1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



483 



ing a repetition of what has already been pub- 

 lished. 



After many years of successful honey produc- 

 tion I am fully convinced that, for the most 

 profitable rtsults, a large hive must be used, 

 and this is especially true in the case of the 

 production of extracted honey. Nor do I be- 

 lieve that this necessity is a local one to the 

 extreme South, though possibly more marked 

 here than further North. 



In 1877 the wr'ter was using a small hive of 

 one cubic foot capacity, with (during the 

 honey-flow) a half story top section over it. 

 The outcome was a moderate yield of honey 

 and a very large yield of swarms. As I then 

 desired increase more than honey, the hive 

 served my purpose exactly. Later, as my wish 

 for a goodly number of colonies was being sat- 

 isfied, my desire for a larger number of bees to 

 the colony increased. I plainly saw that, in 

 this direction, lay the accomplishment of my 

 ultimate object, that of getting the greatest 

 amount of honey with the least expense of 

 money, time, and labor. 



I made a lot of eight-frame L. hives, but 

 found they did not give room enough for brood- 

 rearing in the spring, so I left the top sections 

 (the same size as the bottom sections, but sup- 

 plied with but seven frames) on the year 

 round, and put on extra ones during the honey- 

 flow. This arrangement curtailed the swarm- 

 ing impulse to some extent, but there was a 

 good deal of unnecessary work to be done, and 

 the second-story combs had about as much 

 brood and pollen in them as those of the body 

 of the hive. I would occasionally find brood 

 in every frame, except the outside ones. and. 

 sometimes, some even in them in both sto- 

 ries. This left me no clean bright combs in 

 the two-story hive for surplus honey, and no 

 room for storing without a third story— a hand- 

 to-mouth condition that I do not want in my 

 apiary at any time. I concluded that there 

 was little danger of getting hives too large, so 

 I made ten frame hives for L. frame, and with 

 top sections on the year round, and used them 

 side by side with the eight-frame hives for 

 some years. Through what seemed to me in- 

 disputable proofs of their superiority, I was led 

 to incri-ase the number of the ten franii' hives 

 while the eight- frame hive's have gradually 

 found their way to the attic of my honey- 

 house, where now all but one are nicely tiered 

 up awaiting a purchaser in some one who pre- 

 fers a small hive. 



The reason I did not adopt a twelve-frame 

 hive is. that they are too heavy for one man to 

 handle. When Mr. Olaf Olson came to this 

 country hf asked my opinion as to the best size 

 of hive, and I told him that, except for the 

 awkwardness in handling. I preferred the 

 twelve-frame. He made a few of that size, to 

 test my conclusions, and from them secured 

 some astonishing yields. I saw one of these 



hives, three stories high, at his apiary, full 

 from top to bottom of brood and honey. He 

 told me that it had been extracted from but a 

 few days before, and that it had been refilled 

 as quickly as the smaller hives beside it. By 

 actual weight this colony brought in 24 lbs. of 

 mangrove honey in one day. There was no she- 

 nanigan about this colony. It was the progeny 

 of one queen only, and had no special care over 

 and above the others about it. One only, I be- 

 lieve, of our most successful apiarists of this 

 section uses the eight-frame hive, and he tiers 

 them up high to get the necessary room. If 

 bee-keeping were my specialty, and my ambi- 

 tion required that I make an astounding rec- 

 ord of a great honey-yield with least labor, a 

 '"Long Idea" hive, taking 16 frames, and a 

 division-board, with a regular ten-frame top 

 section, supplied with 9 L. frames to put over 

 it during the summer honey-flow, would fit my 

 wants nearer than anything else that I now 

 think of. Other matters claiming my attention, 

 however, and the proposed change being an ex- 

 pensive one, I manage to be reasonably content 

 with last season's record of 5.541^ lbs. from one 

 colony, and an average, on 116 colonies, of 354 

 lbs. per colony from two story ten-frame Lang- 

 stroth hives with nine frames in the top section. 



The freezes of last winter have so changed 

 the conditions here that it will be two or three 

 years before we can reasonably hope for anoth- 

 er large yield of mangrove honey. 



Hawks Park, Fla., May 25. 



EIGHT FRAMES NOT ENOUGH FOR SOME 

 ftUEENS. 



HOW EXTRA ROOM IS SUPPI.IED AT DR. MIL- 

 LER S. 



Bfi Emma Wilson. 



We have decided most emphatically that 

 eight frames are not enough for some of our 

 queens, as some of our strongest colonies have 

 ten and eleven frames of brood. In the spring, 

 as soon as a colony gets pretty strong, say with 

 about five frames of brood, we put an extra 

 story of brood combs under the colony. We 

 have two objects in view in doing this. First, 

 if the queen feels crowded and wants more 

 room, she can enlarge the brood-nest at her 

 pleasure. Second, the combs are nicely taken 

 care of by the bees, and, if not needed, no harm 

 is done. 



Last year the weather was delightfully warm; 

 and in some cases, where the colonies needed 

 more rooiu, we placed the extra story on top, 

 as that was less work than putting it under, 

 and in a few cases put a frame of brood in the 

 upper story to induce the queen togo up sooner. 

 Shortly afterward we had a cold snap; and the 

 consequence was, the bees had a bigger con- 

 tract on hand than they could care for. It 

 makes a big difference whether the empty space 



