THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



KU 



perieuce with divisible brood chambers, lie 

 broadly hiuted that I better not go to lyin<j 

 about it, I dropped the matter ; and if Mr. 

 Heddon had not begun a lot of abusive slurs 

 about me in his Quarterh/ and in other pa- 

 pers, this article would never have been 

 written. In his article in the Review Mr H. 

 says : " Then Bro. Taylor mentions the sec- 

 tional brood chamber, the essential feature 

 of my patent, and states that he is still using 

 it and preferring it. He also claims to have 

 used such brood chambers previous to my 

 invention, but does not claim to have shown 

 them to any one until several years after my 

 patent was issued." 



I will answer the last part of this state- 

 ment first. I have repeatedly stated verbally 

 and in writing that at least one bee-keeper 

 changed his apiary from Langstroth to my 

 divisible brood chamber hives in the late 

 sixties (Mr. I. Ingmondsouof Leroy, Minn.) 

 I have frequently stated that the divisible 

 brood chamber could be used to good effect 

 in accomplishing certain things, but if I 

 have ever written that I preferred it to all 

 otJiers, I ask any person that has seen such 

 statement to point it out, for I never con- 

 sciously made such a statement. I never 

 have said positively what kind of a hive I 

 would prefer if I had to choose a final hive 

 for my own use. For thirty-five years I have 

 supplied most of my neighbors in this sec- 

 tion with hives, but I have never manufac- 

 tured any kind of hives expressly to sell. I 

 have always made, on a large scale, such 

 hives as I preferred for my own use, kept a 

 large stock of them on hand, and when any 

 of my friends wished to purchase I recom- 

 mended these hives. I have never used the 

 double brood chamber in any but my home 

 yard. In the out yards I have always used 

 fall brood chambers exclusively, and I have 

 always secured from the out yards as good 

 crops as from my home yard and with as 

 little labor, every thing considered. The 

 largest yield of comb honoy I ever secured 

 from a whole apiary (147 pounds per colony) 

 was from one of these out yards of foil brood 

 chambers. I have never recommended the 

 double hives to my friends who come to buy. 

 They would, as a rule, take anything I rec- 

 ommended. The double brood chamber is 

 a good hive. I once thought it was better 

 than any other for wintering. I now know 

 that it is the bees (lii'insflves. and not the 

 hives that make wintering safe in this cli- 

 mate. We cannot begin wintet with a lot of 



old bees and have them live until flowers 

 come six months later. This is tiie key to 

 the wintering problem. With the right kind 

 of a colony, and plenty of stores, any kind 

 of a hive will do. I have lost more bees in 

 the double brood chambers this winter and 

 spring than in any other. It was not the 

 fault of the hives, but I believe I have been 

 over-enthusiastic in their favor. I have used 

 them for more than tliirty years. My chil- 

 dren have all grown up in their midst. The 

 youngest one is twenty-one years old and I 

 wish him to succeed to my bee business. I 

 have had wide experience, and I wished him 

 to have the benefit of it. Boys do not have 

 so good a chance to begin the battle of life 

 as they did in my youth. Patents and other 

 monopolies hedge them in on every side like 

 a stone wall. How strange I feel when a 

 bee editor of great experience chides the 

 poor working people because they do not all 

 go and take farms as his father did. Where 

 will they get the land, with not means enough 

 to buy two day's bread ? How will they do 

 it ? The women who are making the nice 

 shirts at thirty cents a dozen that we are 

 pleased to buy cannot do it. What a pity a 

 good man can be so thoughtless. I wanted 

 my boy to throw down all nonsense. The 

 battle would be hard enough then. I re- 

 solved to use but one style of hive hereafter 

 and a choice had to be made from the dozens 

 of good hives I have thoroughly tested ; the 

 double brood chamber among them. The 

 hive selected was the full brood chamber, * 

 wire-end-frame hive, that I invented thirty- 

 five years ago. I shall probably never make 

 another shallow, brood chamber hive. I 

 never have in the past desired to obstruct 

 Mr. Heddon in the use of his patent and I 

 will not in the future. I believe neither Mr. 

 Heddon nor the bee-keeping public can now 

 fail to understand me in regard to hives and 

 patents on them ; and now, brother Hutch- 

 inson, a word to you and I am done forever 

 with this subject unless otherwise compelled. 

 In commenting on the question of robbing 

 Mr. Heddon you say : " I think that Mr. B. 

 Taylor has no such object in view ; but I 

 must admit that it is probably unwise to 

 claim to have made and used a patented ar- 

 ticle previous to its p teutee, unless the one 

 making the claim is prepared and wishes to 

 ])rore his claim." Now Mr. Editor I em- 

 phatically dissent from any such view 1 

 claim that it was not only wise but perfectly 

 just that I should tell all of my experience 



