ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEES ASSOCIATION. 



101 



better thing would be to find out through 

 experiment or investigation. 



The President — I think you can prove 

 that very easily. Take this same honey 

 you have heated, and stir it up, pour it 

 out into a vessel, and it will granulate 

 very quickly without the addition of any 

 water. 



The meeting adjourned to meet at 7:30 

 p. m. 



FRfDAY EVENING SESSION. 



November 30, 1917, 7:.30 p. m. 



Meeting called to order by President 

 Miller. 



The President — Mr. Dadant will dis- 

 cuss the Spacing of Frames. 



Mr. Dadant — I do not Hke to read a 

 paper; it does not seem to interest the 

 public quite so much, but this paper con- 

 tains quite a few measurements, so I have 

 concluded to read it. Last year I went 

 to the East, to New England, and attended 

 nine different conventions, nine different 

 bee-keepers' meetings. I addressed the 

 bee-keepers of the convention on the 

 "Prevention of Swarming". I think my 

 son was at this meeting last fall and read 

 my essay on this subject. In this essay I 

 spoke of the Spacing of Frames as one of 

 the preventatives of swarming, but I did 

 not explain it as I propose to do this 

 evening. 



This matter has been taken up by Mr. 

 Root in Gleanings; since I brought it out, 

 it has been discussed in the "A B © and 

 X Y Z " of Bee-keeping, but I see Mr. Root 

 is not in the convention. At the Illinois 

 State Bee-keepers' Convention at Spring- 

 field, where I read it, Mr. Root was present, 

 and I told him I hoped when we met again 

 he would have some argument against it. 

 He has been going around to meetings, 

 and I have not, but my paper has been 

 read at Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, and 

 I have been wondering whether he has 

 found some arguments against the state- 

 ments I have made. I wish he might 

 have been here this evening to discuss it. 

 These are questions that have been talked 

 about very much. 



Mr. Latham is a practical bee-keeper. 

 He is professor in college at Norwich, 

 Connecticut, and I was invited to visit his 

 apiaries. 



(Here follows copy of paper on Spacing 

 of Frames — See page 62. this Report.) 



Mr. Wheeler — ^What is your idea about 

 the bees fanning the heat up into the 

 second story? If you raise the cover say 

 one-fourth of an inch, would that not be 

 a good idea? 



Mr. Dadant — Oh, yes, that helps; that 

 is a good point but you have to be very 

 careful because if a bad daj' comes you 

 have to set the hive back. The beauty 

 of the wide spacing is it gives more room 

 between brood combs for the bees to 

 cluster in the winter; more ventilation 

 during the season. This matter of venti- 

 lation is very important. The more room 

 we have for ventilation, the more successful 

 are we going i o be. I have known colonies 

 of bees to sulk because the conditions 

 were unbearable. It is very important to 

 have plenty of room for ventilation. 



Mr. Latham is a peculiar man but he 

 has ideas and carries them through. He 

 has some I do not like and some I feel 

 very much pleased with. One of Mr. 

 Latham's ideas is to put a few colonies in 

 one spot, on account of robbing. He says: 

 "I like to scatter them. If I work at 

 them, and they begin to rob, I go to 

 another apiary and they lose track of me." 

 It was Mr. Latham who incidentally 

 mentioned to me the principal advantage 

 of wide spacing — Swarm Prevention — 

 which had been overlooked by me, but it 

 explained to me one of the reasons of our 

 greater success in thife direction. 



Mr. Latham's system is simply a very 

 large hive in which the bees have room for 

 the whole summer or at least are supposed 

 to. 



Mr. Hassinger — ^What was the capacity? 



Mr. Dadant — Capacity of three ten 

 frame hives, may be more. I can hardly 

 give you a satisfactory explanation of that 

 because I did not pay very much attention 

 to it; the thing that struck me was the 

 spacing, which I thought was a good idea. 



Mr. Roehrs — What Mr. Dadant states 

 seems to me to be very reasonable, and 

 if we change our ten frame hive to eight, 

 or eight to seven, I think we come closer 

 to nature because in nature we never see 

 the bees if they have their own free will 

 building even numbers. They always will 

 have 3-5-7-9 if they have their own will. 



Mr. Dadant — Do 3^ou mean they can 

 count up to 9? 



Mr. Roehrs — Well if they get a chance. 

 Whenever you see a swarm, if they have 

 their own free will, they will have uneven 

 niunbers; let them have their own free 

 will as nature teaches them. 



Mr. Dadant — You mean they start in the 

 center and build on both sides, the center 

 is the odd one? 



Mr. Roehrs — No, that is not the point; 

 they have uneven number of combs. 



The President — Is it not a fact if the 

 combs are spaced wider apart the bees 



