66 



SEVEXTEEXTH ANNUAL JtErORT OF THE 



I criticized friend Latham as we went 

 from one place to another. In one place 

 he had only six colonies and in another a 

 dozen. I said to him, "Why do you put 

 so few bees in one place?" "Well, you 

 go to open the hives and thej' go to rob- 

 bing. When I have six hives, by the 

 time the robbing starts I go to another 

 place and they quit." I do not think that 

 was as practical as the idea of the l]^ 

 inch spacing. 



I am not at all worried about this wider 

 spacing, even with the standard hives. I 

 think it is out of the question to change 

 the standard hives. Why, thousands upon 

 thousands of bee-keepei-s use those stand- 

 ard ten frame or eight frame hive, and to 

 compel them to change, or to advise 

 them to change would be a mistake. But 

 you can put nine frame- in a ten frame 

 hive and then you have no trouble. 



Somebody said with the 1 3-8 inch spac- 

 ing the Hoffman frames have been so rhuch 

 better that they would not space 1}-^ any 

 longer. I had a hive with Hoffman frames 

 and I pulled out my pocket knife and 

 whittled down the shoulders. I do not 

 want a shoulder. But with the loose hang- 

 ing frames you find people who crowd ten 

 frames in eight frame hives. You find be- 

 ginners, when they open the hive thej' push 

 the frames back, when they close it they 

 forget to pull them back so that they have 

 a narrow spacing in one place and wide 

 spacing in the other. 



Mr. Kildow — Some people put the divi- 

 sion board in the middle. 



I\Ir. Dadant — All sorts of mistakes are 

 made by beginners. My sons, who em- 

 ploy more labor than I do, send a man, an 

 experienced man, to the apiaries, but in 

 my case, I used to think if I did not go 

 myself to the bees, the bees would be 

 ruined. But when we got to where four 

 of us werO not numerous etooXigh, I had to 

 get over that idea. I had to accept the 

 idea that when I died the bees would still 

 live. I thought when I died there would 

 be no more Dadant apiaries. That is not. 

 right. I think there will be good bee- 

 keepers in our family after I am gone. 



Mr. Pellett — I was very much interested 

 in what Mr. Root said. I started in the 

 first place in my bee-keeping career with 

 the eight frame hive. I think that par- 

 ticular line of eight frame hives was made 

 in the Root factory and they put in a 

 division board which had no earthly use 

 except for one thing, you could take the 

 division board out and get a little better 

 spacing. Before I got the division board 

 out, with the eight frames in, they would 

 plaster the thing up tight. They said. 



"Pull the division boards out and you will 

 have plenty of room." But the difficulty 

 was, yovL had to pull the division board all 

 to pieces to get it out. I never figured 

 out the purpose the division board served, 

 an empty comb serves all the purposes of 

 a division board. It is a better non-con- 

 ductor of heat. 



I finally discovered that the eight frame 

 hive was entirelj^ too small and I made the 

 change at a considerable expense, to ten 

 frame hives. Unfortunately, the ten frame 

 hives did not have division boards. The 

 spacing, as Mr. Root said, was a little 

 more than 1 3-8 with the Hoffman frame, 

 and if j-ou get the ten frames out, you can- 

 not get them back without adjusting, so I 

 used generally 9 frames in a 10 frame hive, 

 two stories high all the year around, which 

 gave us 18 frames for the brood. 



Mr. Dadant spoke of Dr. Miller's two 

 8-frame bodies, which he said was all that 

 was necessary. I have worked at that 

 plan in my own particular case, two 10- 

 frame bodies with 9 frames in each, which 

 gives 18 frames all the year and I aim to 

 have them go into winter quarters with 

 the upper one of those hive bodies prac- 

 tically full of honey, from 40 to 50 pounds 

 of honey in each colony. That gives 

 plenty, not only for winter, but also plenty 

 in the spring in case conditions are un- 

 favorable. I had not thought anything 

 about that extra spacing having any in- 

 fluence on swarming and I have used some 

 colonies in the j^ard with the two 10-frame 

 hive bodies, same hive bodies with the full 

 lO-frames in, and I am inclined to believe 

 th^t those are the colonies that have been 

 mo^t^ficlined to swarm. I had not thought 

 of it in time to place a careful check on it, 

 but I believe that is the solution of the 

 pnablem, wider spacing, because we for 

 in^j^ce in one yard have possibly two or 

 three hundred of those old old standard 

 bodies, with 1 3-8 inch spacing. Now, if 

 vou give us a little wider hive body, a 

 ^jialf inch wider, to get that extra space, 

 then they will not fit the old ones and there 

 are thousands of bee-keepers in the same 

 fix. I would prefer the inch and a half 

 spacing if I had it, but there is the question 

 of making the change. I made one ex- 

 pensive change from the 8-frame hive to 

 the 10, and I would hesitate of course to 

 throw away that equipment. I think if 

 Mr. Root comes to change his spacing, he 

 will find a great deal of difficulty. I believe 

 the principle is right, but at the same time 

 I believe that 9 frames in a 10-frame hive 

 body will pretty nearly solve the problem. 



I was interested in what Mr. Root said 

 about the Hoffman frame. I found in 



V 



