522 



a 1. E A N I N f4 S T N BE K CULTURE 



Skptkmi'.hr, 1918 



THE EDITOR, in his last trip among some 

 of the largest beekeepers of the country, 

 found, among other 

 Bigger Hives things, that the 

 and Colcnies largest producers 

 were running more 

 and more to large brood-nests. The Da- 

 dants have emphasized the imi^ortanee of a 

 large brood-chamber, favoring the large size 

 put out by Father Quinby. They have 

 shown that such a hive cuts swarming down 

 to the minimum of one or two per cent, 

 makes queen-excluders unnecessary, and re- 

 duces winter losses and labor. 



In 1894 the editor tried out the proposi- 

 tion of whether he could accomplish these 

 results with two eight-frame brood-nests, 

 and found that he could, to a very great ex- 

 tent. If the reader will turn to the series 

 of articles by C. A. Hatch, and footnotes 

 and editorials written bv E. R. Root in 

 Gleanings for 1894 to 1898, he will find that 

 we not only controlled swarming, but pro- 

 duced honey, with the advantage that our 

 brood-nests could be handled in halves. But 

 the objection to the eight-frame was that, 

 in a good season, it might be too much of 

 a sky-scraper — one that, when tiered up, 

 would be easily tipped over by the wind or 

 by stock running loose. The illustration on 

 the cover page of this issue shows that an 

 eight-frame width of hive sometimes re- 

 quires bracing up to keep it from toppling 

 over. 



Since that series of articles was written we 

 have found the whole beekeeping fraternity 

 has been tending to a double brood-nest, 

 either for eight or ten-frame Langstroth, for 

 breeding early in the spring and then con- 

 fining the queen down to a single brood- 

 nest by means of an excluder at the ap- 

 proach of the harvest. The plan is almost 

 universal among our largest beekeepers, be- 

 cause it is now generally agreed that a 

 ten-frame Langstroth brood-nest is not large 

 enough in the spring for a good queen, and 

 therefore two are needed. Upon a good 

 queen hangs the success or failure of a crop, 

 other things being equal. 



The average beekeeper contends that even 

 a ten-frame Langstroth brood-nest is rather 

 heavy to lift. The argument might be ad- 

 vanced that the eight-frame would be better 

 so far as lifting is concerned; but in tiering 

 up it becomes necessary for the apiarist to 

 stand on a box or stepladder to get to the 

 top of the supers when the season is good 

 and the queen prolific. 



We found in our recent travels that there 

 is a pronounced tendency toward a twelve 

 and thirteen-frame brood-nest. There is al- 

 so a tendency, equally pronounced, toward 

 a, ten-frame Jumbo hive, which is practically 

 the Dadant-Quinby, and of about equal ca- 

 pacity to the twelve-frame Langstroth hive. 

 The advantage in keeping the size of the 

 frame standard is obvious. The Langstroth 

 frame is nearly universal, and so well adapt- 

 ed for extracting purposes, that one will 

 think a long time before he will consider a 



deej^er frame — one that is not well adapted 

 to extracting. The Dadants and all who use 

 the Jumbo or Quinby depth of frame find 

 it quite necessary to use a half-depth frame 

 or one slightly shallower than a Langstroth 

 frame for extracting, because the frame is 

 too deep. The users of the Jumbo or Quin- 

 by frame are compelled to have the two 

 sizes of frames — one for the super for ex- 

 tracting purposes and the other for the 

 queen, for the queen is usually confined to 

 the lower brood-nest, and that, too, without 

 the need of an excluder, says Mr. Dadant. 



In favor of the Jumbo or Quinby depth of 

 frame, it may be said that our best beekeep- 

 ers admit that a queen seems to prefer a 

 large frame; and she will lay more eggs in 

 one large card of comb than she will in 

 the same number of square inches contained 

 in two combs, o)ie above the other, but di- 

 vided from each other by a top bar, a bee- 

 space, and a bottom bar, as is the case 

 when the queen occupies two supers. We 

 have yet to run across a beekeeper who de- 

 nies tins proposition. From a strictly breed- 

 ing standpoint the advantages are all in 

 favor of the big frame. Moreover, there is 

 a further advantage in that the Jumbo 

 frame makes it possible for one to use a 

 standard width and length of Langstroth 

 hive — standard cover and bottom, standard 

 comb-honey supers, standard Langstroth 

 hive-bodies or shallow supers. In the api- 

 aries we have visited, where Jumbo frames 

 are used, we found numerous instances 

 where the owners had bought up colonies 

 in standard Langstroth hives, and were us- 

 ing them on top of the Jumbos for extract- 

 ing. 



On the other hand, the users of the twelve 

 and thirteen-frame hives have nothing stan- 

 dard but the frame. The standard Lang- 

 stroth and hive-bodies will not fit these 

 hives. 



However, one very strong argument in 

 favor of the twelve and thirteen-frame 

 hives is that an ordinary colony does not 

 have to be tiered more than two or tliree 

 stories high. The supers, while relatively 

 heavier than the ten-frame Langstroth, are 

 low enough down to be easily lifted. The 

 twelve and thirteen-frame Langstroth hive 

 has the advantage over the Jumbo or Quin- 

 b}' in that it will never be as high as the 

 Juml)o of the same cubic capacity. 



The excellence of the Jumbo or Quinby 

 brood-nest as compared with the twelve antl 

 tiiirteen-frame Langstroth, is a matter to be 

 settled by the future experience of beekeep- 

 ers. So far as we have met beekeepers who 

 are using the larger brood-nest, we have 

 found they prefer to use hives requiring 

 only one size of frame thruout the beeyard. 



There is another small school of beekeep- 

 ers who are working toward the Long Idea 

 hive of thirty or forty-frame dimensions. 

 This does away with all lifting of supers, 

 providing that the extractor is used when 

 a hive of this capacity is filled with honey. 

 But it requires handling the frames Individ- 



