240 



July, 1914. 



"Comb Honey" (Farmers' Bulletin No. 

 503, United States Department of Agri- 

 culture), makes a careful analysis of 

 the various methods employed in the 

 control of swarming, and I shall not 

 discuss this in detail, but shall refer 

 you to this bulletin which every bee- 

 keeper should read. In brief the meth- 

 ods may be put in three classes, as 

 follows : 



1. 'I'liE Remov.\i. of the Queen. — 

 This method was formerly advocated 

 more than at present, and the general 

 plan was to replace the same queen 

 after a few days. This method may 

 also be used to advantage in requeen- 

 ing. It must be remembered that while 

 earlier in the season it is desirable to 

 have all the brood possible this is im- 

 material when swarming usually occurs, 

 since the eggs laid then will usually 

 not have time to be transformed into 

 field bees until after the early crop is 

 gathered. This depends upon local 

 conditions, however, and necessitates 

 an individual decision for each loca- 

 tion. The fact that queenless bees 

 often do not work with vigor must 

 also be considered. 



2. The Removal of Brood from the 



Hive. We find this principle involved 



in the making of artificial swarms and 

 its various modifications, and also in 

 the various mechanical devices brought 

 forward from time to time of which the 

 Hand bottom-board is a late example. 



3. The Separation of the Queen and 

 THE Brood Within the Hive.— This 

 principle is found in the caging of the 

 queen and in the placing of frames of 

 brood above an excluder. 



The relatively slow increase in the 

 amount of brood by the methods advo- 

 cated above seems less likely to induce 

 swarming than does rapid increase by 

 stimulative feeding and spreading of 

 the brood. 



In the production of comb honey 

 probably more costly mistakes are 

 made in the manipulation of the supers 

 than anywhere else. Here reference 

 may be made to ou/ text, for Dr. Miller 

 is a master in the handling of supers. 

 A too common method is to put on a 

 super when the combs of the brood, 

 chamber begin to whiten at the top; 

 then when this one is full it is removed 

 and another empty super is put on 

 This leads to no end of trouble. The 

 illustration on page 4(lll (American Bee 

 Journal) of Dr. Miller's apiary during 

 the flow shows that he had on some of 

 his colonies as many as seven supers 

 at one time. He advocates in a heavy 

 flow keeping an empty super on top 

 while there is still room below, and at 

 the next operation the top super is put 

 next to the brood-ch iniber and a new 

 one put on top. In this way there is 

 always room for honey as it comes in, 

 and room to ripen it, and by the time 

 a super is needed for storage the foun- 

 dation has been partly drawn. He also 

 always has room for the young bees to 

 loaf (or secrete wax), and they are not 

 down in the brood-chamber to make 

 trouble. 



The beekeeper must know the loca- 

 tion so well that he can estimate the 

 probability of the continuation of the 

 llow. When the close of the How is 

 near at hand, he must, of course, con- 

 tract the super space. Before this 

 time arrives, however, it will be well 



American IBae Journal 



to follow the following plan which I 

 quote from Mr. Demuth : "Place each 

 newly added super next to the brood- 

 chamber, and keep the one nearest 

 completion just above it with all the 

 others arranged above these two, the 

 one in which least progress has been 

 made being on top." 



A\(iiDiNG THE NoN-ES.sENTiALS. — Bee- 

 keeping is peculiar in its fascination. 

 Few other businesses attract amateurs 

 as does this one, and, in fact, the ma- 

 jority of beekeepers are engaged in 

 the business primarily for pleasure. To 

 idly watch the bees at work, to do for 

 them the dozens of little tasks which 

 seem called for, to speculate on the re- 

 turns they will yield us, and especially 

 to study the intricacies of their behav- 

 ior and other natural functions are 

 some of the pleasures known to all of 

 us. We like to do these things, and 

 when such pleasures no longer exist, 

 there will be a great reduction in the 

 number of persons who begin bee- 

 keeping. 



But when beekeeping becomes a 

 business the beekeeper must become a 

 business man and " put away childish 

 things." Some of the fun disappears 

 when we are driven by the essentials 

 to the elimination of non-essentials, 

 but in all such things the point of view 

 changes the outlook. The pleasure 

 of studying activities gives way to the 

 pleasure of accomplishment in a prac- 

 tical line. Perhaps the amateur enthu- 

 siast is engaged in as laudable a work 

 as the honey-producer, but if one is a 

 honey-producer, depending upon honey 

 for his livelihood, then the non-essen- 

 tials which are often pleasures, must go 

 or efficiency suffers. 



There is no stimulative feeding or 

 spreading of the brood — two hive- 

 bodies with plenty of honey take the 

 place of that. There is no manipula- 

 tion to keep up breeding late in the 

 fall — plenty of honey does that. In 

 fact, from the end of the crop to the 

 beginning of the next an abundance of 

 stores is made to take the place of the 

 various odd jobs that the average bee- 

 keeper usually thinks are necessary. 



If we knew all the details of the pro- 

 duction of Dr. Miller's record crop of 

 comb honey, we should find system first 

 and last, an equipment of knowledge, 

 the elimination of non-essentials, and 

 the greatest emphasis on the two essen- 

 tials named. Dr. Miller has reached 

 that time in life when he can and should 

 no longer carry the heavier burdens 

 of his younger days. The healthy 

 cheerful life that he lives is well known 

 to all of us, and were it not for this he 

 could not, at S'S years of age, care for 

 8:i colonies with 72 of which he broke 

 the record. Nor with all his vigor, 

 and even with his wide knowledge of 

 bees, could he care for this crop with- 

 out a vigorous elimination of those 

 which retard practical beekeeping, the 

 non-essentials. 

 Washington, D. C. 



That Chaff Hive 



DR. A. K. BONN FY. 



HAVINCi had more experience with 

 the chaff hive than the average 

 person, as in my short career as a 

 beekeeper I have used almost nothing 



else except experimentally, and with 

 no other object in view than to assist 

 those who must either winter in dove- 

 tailed hives or lettheir bees go without 

 protection, I take exception to the 

 statement of Mr. Hand in the May is- 

 sue of this journal, that " A noticeable 

 feature of the chaflf hive situation is 

 that during the past quarter of a cen- 

 tury they have been deteriorating in 

 quality and advancing in price until in 

 rnost cases the price is out of propor- 

 tion to the service rendered." 



If he means quality of the lumber, 

 I will tell him that hive makers are to- 

 day using stuff almost as good as they 

 had 2.') years ago, while in cypress they 

 have available a wood vastly better 

 than pine. If he means the protection 

 feature, the hiva of today is better for 

 the purpose than the immense masses 

 of lumber put out at first under the 

 name of chaff hive. The cost of chaflf 

 or double-walled hives has not made 

 them prohibitive to me nor hundreds 

 of others in the country. If there was 

 not a tendency on the part of the small 

 beekeeper to return to the protection 

 hive, three big firms would not be 

 pushing them in the magazines, for it 

 costs money to advertise. I believe 

 that had the dovetailed hive been the 

 high-priced one, there would be noth- 

 ing but chaflf hives in use, for cellaring 

 takes vastly more skill, and the cost of 

 a cellar is certainly prohibitive to the 

 average beekeeper. 



I cannot rid my mind of the impres- 

 sion that Mr. Hand is not entirely cor- 

 rect in his advocacy of his "converti- 

 ble " hive, for I remember that it has 

 been but a short time since he was 

 lauding the " divisible " hive, and with 

 one only four (?) inches deep he wrote 

 that he did notthink the limit had been 

 yet reached. I remember this dis- 

 tinctly, for I wondered what a 2inch 

 brood frame would look like, and tried 

 to find time to make such a hive. 

 Again referring to his convertible hive, 

 there is one fatal objection to it, and 

 that is it calls for 8-frame supers. I do 

 not know how many men there are 

 still in the country who willingly use 

 the 8-frame ancient box, but I know I 

 have not one in my little yard, nor do I 

 know of any one near me who has. To 

 use Mr. Hand's IG-frame or larger hive 

 for wintering, he must have an i<-frame 

 super to get two inches protection on 

 each side. If I were to try to use his 

 methods I should have to build packing 

 cases, for I use a full Langstroth hive 

 for a super, 10-frame. 



Inspired by Mr. Hand's article, and 

 one in the Beekeepers' Review for 

 June, 1!)13, by Miss Candler, I was 

 stimulated to invent a non-swarming 

 hive. However, the editor of the Old 

 Reliable sat down on it painfully, but I 

 had another trick up my sleeve, and at 

 once turned it into a convertible hive, 

 and it will do all that Mr. Hand claims 

 for his, and with vastly less labor and 

 time spent. Ten minutes will put my 

 hive into use, and the bees are better 

 protected and do not have to be dis- 

 turbed in the spring. 



Make a Kl-frame to 20-frame hive. 

 Double-wall the back only. To pre- 

 pare a swarm for wintering, remove all 

 but eiglit frames, put these in the mid- 

 dle of the hive, put in chaff division- 

 boards, and fill the end spaces with 



