438 HONEY PRODUCTION. 



730. A method which avoids contraction, and makes the 

 best honey-producing colonies still better, consists in taking 

 brood combs from colonies that are not likely to yield any 

 surplus, and exchanging them, for empty combs from the best 

 colonies, just before the honey harvest. This method requires 

 too many manipulations to be very advantai;eous, and pre- 

 vents the poorest colonies from becoming stronger. 



The most potent argument that has been advanced against 

 the Dadant large hive is that, in the raising of comb honey, 

 it becomes necessaiy to remove all the combs that may not 

 have been filled with brood, by queens of inferior prolificness. 

 This contraction is necessaiy if we want all our honey in the 

 sections. But many bee-keepers like to produce both comb 

 and extracted honey and with this hive they secure both. The 

 eight-frame Langstroth hive, on account of its diminutive size 

 has been preferred by many, because just as soon as there is a 

 surplus the bees are compelled to put it into the sections, so 

 that the Apiarist gets more honey, in a poor season, from 

 small hives than from large ones, but if he were to weigh the 

 amount of honey actually harvested, whether in the body or 

 the supers, he would soon ascertain that the large hives aver- 

 aged a great deal more crop, owing to the greater population 

 in hives containing veiy prolific queens. We mention this be- 

 cause the ten-frame Langstroth hives are usually preferred for 

 the production of comb honey. 



We have already stated (312), how Doctor C. C. Miller, 

 with eight-frame hives, manages to secure the greatest amount 

 of brood before the opening of the honey crop, by adding 

 another story for brood to his strongest colonies, then reducing 

 them at the opening of the crop, to one stoiy full of brood, 

 using the extra brood combs for weaker colonies. To this 

 method Dr. Miller ascribes his constant success. It is only 

 another method of achieving the same end, securing the great- 

 est amount of brood and contracting the brood nest for the 

 honey crop. By our method it is done with only one brood 

 apartment. The bee-keeper who uses small hives must either 



