332 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



again in 12 or 15 days. Deep combs for win- 

 tering and shallow combs for the production 

 of comb honey is one of the advantages of a 

 shallow brood-chamber and shallow frames. 

 They give us horizontal contraction in place 

 of side contraction, and the brood-nest is al- 

 ways in its normal condition. The frames 

 need no wiring, and yet the cells are never 

 stretched out of shape, and the bees build all 

 worker combs from narrow starters. If we 

 want to extract from these frames the combs 

 never break like the deep ones. The frames 

 can be handled on the rough-and-tumble or- 

 der, and not break the combs. I have tried 

 several different kinds of hives and systems of 

 management, but the shallow ones give me by 

 far the best results. 



Two years ago I purchased 40 Danzenbaker 

 hives with combs about ^)i inches deep, and 

 have run them according to his system, and 

 must say, with friend L., that "the Danzen- 

 baker hive and system is all right. ' ' This sea- 

 son our best yield from any one colony was 

 128 finished sections, and the colony was in a 

 Danzenbaker hive ; but I must differ with 

 friend L. in his conclusions that the Danzen- 

 baker hive is an expensive one. Mr. L. says, 

 " Among them all, no one knows better than 

 Danzenbaker how to get comb honey ; but we 

 can't all adopt his hive, on account of the ex- 

 pense and work of changing." It is not fair 

 to praise the Danz. hive and system, and in 

 the same breath damage it by comparing the 

 price of it with a single-walled shallow box in 

 the rough with slats only. 



Replying to a Straw, page 718, I can say 

 that, m my locality, we have pollen coming in 

 throughout the season. Bees gather consider- 

 able quantities of it almost daily, and with my 

 shallow brood-chambers I have never had any 

 trouble with pollen in the sections. Bees 

 store pollen as close to the brood as possible ; 

 and when there is a break in the combs of 

 more than an inch — the distance from top of 

 brood-combs to the bottom of section combs- 

 bees are not much inclined to pass over this 

 space, away from the brood, to store pollen in 

 the sections. Dr. Miller says two parties 

 complained of pollen in the sections with the 

 Danz. hive, and he had two of the same hives 

 in use, and "more pollen in each D. super 

 than 100 others." Here are four D. hives se- 

 verely censured ; and were it not for his con- 

 cluding remarks one would think this a blow 

 at the D. hive in particular ; but he follows it 

 with the conclusion that "shallow brood- 

 chambers ' ' favor pollen in the sections. Such 

 is not my experience. I have a letter from a 

 friend who tells me that, out of 16,000 sections 

 produced over the D. brood-chamber this sea- 

 son, not one contained any pollen. Here, 

 then, is a case, not "16 to 1," but stxleen 

 thousattd to nothing— 16,000 sections, not one 

 of which contained a trace of pollen. I 

 should not fear to undertake, under a forfeit, 

 to show 1600 sections with no pollen in them 

 to one that has, and I would either " show up 

 or hush up." T. K. Massie. 



Avondale, W. Va. 



[I do not think that Mr. Lathrop intended 

 to convey the impression that the Danzenba- 



ker hive was more expensive than any other 

 hive put out by the manufacturers, or enough 

 more expensive to prohibit its use. He only 

 intended to show how shallow brood-chambers 

 juight be used in an economical way for those 

 who desired to experiment before they invest- 

 ed very much money in the general system of 

 shallow brood-chambers. 



Regarding the question of pollen in sections 

 when shallow brood-chambers are used, this 

 may be somewhat a matter of locality. But 

 however that may be, I know of only three or 

 four complaints of this character — so few, in- 

 deed, that I should hardly think them worthy 

 of much consideration. — Ed.] 



BEES FROM VERY OLD COMBS. 



BY B. ROBISON. 



Mr. Editor : — On page 141 you seem in- 

 clined to ridicule Bro. W. T. Stephenson's as- 

 sertion that bees hatched from very old combs 

 are very perceptibly smaller than those hatch- 

 ed from new comb. I agree with you that 

 "It is very easy for one to draw wrong con- 

 clusions and wrong inferences ; and especially 

 is this true, it seems to me, in the case before 

 us " (italics mine). 



Perhaps where a young man has been rais- 

 ed in an apiary (if I may be allowed the ex- 

 pression) that is and has always been conduct- 

 ed on "scientific" principles and theories, 

 every thing in nature that comes to the notice 

 of us old backwoodsmen, and which we have 

 known for years to be facts, if, I say, these 

 observations run up against some theory of 

 scientific bee-men, the poor soul who is timor- 

 ous enough to put his observation in writing 

 must hazard the gauntlet of scientific criti- 

 cism. And now to the text. 



Bro. Stephenson is right about those bees 

 being smaller in those very old combs ; and, 

 Mr. Editor, if you had transferred as many 

 old and almost black combs from old weather- 

 beaten box hives as I have, you wouldn't need 

 to take your micrometer to measure either 

 bees or cells to know it too. It's one of na- 

 ture's facts. 



When I began keeping bees, perhaps it was 

 in 1875 or '76, I found that I knew so little 

 about bees that it was absolutely necessary 

 for me to " read up " and take a bee-journal. 

 Well, I happened on the advertisement of one 

 called Gleanings in Bee Culture, published 

 by A. I. Root, and I subscribed for it. Well, 

 one of my neighbors came over to see my 

 bees and " talk bee " with me. After I had 

 convinced him there was no such thing as a 

 king-bee, he said his bees were running out, 

 or his old swarm that he had brought with 

 him in the wagon from Sedalia was, any way. 

 I asked him what he meant by running out. 



"Why," said he, " they are so small they 

 are not more than two-thirds as big as the oth- 

 ers from the new swarms." 



I laughed at him, but he stuck to his propo- 

 sition, and told me I couldn't theorize him out 

 of what was a plain visible fact. Well, I put 

 my last Gleanings in my pocket, saddled a 

 horse, and went home with him to see his lit- 



