Vol. XTIT. 



JANUARY 1, 1889. 



No. 1. 



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SOMETHING ABOUT BEE-HIVES. 



FHIEND DOOI.ITTLE TAL.KS TO US ABOUT THEIK 

 PROPER SIZE, AND GIVES HIS REASONS. 



T AM requested to give an article in Gleanings, 

 ||[ on bee-hives. Tn doing this I will simply give 

 W the readers a little of my work in the past, and 

 how T was led along step by step till I adopted 

 the size of brood-chambers which I now use. 

 When I first commenced to keep bees, all of the 

 hives then in use contained from 2000 to 2600 cubic 

 inches of space for a brood-chamher. After using 

 such a hive for a year or two I came to the conclu 

 sion that this brood chamber was too large, so ] 

 went to studying on the matter to see if 1 had con 

 eluded right. By many carefully conducted exper- 

 iments I found that queens, as a rule, would not 

 occupy moi-e than 800 square inches of comb with 

 brood for any length of time; hence it was plain to 

 be seen, that, if I used a hive of the usual size 

 which gave 1450 square inches of comb surface, I 

 should have 650 square inches of comb to be occu- 

 pied with honey and pollen. In case I hived a new 

 gwarm in such a hive, I should have from 500 to 600 

 square inches of comb filled with the best of honey, 

 which would be from 25 to 30 pounds. We were 

 told that this extra room was needed in case of a 

 poor season, so as to insure honey enough for safe 

 wintering. So each year my bees were wintering 

 on from 25 to 30 pounds of the very best of honey, 

 which should go into boxes, and be turned into 

 cash; and in case of a poor season, the bees could 

 be looked after; and if they did not have honey 

 enough for winter, they could be fed sugar syrup, 

 or given frames of honey, if we had such on hand. 



Another thing, I found that, in having this 

 amount of honey stored in the hive, the bees were 

 very loth to conimence work in boxes afterward; 

 for in doing this they grot to crowding the queen, 

 and also they had sealed honey next the sections, 

 instead of brood, which brood all know is a great 

 enticer into the sections. In order not to get any 

 pollen in the sections. 1 allowed 200 square inches of 

 comb (above the 800 the queen occupied) for that, so 

 I had 1000 square inches of comb space, or about 1500 

 cubic inches as the right size for the brood-chamber, 

 regardless of what style of frame is used. Of course, 

 the frames will not always give just the number of 

 square inches inside of them which is required, but 

 we can use the number which comes the nearest to 

 it. For instance: I use nine Gallup frames, which 

 give 1035 6quare inches of comb; while if I used but 

 eight it would give me but 920. To get the square 

 inches of comb in the frame, multiply the length 

 by the depth, then use the number of frames which 

 comes the nearest to 1000 inches. Mr. Gallup used 

 12 frames in his hive; and as he was my teacher, I, 

 of course, used the same number when I first began. 

 When I came tosee things as above. I reduced them 

 to nine by using three blank boards, or dummies, in 

 place of the frames. The number of frames can be 

 reduced at anytime in any hive, in this way, with 

 but little expense, and that, too, without disturb- 

 ing the hive at all, or altering the space given to 

 surplus above. These boards I made of inch lum- 

 ber, the size of the inside of the hive (fitting loose- 

 ly! helow the rabbets, with the top-bar of a frame 

 nailed thereto, ro that it hangs in the hive .just like 

 a frame. Later years I have used what Is termed 

 •■ the contraction method," and think that at times 



