for wiring are given in Farmers’ 
Bulletin 447 and also in still greater detail in the books on beekeep- 
ing. Even when full sheets of worker foundation are used, there 
will be a tendency for the foundation or the combs to sag, leaving 
several rows of imperfectly formed cells at the top of the frames. 
The beekeeper should constantly sort out imperfect combs and use 
them for the supers. Extra care should be exercised to see that 
only perfect combs are placed in the lower one of the two hive- 
bodies during the winter in order that the queen may pass easily 
from the second to the first story during the period of brood-rearing 
previous to the time of unpacking. 
Because of the presence of European foulbrood in some parts of the 
clover region, and especially because of the superior quality of the 
Italian race of bees, the beekeeper of this region will find it greatly 
to his advantage to keep bees of this race. These bees are able, under 
good management, to clean out the larve dead of European foul- 
brood. Not all strains of this race are equally good for this pur- 
pose and the beekeeper should take pains to get those which are best. 
No one strain of Italian bees can be recommended as the best, and 
the proper plan for the beekeeper is to buy several untested queens 
from several reputable queen breeders who have been engaged in 
breeding queens for sufficient time to establish their reliability and 
ability to breed good stock. The names of breeders may be’ obtained 
from advertisements in the bee-journals. From queens thus pur- 
chased there may be chosen the one or ones suitable for breeding 
purposes, and the beekeeper should then plan to raise his own queens 
from this stock. The time and methods of queen-rearing will be 
discussed further on, 
