

OEOROL W. YORK, Editor. 



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40th YEAR 



CHICAGO, ILL, MAY 17, 1900, 



No, 20, 



" The Best Hive for Northern Illinois," and Its 

 Successful Management. 



BY W. C. LVMAN. 



ON pag-e 146, Mr. Edwin Bevins refers to an article which 

 I wrote for the Chicago Bee-Keepers' Convention last 

 fall on the above subject. I made the article as short 

 as I well could, simply as a " starter" for the discussion of 

 the subject, not expecting- to see it in print. 



From my point of view the subject should not be the 

 best hive, but the best management for Northern Illinois, 

 where the surplus crop is white honey, and the season is 

 short and comes in midsummer. Because I did not state 

 clearly the ideas I wisht to convey, it seems Mr. Bevins has 

 been led into a mistake in supposing that I use brood- frames 

 deeper than the Langstroth, and eight to the hive. I have 

 never tried such frames, but have used the Heddon hive, 

 which, as I use it in winter, is a deep brood-chamber, and 

 amounts to about the .same thing. I have had the Heddon 

 hive in use for 14 years, and the dovetail 8-frame hive since 

 it was introduced by the A. I. Root Co. Previously I had 

 used several styles of hives taking the Langstroth frame, 

 and it was while using the 10-frame Langstroth hive that I 

 came to the conclusion that the supers of that size were too 

 large to tier up to the best advantage in t/iis location. 



I therefore had queen-excluding honey-boards made 

 (which would fit a 10-frame brood-chamber) and an 8-frame 

 super. When so used the ventilation was 

 very poor, for the hives had bottom-boards 

 nailed on, and not a large entrance ; so I 

 gave them up. 



Perhaps 8-frame supers on shalloiv 10- 

 frame brood-chambers, with loose bottom- 

 boards, might be all right, but I have not 

 tried them. 



Referring to Mr. Bevins' article, he says 

 in regard to using deep brood-chambers until 

 swarraing-time, and then shallow ones until 

 the end of the white honey harvest, " This 

 practice, it seems to me, would be attended 

 with a good many difficulties and no ade- 

 quate compensating advantages." I cer- 

 tainly do not find it so. 



In Gleanings in Bee-Culture, Mr. L. 

 Stachelhausen says under the head of " The 

 Hive Question :" " By the present manage- 

 ment we can not use the advantages of large 

 hives in producing comb honey, so we can 

 form only one conclusion, and that is, the 



present management is incorrect " "The 



problem is to find out a management by 

 which all advantages of large hives can be 



utilized, and at the beginning of the honey-flow to get the 

 colony in such a condition that the work in the supers is 

 started at once, and all the honey stored there." 



Now having the bees in the fall in hives of sufficient 

 brood-chamber capacity to contain honey enough to carry 

 them thru to another season's work, it seems to me is the 

 cheapest and least troublesome plan of getting them in 

 good condition for the harvest. 



Having brought the bees up to such a condition that 

 they are readj' to cast strong swarms, I would like to have 

 them swarm as soon after the opening of the harvest as 

 possible ; and these swarms I would hive in shallow brood- 

 chambers on full drawn combs with queen-excluders, and 

 the supers with full sheets of comb foundation in the sec- 

 tions, also the supers from the hive from which the swarm 

 issued put immediately on the new hive before the swarm is 

 run in. The old brood-chamber I would remove and run for 

 extracted honey. 



In regard to these small brood-chambers Mr. Bevins 

 says: " There may be seasons in which there may not be 

 much honey gathered after the white honey harvest, and 

 then one might wish that some, or all, of the white honey 

 surplus was in the brood-chamber, and the brood-chamber 

 was a little large." Just so. But in a season when I 

 should want the white honey surplus in the brood-chamber, 

 I should not expect many swarms, and the honej- would go 

 into the large brood-chambers which the bees would have 

 previous to swarming. 



He also says : "To be sure, one could resort to feeding, 

 but feeding is something Mr. Lyman would avoid." j 

 think he will find, if he looks again, that I said feeding 

 " in the spring." 



My motto in regard to feeding is : "Give hei of the 

 fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the 

 gates ;" and a little farther along I will tell how. 



On page 211 of the American Bee Journal for 1894, is 



Lyman's Bee-Escape Honey-Board. 



