1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



343 



shipping-boxes and llie few combs that would 

 be necessary to go along lo give them stores, 

 you would have found a customer. These bees, 

 in not a few localities not many miles away, 

 would have bi'en worth the freight, and more 

 too. even if they were used for no other pur- 

 pose than to strengthen up weak colonies. Yes, 

 I think you would have found some one who 

 would have been willing to pay a little some- 

 thing for the bees. 



You say that north of you in your State they 

 had rains. It is not improbable that, some api- 

 aries had stores, but were short of bees. The 

 fall that I called upon you. Dr. Miller, in the 

 northern part of Illinois, had to feed his bees 

 the entire season tn keep them from starving. 

 A run of about only eighty miles on the bicycle, 

 west and north, brought me into the southern 



gart of your State, Browntown. Wis., where 

 [arry Lathrop holds forth. His hundred colo- 

 nies had done well that season, and, at the 

 time of my visit, were storing honey at a rapid 

 rate from a species of wild sunflower: and yet 

 the doctor's bees were being fed. Your own 

 bees that season had done poorly. Now, this 

 shows that a diflferencR of only eighty miles 

 makes a marked difference in the honey-flow 

 and the condition of the bees. I venture to say 

 that there was more than one bee-keeper who 

 would gladly have paid the freight, and a little 

 more, for a distance by rail of eighty or twice 

 eighty miles for a lot of good bees to strengthen 

 up their weak stocks. 



Say — the next time you or any one else finds 

 himself confronted with this condition, write 

 us before destroying the bees, and we will give 

 you a free advertisement, in which you can of- 

 fer to give awav bees to any one who will pay 

 all expenses. While you are about it you had 

 better tuck on a price of, say, .50 cents a colony, 

 for I don't believe it would be necessary to give 

 them away outright. 



Your records for the past 15 years are very 

 interesting, as showing what has been done by 

 large extensive bee-keepers. You have suffered 

 heavy winter losses at times: but it is interest- 

 ing to note how, the following season, you re- 

 covered those losses by increase, to say nothing 

 of the honey secured. With plenty of hives 

 and empty combs, there are here great possibil- 

 ities. I remember one season, at our Shane 

 yard, all in single-walled hives, we lo«t some 

 sixty colonies out of about seventy. The re- 

 maining ten or twelve, fair to good. I increased 

 the following season to some eighty good strong 

 colonies, and secured a good crop of honey be- 

 sides.— Ed.] 



HOW B. TAYLOR USES HIS SMALL " HANDY' 

 BEE-HIVE. 



NOT LARGE HIVES, BUT SMALL ONES CAPABLE 

 OF EXPANSION. 



By B. Taylor. 



In the American Bee Jojirnal for Jan. Kl. Dr. 

 MilJpr says: 



Dadant with his Big Hives. -Clias. Dadant cer- 

 tainly makes a strong sliowiiiK In favor of plenty of 

 room in the brood-chamber, and I'm looking' wit li 

 interest for some reply from the advocates of small 

 hives. I'd like to see the two D'.s lock horns— he of 

 Borodino, and the Frenchman. What about a bi^ 

 lot of bees reared too late t-o woi-k on the harvest? 

 Even if it be admitted that tiie eig'ht-frame is too 

 small, why, Mr. Dadant, can't we use two of them 

 for each colony "i* 



I have been, and am still, an advocate of a 

 small hive; but as my position seems to be mis- 

 understood I will again explain. The question 



of large or small brood -chambers was raised 

 early in the meeting of the North American 

 Bee-keepers' Society at Chicago, in 1893, and I 

 then intended lo explain fully my position, and 

 prove that Mr. Dadant and myself were not so 

 far apart as it might seem; but sickness pre- 

 vented ray presence at the meetings, so I could 

 not explain, except that I remember of saying, 

 at the first day's meeting at which I was pres- 

 ent, that my hives would hold either "a bushel 

 or a barrel" at the will of the bee-keeper. I 

 have always used a large hive, even for comb 

 honey, at certain periods of the season. I have 

 used a large hive for extracting, at all times, 

 except in winter and earlji spring. My hives 

 hold 1000 inches of brood-combs each; and when 

 used singly, mine is a small hive. Two of them 

 can be put together in two seconds, and then it 

 is a large hive. Three or more can be added in 

 the same way, to increase the hive to any size 

 that Mr. Dadant could possibly desire. Next 

 season I shall run part of my colonies for ex- 

 tracted, and will give those colonies two hives 

 for a brood-nest. I will put a queen-excluding 

 honey-board on this, and then use as many 

 hives exactly like the brood-hives, and filled 

 with extracting-combs, as are needed to store 

 the entire crop of honey. At the end of the 

 white-honey season I will use an escape-board 

 under these extracting-hives, and in one night 

 the bees will be out of them, and there will not 

 be a single cell of brood in them to disturb one's 

 feelings. These combs being exactly like our 

 brood -combs, when we come to extracting we 

 can save suitable ones for feeding. If we wish 

 to use white honey for that purpose, and any of 

 our colonies are found wanting at the end of 

 the/((i7 honey season, they can be slipped into 

 the light colonies with less trouble than any 

 way we ever fed ; but we do not expect to use 

 white honey for feeding. We know that well- 

 ripened dark fall honey that we can find a mar- 

 ket for at only a low price, if at all, will do just 

 as well to winter bees on as the more salable 

 white; and my especial reason for using my 

 "Handy "hives is that I can not only get all 

 the honey in any kind of flow, but I can easily 

 get all the white honey for surplus, either comb 

 or extracted. 



Next fall, after the white honey is removed 

 from the hives. I will put a cover on the two 

 hives I have been using for p brood-nest, so the 

 bees may fill it with dark honey for winter. If 

 the fall flow is good, and more room is needed, 

 I open the top hive and remove sealed combs of 

 honey, and put empty ones in their place to be 

 filled, so there will at all times be vacant room 

 for storing all the nectar within reach of the 

 bees. The combs of dark honey I got as above 

 are the store from which I will draw supplies 

 for feeding light colonies for wintering and for 

 breeding up again next spring. In the fall, say 

 early in October, I will take the double brood- 



