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HIVES. 



Large or Small Hives in Hoiiey- 

 Prodiietioii — AVIilch i 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BT CHAS. DADANT. 



In his article on the above topic, on 

 page 216, Mr. Doolittle having written 

 that " with hirge hives, owing to the 

 poor economy of heat, the bees do not 



begin breeding rapidly and that 



most of the bees of such hives, hatch- 

 ing near the close of the harvest, be- 

 come consumers instead of gatherers^" 

 I answered (see page 325), showing 

 that the largest crop obtained bj- Mr. 

 Doolittle from a single hive — 566 

 pounds of extracted honey — was har- 

 vested by the bees of a very large hive 

 containing 32 combs. 



In his answer, on page 505, Mr. D. 

 says that small hives are to be used 

 only when working for comb honey, 

 adding that I was not perfectly fair to 

 my readers, for I had not told them 

 that I work for extracted honey, and 

 that he is certain that I am ignorant 

 of the best hives and the best methods 

 of producing comb honey. 



He forgets that I have been in the 

 bee-business in this country since 1863, 

 having begun about six years before 

 the invention of the extractor. Besides, 

 as extracted honey was, in the begin- 

 ning, difficult to sell at paj'ing figures, 

 my main crop, until about 15 3-ears 

 ago, was comb honey, produced at first 

 in the square Quinb}' glazed boxes, 

 supported Ijy T supers, then in the 

 Adair 3-pound sections, and, at last, 

 in the one and two pound sections, 

 such as the ones in use now. During 

 these progressive clianges, I had large 

 hives side by side with the 10-frame 

 Langslroth, and every year the results 

 proved in favor of the large hives. I 

 continued to produce partly comb 

 honey until about six or seven years 

 ago, when, looking for less work and 

 more profit, I determined to produce 

 only extracted honey. 



Mr. Doolittle says, also : "When it 

 comes to extracted honey, we want 

 large hives, every time." Will Mr. 

 Doolittle please explain such a difler- 

 ence ? I cannot understand it. If a 

 colony of bees in a large hive cannot 

 economize heat to rear honey-gatherers 

 in time to gather comb honey from the 

 white clover crop, how can the same 

 colony, in the same hive, rear gather- 

 ers in time to get a crop of extracted 

 honey from the same flower ? 



I cannot see why I take the trouble 

 of writing all the foregoing, since Mr. 



Doolittle himself gives the proof of the 

 superiority of large hives, even when 

 working for comb honej', when com- 

 pared to small ones ; and I cannot un- 

 derstand why he was not convinced by 

 his own experiment. 



He writes, on page 505, that the 

 colony which gave him 566 pounds of 

 extracted honey had about 15 frames 

 filled with brood, and that another 

 colony, of abotit equal strength, gave 

 him 309 pounds of comb honey. 

 Of course this last colony could not be 

 about as stro7ig as the first one unless it 

 had also about 15 combs full of brood, 

 besides the comb, containing honey 

 and pollen ; for no bee-keeper would 

 believe that a colony having but 8 

 combs of brood (see page 216) can 

 have as many bees as another having 

 15 combs tilled with young bj' the 

 queen. Then these 309 pounds of 

 comb honey were the product, not of a 

 small, but of a large hive, and I won- 

 der why, after sucli a result, Mr. D. 

 can be a partisan of nine-Gallup- 

 frame hives, even for producing comb 

 honey. 



Mr. Doolittle adds that the reason 

 why he prefers to produce comb honej- 

 instead of extracted, came from the 

 fact that Ids 566 pounds of extracted 

 honey brought $16.72 less than the 309 

 pounds of comb honey. It was about 

 15 years ago, but times have changed ; 

 everybody knows that now good ex- 

 tracted honej' sells always for more 

 than half the price of comb honey. Mr. 

 Root, in his paper for Oct. 1, 1889, 

 oftered for sale wliite comb honey in 

 20-pound crates at 16 cents a pound, 

 and extracted in 60-pound cans at 10 

 cents ; at such prices, the 309 pounds 

 of comb honey would have brought to 

 Mr. Doolittle $49.44, and the 566 

 pounds, $56.60, or $7.16 more. 



Of course, Mr. Doolittle, in his arti- 

 cles, tries to benefit his readers ; I 

 hope that he will pardon me for my 

 criticisms, for I try to do the same, in 

 pointing out those of his ideas that 1 

 consider unsound, letting the readers 

 draw their own conclusions. 



Hamilton, Ills. 



HONEY. 



Its Great Value a§ Food and 

 medicine. 



Written for the Iowa Homestead 



BY W. M. BOMBERGER. 



The wholesale and extensive con- 

 sumption of sugar as a saccharine 

 food in a pure state, or when entrusted 

 to the art of the kitchen, is deleterious 

 to the health. In the preparations of 

 food for the table, and when the selec- 

 tion is left to the individual, who gives 

 no thought to health, food, and its 



selection is prepared with reference to 

 the palate, and a pandering to the 

 taste. If hunger in all cases was a 

 healthy craving, and foods were prop- 

 erly prepared, this would be all right. 

 But it is not — not iu the majority of 

 cases. 



If the kitchen could return sugar 

 into the same conditions when in cane 

 and beets, and when eating our palat- 

 able dishes we could eat it so mingled 

 in bulk foods, it would be all right and 

 good. The adult or child that goes to 

 tlie extreme, or is considered too nice 

 to eat anj-thing else than cake, is or 

 will be the physician's charge as much 

 as the all-corn-fed porker or suckling 

 will need cholera medicine. 



Extensive use of sugar on fruits is 

 not as bad as the cake and cooky 

 mania that rages in so many kitchens. 

 The fruit acids largely neutralize the 

 indiscriminate and injudicious use of 

 sugar. It is no serious thing to eat 

 considerable saccharine food in a pure 

 state, but not in the form of pure re- 

 fined sugar. 



If eaten and taken in the form of 

 honey, it at once becomes a valuable 

 medicine food. Instead of having it 

 given us in this form in a mixture with 

 bulk foods, as in the cane and beet, 

 we have it mingled with fruit juices 

 exuded from flowers, highly charged 

 with medicinal properties iu the 

 alchemy of nature, and the apothecary 

 of the bee-hive. 



The advantages of honey as a medi- 

 cine or food are too extensive to be 

 considered at length here. Honey~^ 

 taken as a food becomes a powerful 

 medicine to the sugar-fed and half- 

 diseased, and many must begin on 

 small quantities and acquire an appe- 

 tite for it. Many declare against it, 

 although they like it, but claim that it 

 does not agree with them. In these 

 cases the person either pursues an im- 

 proper diet, or eats one or two pounds 

 at the first sitting, before being accus- 

 tomed to it, and maj- be eats raw, un- 

 ripe honey. 



Honey I consider a cold-weather 

 food. During the hot weather we get 

 sufficient saccharine food by sugaring 

 acid fruits in early summer. In late 

 summer and early fall the toothsome 

 grape and the delicious summer and 

 fall apple furnish sufficient ; but when 

 these are gone, and cool weather sets 

 in, and meats and fats are consumed 

 in large quantities, fine, well-ripened 

 clover, linden or buckwheat honey is a 

 fine corrective and laxative. 



Because of the expensiveness of 

 lumber, most farmers in the West live 

 in houses that are small, close and 

 covered, that cannot be properly ven- 

 tilated. In these the temperature is 

 too often kept up into the nineties by 



