438 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



or extracted, with the least amount of work, 

 and be good at the sarae time for wintering 

 and breeding up colonies in the spring. And 

 now, friend Root, to describe just how these 

 hives are constructed, and ihe reasons for 

 them, and the system of using them, will give a 

 clearer explanation of my present understand- 

 ing of the best hive than any other words could 

 give. 



The new hives are 16 inches square, outside 

 measure; 143^ inside, and the bodies are 9 in. 

 deep. The frames are 1332 long by 8^4 deep. 

 Each frame contains 100 inches of comb sur- 

 face, and we use 10 of them in a hive. Those 

 hives then contain 1000 cubic inches of comb 

 surface. This is, then, according to the com- 

 mon popular understanding, a small hive. And 

 now for the system of using them. We will 

 hive new swarms in one of those hives on eight 

 combs, two dummies being used in place of the 

 outside combs. Each hive will be given all 

 supers of sections tilled with either finished 

 combs or foundation, or part of each that they 

 can use. At the end of the white-honey season 

 (basswood here) we will remove the surplus 

 cases, take out the two dummies, return the 

 combs, place a queen-excluding honey-board on 

 top, and on this another hive, either a new one 

 filled with foundation or one filled with bees 

 and brood from which a swarm has previously 

 issued. If the last is used I will see that the 

 queen from the new swarm is removed, and the 

 old swarm with its young queen put under. I 

 want no brood raised further in the top hive. 

 As the brood in the top hive hatches, the combs 

 will be filled with fall honey. If the flow 

 should be good I will add other hives as needed 

 until the end of the season. At the end of the 

 honey season I will take off all hives above the 

 queen-excluder, having, a day or two previously, 

 put an escape-board under them and run all 

 the bees into the parent hive below, which hive 

 will be examined as to stores, and, if lacking, 

 an abundance will be givon from the filled 

 combs from the top hives taken away. We will 

 winter the colony in a single hive. They are 

 easier to handle, take less room in the cellar, 

 and we know that, with us, a small hivt^ with a 

 good colony of young bees, and plenty of stores, 

 is in the best possible condition for cellar win- 

 tering. 



In the spring we will remove the colonies to 

 the summer stands. These stands will have 

 room for two colonies each, but we will have 

 only one colony to the stand until swarming- 

 time; but previously we shall have added to 

 each colony a second hive taken from those 

 used on top last fall, and more or less filled with 

 honey; but we shall not add the second hive 

 until the first one is well filled with brood, as 

 they will breed up much better in the small 

 single hive early in the cool weather of spring. 



In this system each colony will have two 

 hives at swarming-time. We will give each 



colony, run for comb honey, cases of sections 

 early, for we do not care whether they swarm 

 early or late. We will keep them storing sur- 

 plus without swarming at all, as long as plenty 

 of room will do it; but we will use no force 

 measures to prevent swarming; for, after the 

 most searching effort in that direction, we are 

 now thoroughly eonviiiced that it can not be 

 profitably done. When the swarm does finally 

 come (if it does), we will hive it in a hive con- 

 tracted to eight frames or less; remove all sur- 

 plus cases from the old to the new swarm; set 

 it on the old stand, turn the entrance of the 

 parent colony in an opposite direction on the 

 vacant space on the same stand to be re- 

 queened, and the two colonies will be united 

 again after the white honey-flow as l)efore. 



In working for extracted we will simply give 

 each colony all the hives they will fill; and in 

 case they swarm we will treat them exactly as 

 for comb honey. If, after we have supplied all 

 our colonies, fall and spring, with all the combs 

 of honey they can use, if any remain we will 

 extract them; but we will use every pound of 

 dark for winter stores and brood-raising; for 

 by this management we can and will secure 

 nearly the entire white-honey crop for surplus. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I have written not only 

 about small hives but how to use them. Many 

 bee-keepers try small hives. They use them 

 exactly as they would large ones. They do not 

 find small hives profitable, and argue against 

 them. I have great respect for the Dadants as 

 bee-keepers, and their argument for large hives 

 had almost persuaded me; but now comes Mr. 

 Dadant, in the American Bee Journal of May 

 9, and states that his average yield of extracted 

 honey from colonies in his big hives is only 

 fifty 2)ou?if7s, and that his greatest yield was 

 only 1.50 lbs. per colony. Friend Dadant, you 

 have, to me at least, given the whole argument 

 for your large combs and brood-chambers away. 

 A small comb, all will agree, can be handled 

 more easily and pleasantly than large ones, 

 and small hives the same. You may say I 

 have more combs to handle in my two sets that 

 I use at times; but I tell you that, with my 

 wired end-frame, with which no followers, 

 wedges, thumbscrews, or other traps are used, 

 but where each comb can be taken from any 

 part of the brond-chamber with the naked 

 fingers, and returned to their exact place with- 

 out the use of our eyes at all, the handling of 

 frames becomes a pleasure and pastime. As 

 for crops, we have always worked for comb 

 honey, and have for 20 years regarded less than 

 100 lbs. per colony, spring count, as partial fail- 

 ure. We have in a good year secured 143 lbs. 

 per colony from a whole apiary, and 90 per cent 

 of it while honey. The seasons of 1893 and 

 1894 were regarded as bad ones here, and yet 

 we harvested more fine comb honey each of 

 those seasons than Mr. Dadant says he gets in 

 extracted in average good years. No, friend 



