ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION. 



65 



' ' I want to see those hives that will not 

 swarm^if-you let them go a year, which 

 you say will produce honey for a cent a 

 pound." He said, "All right," and we 

 went out and we came to one apiiary and 

 I said to the man, "How often does he 

 come around?" "Well, usually once a 

 year." I wanted to find out if it was a 

 fact that he went to see those bees only 

 once a year. I said to Mr. Latham, 

 "Have you been here before?" "No." 

 I said, "What do you expect to find among 

 those hives?" "Well, we will go down 

 and see." 



I found those hives were made out of 

 shredded wheat biscuit boxes. They were, 

 I should say, about 4 feet long, about 18 

 inches square. Talk about big hives, I 

 never saw anything like them. There they 

 were, full of honey and full of bees, had 

 not been examined for a year. The bees 

 met us more than half way when we got 

 there. They had not been handled at all. 

 I said, "Now Mr. Latham, you said an 

 inch and half spacing." He said, "Well, 

 pull your rule out and measure it." I 

 did and there was an inch and a half spac- 

 ing. He said, "I regard inch and a half 

 spacing as very important." 



Mr. Allen Latham is a quiet mannered 

 man, does not care whether you agree 

 with him or not. He is professor of Nat- 

 ural Sciences in the schools there, a very 

 close observer, and after I saw those big 

 hives in the bushes, the entrance covered 

 up with grass and weeds, it did not mfike 

 any difference, he did not go near them, 

 I said, "Why don't you go to them a 

 little oftener?" "Why, it is not neces- 

 sary." "What do you do to prevent 

 swarms?" "There are no swarms at all," 

 he said. I would not know there were 

 any bees there at all. The bushes had 

 grown all over in such a way that you 

 would not see there were any hives and 

 we had to push the bushes away before 

 we got at them. Well, I came away very 

 much obsessed with the felling that the 

 inch and a half spacing was about the 

 right thing. I came back and talked to 

 our people about it. "What are we going 

 to do? If we make the change, from 1 3-8 

 to IK, we will get into trouble with the 

 people who have used the other." For- 

 tunately the standard hives put out by 

 the manufacturers are wide enough to 

 take inch and a half spacing and as a 

 matter of fact a Hoffman frame that has 

 been in use for awhile will have nearly 

 inch and a half spacing. I was struck with 

 that when I came to examine some of the 

 hives and the only question that comes up 



— 5 B A 



is that when the bee glue comes in there 

 it sticks and cracks and breaks off. Mr. 

 Dadant does not use Hoffman frames, at 

 least not a large number of them. 



I will say, I am responsible for the 

 Hoffman frame, in fact I introduced it on 

 account of the unequal spacing in amateur 

 hives. I saw they were spaced all the way 

 from an inch apart, to as close as you could 

 get them. It seems to me that the amateur 

 bee-keepers ought to have something that 

 they could not crowd together closer. So 

 the idea of the Hoffman frame occurred - 

 to me, and it seems it is adopted now by 

 all the manufacturers, our competitors 

 included. 



Now the serious question with me is, 

 should those Hoffman frames be spaced an 

 inch and a half to start on, making them a 

 little wider after they have been in use, 

 and I am frank to say I am a little in the 

 dark. I will say again, I am afraid Mr. 

 Dadant is right, that I ought to get into 

 the band wagon before it is too late, that 

 all the others will adopt that form of 

 spacing. 



I think I agree theoretically at least with 

 all that Mr. Dadant has said. It sounds 

 reasonable to me and I have been watching 

 it for a whole year since he spoke on that 

 a year ago and we are still considering 

 it. I want in these general conventions 

 to talk with the best bee-keepers and get 

 hold of the fact as to whether the ma- 

 chines turning out the Hoffman frames 

 should be gauged to a wider spacing, or 

 left as they are. 



Mr. Dadant — Since Friend Root has 

 mentioned the visit to Latham and since 

 I have given Latham credit for the idea, 

 since he was the one that put it into my 

 head, I do not think Latham, when he 

 t-reads this, will be offended if 1 offer a 

 little criticism. I spent -two days with 

 Allen Latham, he took me out in the brush 

 and showed me the bees. Some hives did 

 not have spacing of one and a half. He 

 said: "There is only one fault in my 

 mind with this hive, it has the 1 3-8 inch 

 spacing and the 1 3-8 spacing is a great 

 promoter of swarming." We had been 

 telling the people that there is more room 

 in the IJ^ spacing for clusters and the 

 more room to cluster means less swarms. 

 I think any one will see that the more room 

 the bees have the less will be the willing- 

 ness to swarm. Friend Latham leaves 

 his bees alone. I do not believe that if we 

 give them 13^ inch spacing and leave them 

 alone that that is sufficient. There are a 

 number of things necessary to prevent 

 swarming. 



