1901 



GI.EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



331 



the yield was not above the average. If run 

 for extracted honey the case might be some- 

 what different. 



At present the best thing I know of is to use 

 eight-frame Dovetailed hives. But I don't re- 

 strict myself to eight-frame colonies. When 

 a colony has six frames filled with brood it 

 gets a second story, if not before, and the bees 

 have full permission to work down into this 

 story which is added below, and they have all 

 encouragement to build up as strong as possi- 

 ble before the harvest. It's the colonies strong 

 at the beginning of harvest that do the busi- 

 ness, and unlimited expansion is allowed up 

 to that time. How much brood room then ? 



One year of failure in the harvest I had just 

 one colony that gave me any surplus. That 

 gave me one super and the others gave noth- 

 ing. The one that gave the surplus had two 

 stories (sixteen combs) for its brood-chamber 

 throughout the whole season, and I think 

 none of the others had more tlaan one story. 

 That looked as if it was the right thing to 

 have two stories all the time. But I never 

 could get the same experience repeated. I 

 tried it quite thoroughly, but I couldn't get as 

 good results with two stories as with one. 



So my present practice is to rtduce the 

 brood-chamber at harvest to one story with 

 the eight frames full of brood. It's not con- 

 traction. It's leaving the colony as much 

 room as it had before, only it's swapping 

 room in supers for the room it had in the 

 brood-chamber. I don't know that it's doing 

 violence to the instincts of the bees, for when 

 a flow of honey comes the bees seem to get so 

 interested in gathering that they shrink the 

 space occupied by brood. At any rate, eight 

 frames are all they have while the supers are 

 on. When the supers are taken off they can 

 have another brood-story if they want it. Be- 

 fore winter sets in, one of the stories is taken 

 away. That makes it easier to handle the 

 hives in hauling from the out-apiaries, and in 

 getting into the cellar. If I were wintering 

 outdoors (and I wish I could) I think the two 

 stories would be allowed through the winter. 



I think that's about as near as I can come to 

 answering your question. If there's any thing 

 more you want to ask about, and I know 

 enough to answer, I'll tell. 



Marengo, 111. C. C. Mii,i:.er. 



[With regard to Hoffman frames, I think 

 that in all my travels I never saw a locality 

 where there was so much propolis as at Dr. 

 Miller's. I then and there agreed with the 

 doctor that in and about the region of Maren- 

 go, at least, Hoffman frames were impractica- 

 ble. The matter in our catalog regarding 

 Hoffman and staple-spaced frames suggests 

 there are some localities where Hoffman 

 frames will not give satisfaction ; and it rec- 

 commends that in such, staple-spaced frames 

 be used instead. But in spite of that state- 

 ment, very few of the last named are sold at 

 all, while the Hoffmans have almost the ex- 

 clusive run ; and even in Cuba, where I have 

 been advising against the use of Hoffmans, 

 that form of frame is the one we sell most of. 

 While propolis is plentiful, yet, owing to their 



very warm climate, it never becomes stiff and 

 hard ; and our Mr. Boyden, who visited Cuba, 

 said the Hoffman frames handled very nicely. 

 I have been surprised myself, over and over 

 again, even where I have urged the metal spa- 

 cers, that bee-keepers prefer the Hoffman. 



Regarding those Jumbo hives, I think your 

 experience was very exceptional. The experi- 

 ence of Dadant and all his neighbors has 

 been that such hives do not cast swarms ; at 

 least I think the statement was made that it 

 was the exception to have more than one or 

 two per cent of swarms. 



Where the honey-flow is dependent almost 

 entirely on clover and basswood, perhaps the 

 eight-frame hive is large enough in capacity ; 

 but my own personal experience is in favor of 

 16 Langstroth frames in two stories, some- 

 times reducing those two stories to one, and 

 substituting comb-honey supers for the upper 

 story, and sometimes putting a super on top 

 of the two stories. The main thing is to get a 

 large force of bees. By a "large force" I 

 mean a colony the bees of which will weigh 8 

 or 9 lbs., or what would aggregate in numbers 

 40,000 to 50,000. If one can succeed in get- 

 ting a working force and a nurse force up to 

 this strength he is bound to get honey if there 

 is any to be had from the fields. But such a 

 force must not be squeezed into an eight-frame 

 capacity without giving plenty of sections 

 above. — Ed.] 



SHALLOW BROOD-CHAMBERS. 



Their Economic Uses : Pollen in Sections, etc. 



BY T. K. MASSIE. 



Mr. Root : — In your footnote to Harry 

 Lathrop's article, page 686, you invite corres- 

 pondence from those who have been success- 

 ful in the production of comb honey by using 

 shallow brood-chambers and frames ; there- 

 fore I will give you my experience, and men- 

 tion some of the advantages of shallow frames. 



For a number of years I have been using 

 Dr. Tinker's Non-parcel hive with a closed- 

 end frame of my own invention, containing 

 combs 5}4 inches deep — a very shallow frame. 



I have used these for comb honey almost 

 exclusively, tiering up two and three brood- 

 chambers to the hive, as occasion required, 

 which gave me a deep comb for wintering, 

 and brood-rearing purposes in the spring, and 

 a shallow comb for the production of comb 

 honey during the honey-flow. When a swarm 

 issued I hived it on the old stand in a single 

 brood-chamber under two, three, ormore su- 

 pers of sections, according to circumstances, 

 strength of colony, season, etc. If the colony 

 did not cast a swarm by the time the main 

 honey- flow from basswoods was on I simply 

 moved the colony to one side, set an empty 

 brood-chamber in its place with the supers on 

 it, as if I were going to hive a swarm in it. I 

 then opened the old hive and shook most of 

 the bees in front of the new one, leaving only 

 enough bees to care for the brood, and 

 strengthened the colony with hatching brood 

 from the old stand in about 6 to 8 days, and 



