394 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



bees have commenced in, and put them in the 

 third tier; then fill in with empty sections the 

 second tier, where you removed these. You 

 see you can build this hive up as high as you 

 like, and add as much section room as is needed. 

 Last season I built one up to the fifth tier of 

 sections. I use flat metal covers for these hives, 

 and set the hives tipping a little toward the 

 front. 



Now, what difficulties have I overcome? In 

 the first place, I have done away with queen- 

 excluding honey-boards by making the hives 

 satisfactory to the bees. I have never had a 

 queen enter the sections. I have no use for 

 bee-escapes, as the bees are nearly all shaken 

 off when the honey is removed from the hive. 

 I can take the honey as soon as it is done — one 

 section or a hundred as the case may be — before 

 it becomes travel-stained. I have no warping 

 of covers or shrinking of cases or supers to let 

 the light in, so the honey is properly finished, 

 and, consequently, a larger per cent of No. 1 or 

 fancy honey is secured than by any other sys- 

 tem I know of. Swarming is entirely over- 

 come, if proper management is given to the 

 brood-nest the early part of the season; but if 

 they are let alone, packing left on top, they 

 swarm earlier than those in eight-frame hives, 

 as they are always stronger earlier in the spring 

 — in fact, all the season. 



Breckenridge, Mich., Apr. 19. 



[The following is a private note sent along 

 with the article. It contains a valuable point; 

 viz., that a young lady is going to manage an 

 apiary of Jumbo hives.] 



Please ask questions, and I will answer them 

 the best I can; but I labor under very many 

 difficulties. I am nearly blind; have not been 

 able to see to read or write for seven years, and 

 am used up by that dreadful disease rheuma- 

 tism. My eighteen-year-old daughter is doing 

 this writing for me. She is to take charge of 

 an out-yard of fifty or more Jumbo hives this 

 season. You see, when they are once located 

 the lifting is light; but I intend to use section- 

 holders that will hold twelve IJ^-inch sections 

 on these, as I believe they have some advan- 

 tage over those I have used. Tliere are many 

 valuable points 1 have not mentioned, but I 

 think I have said enough — perhaps too much. 



IN FAVOR OF LARGE HIVES. 



" ONE - FOURTH MORE I5EES," " FIVE TO SIX 

 FOURTHS xMOKE HONEY." 



By John Slnubaugh. 



Mr. Root:— I am not ready yet to send a post- 

 al, telling you that I am tired of the discussion 

 of an eight or ten frame brood-nest; but I am 

 ready to send my experience. I can speak for 

 my own locality only, my kind of honey, and 

 my way of wintering bees. When the eight- 

 frame brood-nest question came up first, I made 



my hives the same as I had made them before 

 — a ten-frame Langstroth, with a division- 

 board to contract to eight or nine frames, as I 

 used to. In case the eight-frame would not 

 answer my purpose, I could take out the 

 division-board and go back to the ten-frame 

 brood-nest. After a four-years' trial, eight, 

 nine, and ten frame brood-nest side by side 

 fully convinced me that, for my locality, my 

 way of wintering, and the kind of honey pro- 

 duced, the ten-frame is more profitable than 

 either eight or nine. First, the less the brood- 

 nest, the more inclined to swarm. There is, in- 

 disputably, more room for a big force of workers 

 in a ten-frame than can be crowded into an 

 eight-frame hive. It is said the two outside 

 combs in the ten-frame hive are not filled with 

 brood, nor is the old honey always used up by 

 the colony. True, it is not always used u p 

 when spring comes. Those left-over stores are 

 a safeguard in caseof scarcity; and we all know 

 that, if they are not all used up, there will be 

 room in the brood-nest for a fourth more bees 

 than in an eight-frame hive. I contend we can 

 keep the bees with the one- fourth more bees 

 just as long in the ten-frame hive, without 

 swarming, as we can the bees with the one- 

 fourth less in the eight-frame hive. The one- 

 fourth more bees will give us from five to six 

 fourths more honey. 



It might be said this is theory and not fact. 

 Well, I hived two swarms together the 23d of 

 June, 189-t, into a ten-frame hive. They filled 

 the ten frames, and completed me 143 lbs. of 

 section honey, while other ordinary swarms 

 completed only about 56 sections. We want 

 the biggest force of bees to gather the most 

 honey. The eight-frame will not hold as large 

 a force of bees as the ten-frame. If some of our 

 colonies should seem to be rather too small for 

 a ten-frame, why, use a division-board; that 

 will be cheaper and much less trouble than one 

 hive- body upon another. 



My next point is for my locality. I use the 

 double-walled hive, wintering my bees on their 

 summer stands, not having to carry my ten- 

 frame hives in and out of the cellar. 



My third point is, I am running my apiary 

 principally for comb honey, having the 1)4- 

 story and the two-story chaff hives with two 

 supers. 



As I make my own hives, I will make a 

 twelve-frame one for trial this summer. If we 

 here can keep bees from swarming, we can 

 expect honey. Although this is not an extra 

 good locality for honey, yet I have handled bees 

 for from 35 to 30 years. I have never known 

 bees here that would not always gather suffi- 

 cient for winter stores, with the exception of 

 some late swarms. John Slaubaugh. 



Eglon, W. Va., Mar. 15. 



[Perhaps before you go too far in the matter 

 of enlargement you had better consider careful- 

 ly the following:— Ed.] 



