452 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



July 18, 1901. 



I Contributed Articles, l 



Number of Frames in an Extracting Super. 



BY C. v. DADANT. 



CIIAS. DADANT i SON :— We lake the liberty to ask you for your 

 valued advice and experience in regard to frames to use in extracting 

 supers. The object is, whether or not you consider it advantageous 

 to use less frames in an extracting super than in the brood-chamber 

 below, when the extracting super is of the same width as the brood- 

 chamber which commonly takes 10 frames. Kindly give the number of 

 frames you would recommend as most practical to use in an extracting- 

 super of the above-mentioned description. — J.\cob W.^gner. 



The combs containing honey are usually thicker than 

 those used for brood, and for that reason apiarists have 

 universally adopted a wider receptacle for extracting supers 

 than for the brood-chamber. The honey-sections used gen- 

 erally are the l'\ inches in width. In an eight-frame hive, 

 six sections are used in the width, leaving a small space for 

 followers. In the ten-frame hive only seven sections are 

 used, and this leaves a still greater space for followers. 



In an extracting super the number of shallow frames 

 to be used should be at least one less than in the lower 

 story. For this reason we do not like any super frames 

 which occupy fixed distances. We want to be able to use 

 more or less frames, according to their condition. In an 

 ordinary ten-frame hive, we would not begin with more 

 than nine frames in the super, equally distanced. After 

 the combs are built out by the bees, they are thicker, and 

 the number can be reduced to eight in the space formerly 

 occupied by nine. The bees lengthen out the cells and 

 make a thicker comb out of each. There is less handling, 

 less uncapping, and more honey. We used old style Ouinby 

 hives years ago, which contained only eight frames of 

 brood-comb. In some of these hives we successfully har- 

 vested extracted honey on six combs Those combs there- 

 fore occupied about two inches each from center to center. 



With a hive in which the combs occupy fixed distances, 

 such a spreading of the frames would be inconvenient, 

 and in some styles of hives it would be entirely impossible. 

 So the loose-hanging frame hive, which has sneeringly 

 been called a "rattle-box" by some apiarists, is certainly 

 advantageous in this case. 



In our large hives, measuring IG'i inches in width, we 

 use a super slightly narrower — 16 inches inside — and this is 

 supplied with 10 frames at the outset. Then the number is 

 often reduced to nine after the combs have been built out. 

 The extra comb is employed to start some new colony in its 

 super. It is a bait. 



One has to experience the advantage of wide extract- 

 ing-combs to realize fully the gain in time and honey 

 secured by this method. It is no more labor to uncap a 

 comb weighing five pounds, than to uncap one of the same 

 surface weighing only three pounds. It is really easier to 

 uncap the former than the latter, for there is no danger of 

 running the knife into the edge of the wood of the frame, 

 and a single stroke suffices to remove the seal from an entire 

 side of the comb. 



In inducing the bees to build thick super-combs, we are 

 not running counter to their instincts, for they will of their 

 ow,n accord build very thick combs where the opportunity 

 offers. I have measured a comb built in a corner of a box, 

 the cells of which were 2 '4 inches deep on one side, the 

 other side being only a trifle more than the usual depth. 



In addition to the advantages above enumerated, there 

 is another advantage in the deep cells, in the fact that they 

 usually efficiently keep the queen out of the supers, for she 

 does not lay — can not lay — in deep cells. It is true that if 

 she is short of room, the bees will sometimes cut the cells 

 down to the proper depth for her laying, but this is very 

 exceptional. 



My advice for extracting frames in a ten-frame hive is 

 to use not to exceed nine of the, former, over the ten brood- 

 combs. Hancock Co., 111. 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is made to take all the 

 copies of the American Bee Journal for a year. It is sent 

 by mail for 20 cents. Full directions accompany. The Bee 

 Journals can be inserted as soon as they are received, and 

 thus preserved for future reference. Upon receipt of $1.00 

 for your Bee Journal subscription a full year m advance, 

 we will mail you a Wood Binder free — if you will mention it. 



(Continued from page 422.) 



No. 3.— Some Reminiscences of an Old Bee-Keeper. 



BY THADDEUS SMITH. 



THE Italian bee was introduced into this country about 

 1860, or soon after the introduction of the movable- 

 frame hive. I have not the statistics or the history of 

 either event before me to enable me to give the exact dates, 

 and can speak only in a general way from recollection ; but 

 both came about the same time, and in so doing gave a new 

 interest in bee-keeping and in bee literature, and that won- 

 derful impetus to the growth of the business in this coun- 

 try that the last half-century has witnessed. 



Many persons engaged in other pursuits — some who 

 had never kept bees, and others who had only a few colo- 

 nies—now became greatly interested iti the subject ; and 

 this interest led to an investigation, both theoretical and 

 practical ; and as this investigation proceeded some became 

 quite fascinated with the business. The ease with which 

 one could examine the internal economy of the hive with 

 the movable-combs, and to introduce to a colony of native 

 bees a queen 01 a new race and color, and seeing the 

 natives gradually disappearing until in a few weeks they 

 would all be gone and the new race occupying their places, 

 afforded means of verifying and demonstrating many 

 interesting facts in the natural history of the bee. The 

 short life of a worker-bee in the working season was a 

 revelation that astonished many who always supposed bees 

 lived several years ; but the ocular demonstration of this 

 by the introduction of an Italian queen would convince the 

 most skeptical. And so were many other facts in the his- 

 tory of this wonderful insect demonstrated. 



This new interest in bees caused by the Italian bee, 

 resulted in adding many new workers to the ranks of bee- 

 keepers. Some thought they would find it a pleasant and 

 profitable occupation in producing honey on a large scale 

 for the market, as the Italians were said, by the vendors, to 

 be greatly superior to the natives as honey-gatherers. 

 Others saw a prospect of gain in rearing queens for sale at 

 prices from S5 to i?20 each ; and the country was soon 

 Hooded with queen-breeders until the price got down to one 

 dollar or less, and profits still made at that. 



Manufacture of patented and non-patented hives, also 

 sprung up all over the country. An impetus was given to 

 every department of the business. The literary depart- 

 ment was greatly augmented, and we had new authors of 

 bee-books, and pamphlets numerous, and many new con- 

 tributors to the bee-papers from all classes and professions, 

 some of whom have been of great advantage and a bless- 

 ing to the fraternity. 



I think it can safely be said that had it not been for the 

 Italian bee, Mr. A. I. Root would never have gotten up that 

 interest and sustained enthusiasm on the subject that led 

 him to give up a pleasant and profitable occupation to go 

 into the bee-business. And just to think of the conse- 

 quences I The bee-keeping public would never have seen 

 those wonderfully interesting and instructive letters of 

 '■ Novice " printed in the early volumes of the American 

 B:!e Journal. Gleanings in Bee-Culture would never have 

 appeared ; neither would that standard work on the honey- 

 bee — the "A B C of Bee-Culture" — have been printed; 

 nor would those great manufacturing and industrial estab- 

 lishments with all their various branches and departments, 

 be in existence to-day. Under the stimulus of the mov- 

 able-comb hive and Italian bee, many others were induced 

 to go into the business who became prominent writers for 

 the bee-papers, or large honey-producers and queen-breed- 

 ers and hive patentees, whose names are worthy of record, 

 and a sketch of their work would be interesting if time 

 and space would permit. 



The movable-frame hive caused much rivalry, and 

 some jealousies, between the patentee and vendors, and 

 they spoke and wrote of each other in not very complimen- 

 tary terms — in fact, in language hardly admissible in polite 

 society ; but there were still more rivalry and jealousy, and 

 bickering, between the queen-breeders and sellers of Italian 

 queens that had now sprung up all over the country. The 

 matter of contention was the purity of their queens and 

 their offspring. Each party would contend that he had the 

 only Simon-pure article, and intimate, sometimes in broad 

 assertions, that the bees of competitors were impure and a 

 fraud. Various tests of purity were advocated that added 

 still more confusion to the matter. One writer, greatly 

 perplexed over the matter, said : 



■■ One dealer in Italian bees says ' the workers are distiiiffuisbed 

 from the natives by a yellow band around the abdomen ; ' another sajs , 



