r*obHshe<? 'Weelcly, at 9Z.OO per anntun. 



Sam-pie Copy sent on A.j>i>1icfat1on, 



36th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., SEPTEMBER 24, 1896. 



No. 39. 



Those Large Hives — Questions Answered. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



We have received the following questioDsfrom a Canadian 

 reader of the American Bee Journal : 



1. I would like to aslr the Dadants, through the American 

 Bee Journal, several questions about those large hives. If I 

 understand them rightly they would use a frame as long as 

 the Langstroth and 12 inches deep. Is there not danger of a 

 comb of that size, when filled with brood and honey, breaking 

 down in warm weather ? 



2. Do you hive your swarms on heavy brood foundation, 

 wired ? And would you still keep those large hives in a coun- 

 try where the mercury sometimes goes down to 22° below 

 zero ? 



I do not want as many swarms as I have been having this 

 year ; for it has caused me more trouble than I care to have, 

 to keep running the swarms back again. W. B. 



Stratford, Ont., Canada. 



The hive originally invented by M. Quinby, and which we 

 are now using with a few changes, is not made to contain 

 frames 12 inches deep, the hive itself being, on the outside, 

 only a trifle over 12 inches in depth. The frames haveaside-bar 

 llhi inches deep, the entire frame measuring on the outside 

 IIX inches. If we did not have several hundred hives of this 

 style in use, and were to begin anew, we should first of all 

 avoid building a hive over 11% inches deep, owing to the 

 difficulty of procuring lumber in any quantity wider than the 

 common 12-inch stock board. Using this lumber would give 

 us room for a frame about lOM inches in depth. 



Replying to the first question asked by W. B., we will say 

 that we have had no trouble with combs breaking down, since 

 we have used Mr. Langstroth's instructions concerning the 

 care of hives in hot weather. If the hive is so ventilated that 

 the bees are enabled to keep the temperature at a normal point 

 there is no danger of the combs breaking down. But let the 

 clustering bees on the outside clog up the entrance, the venti- 

 lation is interrupted, and the result is disastrous, even with 

 very shallow hives. This is clearly evidenced to us by the 

 fact that whenever we have had combs breaking down by 

 heat, those of the 6-inch super stood no better than the others 

 — they all went together, age being the only safeguard, as the 

 old combs are all oiore or less strengthened by the cast-skins 

 of the larvaa which have been reared in the cells. 



The hiving of the swarms, when we have no empty combs 

 on hand, is all made of heavy foundation, wired horizontally, 

 especially at the top, for we have ascertained that the greatest 

 danger to foundation was due to the cluster hanging on it 

 before it is properly fastened by the bees, and the wire helps 

 to hold it in place till the bees have adjusted it. 



As to the second question asked — whether we would keep 

 those large hives in a country where the mercury sometimes 

 goes dowu to 22° below zero — we reply yes, emphatically. It 

 is really one of the main points that the deeper brood-chamber 

 accommodates the bees better in a long-protracted cold spell 

 than the shallow frame, for there is more honey above the bees 

 in the first case. It is much moreeasy for them to move upwards 

 to where the heat is concentrated than to move sidewise. We 

 know that in an ordinary winter they will readily move side- 

 wise, apparently as readily as upwards; but we know also 

 that there are winters during which the bees starve on the 

 frames by the side of a quantity of honey which they are 

 unable to reach, owing to the cold. During the hard winters 

 we have always lost more bees in the regular Langstroth 

 frame than in any other style, and we have had only about 

 one-fourth of our bees in this style, at the outside. 



We have some 60 colonies in the American style (frames 

 13 inches deep) — have had them for 2.5 years or more, and 

 they always winter best. The only objection which we have 

 to this style of frame is that it gives less surplus room above 

 the brood-combs than the other kinds, the former being only 

 12 inches long. 



W. B. is not the only man who gets tired of the bother of 

 hiving swarms ; we find that most of our proselytes follow our 

 methods most especially for that reason. The man who pro- 

 duces comb honey in small hives finds this the greatest hin- 

 drance to success. 



Dr. Miller's query as to the cause of some of his bees 

 swarming when given a second story of eight frames on top of 

 the first, while his 14-frame hives did not swarm (see page 

 501), seems to me to furnish his own reply. In the latter 

 case the bees have had plenty of room right along, while in 

 the first instance he waited till the " one story was well filled." 

 These bees did not know — they could not foresee — that they 

 had some one looking after their interests and ready to give 

 them room, " when the hive was well filled." All they knew 

 was that the hive was too small for their capacity, and they 

 became determined to swarm. Who can tell what passes 

 through the minds of those smart little insects ? Who was it 

 first called the swarming impulse " a swarming fever ?" Not 

 I. But I should go a long way before I could select a better 

 term, for it Is indeed an unreasoning, blind impulse, which 

 possesses them in spite of all you can do when once started. 



My first experience with the swarming fever was, I be- 

 lieve, in 1873, in an apiary that we had at Riverside, about 



