ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEBS ASSOCIATION. 



63 



"which may have slight irregularities. Of 

 course with the use of comb foundation 

 there is now very - little irregularity in 

 combs. Yet I have often seen bee-keeperc< 

 who use the narrow spacing crush bees in 

 removing combs from the center, on ac- 

 count of the narrowne.5s of the space. 



2. It gives more room between brood 

 combs for the bees to cluster in the winter, 

 and a greater thickness of honey above 

 them, therby placing the bees in better 

 condition for winter. Strange to say, this 

 point which we considered as a benefit was 

 looked upon as a detriment by Mr. Julius 

 Hoffman, inventor of the Hoffman frame, 

 who wrote: 



''If we space the combs from center t:.» 

 center 1}.^ inches, instead of 1 3-8, then 

 we have an empty space of 5-8 inch between 

 two combs of brood instead of }4, as it 

 ought to be: and it will certainly require 

 more bees to fill and keep warm a 5-8 

 than a J^ space. In a J^ inch space, the 

 breeding bees from two combs facing each 

 other will join with their backs, and so 

 close up the space between the two brood 

 combs. If this space is widened to 5-8 the 

 bees cannot do this, and more bees will 

 be required to keep up the needed brood- 

 rearing temperature. What ' a drawback 

 this would be in a cool spring, when col- 

 onies are still weak in numbers yet breeding 

 most desirable, can readily be understood. " 



So it will be seen that, although we agree 

 with Mr. Hoffman upon the fact that more 

 bees will have occasion to cluster between 

 the combs with wider spacing, we disagree 

 ■upon the effect this will have on the success: 

 of the bees. 



In commenting upon this, the "A B C 

 <& X. Y. Z of Bee-keeping" remarks that: 



"Where wider spacing is adopted there 

 is apt to be more honey stored in the 

 combs, and less of worker (but more drone 

 brood). Close spacing 1 3-8, on the con- 

 trary, tends to encourage the rearing of 

 more worker brood, the exclusion of drone 

 brood and the storage of less honev 

 below." /' 



We agree with this also, but we disagree 

 as well on the ultimate effect upon the 

 bees. We believe that a thick comb of 

 honey where the cluster is located for 

 winter will make for better wintering, even 

 though it may mean a little less honey in 

 the sections. As to the building of drone 

 comb and rearing of drone brood in a wider 

 space, it is of no importance when we use 

 full sheets of comb foundation, or when we 

 take pains to remove the drone' comb in 

 early spring to replace them with worker 

 combs as it should be done by energetic 

 bee-keepers. - 



But until the summer of 1916,^ when the 

 writer was in New England attending the 

 bee conventions, we had never given a 

 thought to the possibility of this spacing 

 having any influence upon the swarming 

 instinct- But Mr. Allen Latham, who is 

 a wide-awake apiarist and who has tried 

 both wide and narrow spacing, when he 

 made the remark to which I referred at the 

 beginning of this address, gave a v€rj' 

 important it«m on the subject of swarm 

 prevention. In an 8-frame hive, the wider 

 spacing increases the room during swarm- 

 ing time one-eighth inch between all the 

 frames. In other words, an 8-frame hive 

 has 8 spaces or the equivalent of one 

 whole inch of additional ventilating and 

 clustering room of the height and length 

 of the hive body. This amounts to about 

 160 cubic inches of additional space. 

 This suggestion was a revelation to me. 

 I often wondered why our method of 

 swarm prevention was so little successful 

 with others who used 2-story 10-frame 

 hives or 2-story 8-frames. We had never 

 given any thought to this point. Yet the 

 wisdom of Mr. Latham's contention is very 

 apparent. In summer the bees are over- 

 crowded in their quarters, and they often 

 have to cluster on the outside. Clustering 

 space on the inside, more ease of ventila- 

 tion, both tend to remove a part of the 

 pressure. If conditions are otherwise fav- 

 orable, the hives with the wide spacing 

 will have less swarming than the others. 



AVhen it comes to a consideration of 

 comb spacing in the supers, we find less 

 disagreement. Our old master, Mr. Lang- 

 stroth, placed 9 frames instead of 10, in 

 the upper story of a hive measuring 14 1-8 

 inches in width, therefore giving nearly 

 1 9-16 inches for each frame. Our leaders 

 in the production of section honey begaii 

 with sections 1 7-8 inches wide and this 

 size is still the standard. In our own 

 practice, we use only 10 frames in a 16 

 inch super. Mr. Baxter, President of the 

 Illinois Society, who is a very successful 

 producer of extracted honey, uses only 

 9 frames in his 16 inch super. This gives 

 1 25-32 inches for each comb. 



As I prepared this address, I received a 

 letter from a Vermont apiarist whom I met 

 when this question of frame spacing was 

 uppermost in my mind. I had urgently 

 advised him to use large hives and wide 

 spacing. He now writes me as follows: 



Arlington, Vermont, Ortober 10, 1917. 

 Mr. Dadant. 



Dear Sir: Probably you have forgotten 

 me and the pleasant day we had at Mr. 

 Crane's last summer, in Middleburj', but 



