(Entered as second-olass matter Jnly 30, 1907, at the POBt-Offlce at Chicago, 111., under Act of llarcli 3, 187S.; ■ 



Published Monthly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Company, 117 North JeKerson Street, 



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor. 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Associate Editor. 



CHICAGO, ILL, APRIL, 1912 



VoL LII-No. 4 



Editorial 



Comments 



Size of Hives and Frame's 



In an article in the Canadian Bee 

 Journal, Samuel Simmins, a prominent 

 bee-keeper of England, begins by ask- 

 ing, "What is wrong with American 

 and Canadian bee-keeping ?" He la- 

 ments a falling off in the yield per 

 colony (which falling off does not seem 

 to have been prominently mentioned in 

 this country), and attributes it to the 

 small size of the frames and hives in 

 use. He has little respect for such 

 "diminutive hives " as the 8 or 10 frame 

 Langstroth, and advocates a hive con- 

 taining 11 or 12 frames measuring 16 

 by 10 inches. 



" The trouble first to be considered," 

 he says, "is that the Langstroth frame 

 is too small ; certainly it is too shal- 

 low." In a subsequent number of the 

 same Journal, J. E. Hand says : 



" The dimensions of the Langstroth frame 

 are oisxn^s. and it contains 157.70 square 

 inches of surface: while tiie Simmins frame 

 is 16x10 inches, and contains ibo square 

 inches of surface, making a difference of 

 2.30 square inches in favor of the Simmins 

 frame Now, I am not a little surprised 

 that Mr. Simmins should think even for a 

 moment that a mere matter of 2.30 inches 

 per frame can make all the difference be- 

 tween success and failure in honey-produc- 

 tion." 



If Mr. Hand will pardon the sugges- 

 tion to revise his figures, he will find 

 that instead of 157.70, the Langstroth 

 frame contains exactly 160 03-6-1 square 

 inches, while the Simmins frame con- 

 tains 160 inches. So if the Langstroth 

 frame is too small, the Simmins frame 

 is still smaller! 



There is still left, however, the fact 

 that the Simmins frame is deeper than 

 the Langstroth by }x of an inch. Can 

 that make such a great difference ? 

 Even if the difference be not great, it 

 is just so much in favor of better win- 

 tering. But Mr. Simmins says the 

 Langstroth frame is too small /or /Ac 

 lioiicy sciisoii in any locality. There 

 can be no denying that the nearer the 

 spherical form a hive allows the bees 



to cluster the better it suits them, and 

 even Ys of an inch difference in the 

 depth of a hive may make quite a differ- 

 ence in allowing the bees to assume 

 that form. But will this hold good in 

 the honey season/ Whether Mr. Sim- 

 mins may have fallen into that error or 

 not, it is an error only too common to 

 speak as if the brood-chamber alone 

 were to be considered as the domain 

 of the bees during the honey season. 



Suppose one hive has frames 6 inches 

 deep with brood to the top-bars, and 

 over this a story with frames 4 inches 

 filled with honey. Suppose another 

 hive has frames 10 inches deep, the 

 lower 6 inches filled with brood and 

 the upper 4 inches filled with honey. 

 So far as the bees are concerned, 

 what is the great difference ? In 

 each there is the same depth of brood 

 and the same depth of honey. What 

 great difference does it make to the 

 bees whether that 4 inches of honey 

 above them is in the same frame or in 

 a separate frame ? So whatever may 

 be the case in winter, in the honey sea- 

 son, with supers piled on the brood- 

 chamber, the bees have just as much 

 chance to form a sphere with the Lang- 

 stroth frame as with one % of an inch 

 deeper. 



Bees Resistant to Foul Brood 



The man who browses among other 

 bee-papers to find something in them 

 to dish up for the readers of the Cana- 

 dian Bee Journal — making an excel- 

 lent job of said browsing — quotes from 

 the .•\merican Bee Journal a passage 

 ending with these words : " Italians re- 

 sist disease not because they are yel- 

 low, but because they are vigorous." 

 He then makes this comment: 



"It would be well for the bee-keeping 

 fraternity if this were true. But is it ? Most 

 probably not. Immunity is said to be ac- 

 quired only after a long and severe process 

 of elimination of the strains that are least 

 able to withstand the attacks of noxious 

 microbes. We know that the people of 



Asia have developed an ability to resist dis- 

 ease to an astounding degree. A recent 

 article in a scientific contemporary tells us 

 that the Chinese can use contaminated 

 water from canals without incurring dysen- 

 tery, that very little typhoid is found amongst 

 them, and that small-pox is a mild disease, 

 to be likened to the mumps. And so on. 

 For the conditions in China are such that 

 individuals susceptible to these evils in- 

 evitably succumb, and as the result of a 

 terrible selective process a specialized type 

 of vitality, distinct from mere physical 

 strength is evolved. It needs no explana- 

 tion to show that such a characteristic is 

 peculiar to races rather than individuals, 

 and we should not be surprised if adequate 

 and carefully conducted experiment should 

 prove that the same should likewise be true 

 in the case of the bee." 



These words are well worth consid- 

 ering. It may as well be conceded 

 tliat immunity to any given disease is 

 something separate and apart from 

 vigor. A man who has been vacci- 

 nated is immune to small-pox no mat- 

 ter how much of a weakling he may be, 

 while a man of giant strength succumbs 

 to it because not vaccinated. And so 

 it may be that a particular race of bees, 

 or a particular strain of bees, may be 

 immune to a given disease, while a 

 stronger race or strain may yield to it. 



It may as well be confessed that this 

 sort of immunity was not in mind 

 when the article was written which our 

 cotemporary discusses. The thought, 

 rather, was that one set of bees would 

 actively clean out the dead brood, 

 while another would allow it to remain. 

 At any rate, it is a fact that a strong 

 colony with a mild attack of European 

 foul brood will often clean up the dis- 

 ease entirely, while a weak colony in 

 the same condition will grow worse 

 and worse. So it is hard to believe 

 that the strength of the colony is not 

 an important factor in the premises; 

 and it may not be far out of the way to 

 believe that the vigor of the individual 

 members of the colony is of still more 

 importance than the mere strength of 

 numbers. 



Possibly this is hardly the view that 

 should have been taken, instead of the 

 view of immunity our cotemporary has 

 in mind. An excuse, if. an excuse is 

 needed, lies in the fact that those who 

 urge that Italians are better than other 

 bees for those who want to be rid of 

 foul brood not uncommonly use the 

 expression, " Italians are better at 

 cleaning up the disease." 



Others, however, and our cotempor- 



