760 



's^mm rn'mmmi^mn mmm j&^mnmi^. 



the antiquated and long-ago-condemned 

 plan of using fixed frames. 



I don't know — and I don't know wlio 

 does know — how to prevent swarming. 

 I don't know what causes swarming — 

 don't know near as much about it as I 

 did years ago: and if I did know all 

 about the cause. I don't know that I 

 could prevent it. 



I don't know that we'll ever get any- 

 thing settled in bee-keei)ing — settled to 

 stay, so we'll not have to change our 

 fixtures or plans. 



I don't know near as much as what I 

 don't know. 



I don't know — I don't know, but I'll 

 stop. C. C. MlI.LEE. 



W. F. Clarke said. I do not know 

 what is the natural space between 

 combs. In many instances the bees 

 build crooked combs, and the spacing' 

 is verj' irregular. The}- seem to have 

 no rule whatever in spacing the combs. 



S. A. Shuck — Dr. Miller, sometime 

 ago. called for statements in the bee- 

 papers on this question. Mr.Doolittle 

 gave a rule which contradicted m}' ex- 

 perience, but I feel certain that there 

 is uo fixed and invariable distance be- 

 tween coraljs. in a natural condition. 



B. Taylor said : In 1856 I took great 

 interest in hives and fixtures, and as it 

 was of great importance to know the 

 ilistance from comb to comb, in trans- 

 ferring, I measured a great many hives. 

 and came to the conclusion that LV 

 inches was the nearest average to 

 Nature. I mean, the distance of brood- 

 combs from center to center. I am 

 sure that the distance is greater for 

 surplus combs, as the outside combs 

 are always built farther apart. I have 

 used both li. and If inches, and con- 

 sider IJ the standard. 



J. C. Stewart said that he had found 

 the proper measurement at the top of 

 the frames to be l.l inches. In large 

 hives, the average measurement is not 

 far from 1 2 inches. Away from the 

 brood-nest, the combs are more irregu- 

 lar and thicker. 



A. I. Root said he had figured on it. 

 years ago. Lately, he thought he hail 

 heard some one slate that combs could 

 be placed 1 j inches apart, from center 

 to center, and that the brood would 

 hatch and the work go on as usual. 

 Some thought that was sufficient room, 

 but he doubted it very much, and did 

 not think the bees were at ease on so 

 short a space. 



E. R. Root supported the I J inch 

 distance, and said that the average 

 found in Nature was IJ inches for 

 brood and surplus combs, when taken 

 altogether. He thought that the bees 

 would put more biood and less honey 

 in the brood-nest, if they were only IJ 

 inches apart. He found that naturally- 

 built combs were spaced all the way 

 from IJ to 2i inches, but thought that 



the preference of bees in a natural 

 state was IJ inches. 



Wm. Lyon had experimented con- 

 siderably on this matter, and found 

 that it was a good plan, at the opening 

 of the season, to move the frames 

 closer together, as near as one and 

 five-sixteenths from center to center, 

 to prevent the storing of too much 

 honey in the brood-chamber. He found 

 that this narrowing up of the space 

 would drive the bees into the .sections 

 better than anything that he had ever 

 tried. He was in the habit of moving 

 his frames together every Spring, and 

 of moving them apart again in the 

 Fall, so that the combs would get suffi- 

 cient hone}' for winter stores, and the 

 bees could get more room between the 

 brood-combs, to cluster. He attri- 

 buted his success in getting bees into 

 the sections to this method, which he 

 had followed for a number of years. 



R. L. Taylor asked : In a ten-frame 

 hive, what plan do j'ou follow ? Do 

 you add a dummy when bringing the 

 frames together ? ' 



Wm. Lyon said : I add a dummy, 

 or another frame, as the case may re- 

 quire. I have almost done away with 

 swarming by this method, as it drives 

 the bees into the sections at the begin- 

 ning of the honey crop. I use the 

 George BischofF frame, which is 9xl5J 

 inches. 



Dr. Mason thought that Dr. Miller 

 was the proper man for that essay, as 

 he had noticed that in the answers to 

 questions in the bee-papers, when look- 

 ing for Dr. Miller's answers, he found 

 that he failed to give an answer — very 

 often — probably because "did not 

 know." He stated that he used 8 

 frames in a 12-inch hive, and some- 

 times even 9 frames, and thought that 

 the bees had a plenty of room vvithlg, 

 and did not have to push one another 

 around, to get by. He thought that 

 with IJ inches, the bees would more 

 likely get brood in the whole frames, 

 as Mr. Lyon had said. 



J. M. Hambaugh believed in having 

 combs spaced at the bottom, the same 

 as at the top. 



Dr. Miller said that new worker 

 comb is I of an inch thick ; old comb 

 is one inch, the average being fifteen- 

 sixteenths of an inch — the capping of 

 the cell is probabl}- one-sixteenth, leav- 

 ing just ] of an inch in a 1\ inch spac- 

 ing. A bee occupies three-sixteenths 

 of an inch, so that it would take six- 

 sixteenths instead of four-sixteentlis to 

 allow two bees to pass one another on 

 two combs, placed against one another. 

 Besides, it is very difficult when plac- 

 ing combs, to have the spacing very 

 exact ; mine is not. I have had combs 

 with cells unused, being too short.and. 

 in some cases. I have had whole 

 patches gnawed down by the bees. 



owing to the want of space. Mr. Doo- 

 little drove me to believe that we 

 should have a little more than If 

 inches. 



A. N. Draper said that he had hives 

 12 inches wide, and put 9 frames in 

 them, and piled them up three stories 

 high, and thought the bees remained 

 in the lower story more readilj' than 

 when the frames were further apart. 



L. C. Axtell said ; In Illinois, we 

 have rich, mellovv soil, in which the 

 hives settle readily under the weight of 

 honey, and I often find hives settled 

 out of plumb, and the outside combs 

 swayed and touched each other, when 

 the bees would gnaw them down to 

 make room. For this reason, he would 

 not use frames less than IJ inches 

 apart. In practice, he gave them a 

 little over If inches. 



J. M. Hambangh — We should look 

 to the large producers for their views 

 in this matter. Since the large East- 

 ern producers have been interviewed 

 by E. R. Root, we would like to know 

 what distances they use. 



E. R. Root said that Mr. Hoffman 

 uses IJ inches ; Mr. Elwood uses IJ 

 inches. He said he had never tried If 

 inches, he might prefer it if he was to 

 try it. In man}' cases they discard 

 11 for IJ inches, because they get more 

 brood and less honey in the brood- 

 chamber. 



B. Taylor .said that he did not ap- 

 prove of moving frames further and 

 nearer in the Spring and Fall, unless 

 one had a small apiary like Mr. Lyon's; 

 but he thought an extensive apiarist 

 should use the If inch space. 



W. F. Clarke wanted to know 

 whether one had ever found a hive of 

 bees, in a natural state, with the 

 frames all regularly distanced. He 

 thought that the wavy shape of the 

 combs, in natural circumstances, was 

 for the purpose of giving more room 

 for the bees to cluster in the winter. 

 He had visited L. C. Root's cellar, and 

 had found bees hanging in clusters 

 through holes in the bottom-board, 

 showing how fond thej' are of cluster- 

 ing in small spaces, in the winter. He 

 did not believe in crowding the brood- 

 combs together at any time. 



William Lyon, in answer to B 

 Taylor, said that it was tliose who had 

 small apiaries that ciuild make the 

 most careful experiments, as the large 

 producers had no time to give to ex- 

 perimenting, and for that reason he 

 thought that those who kept bees for 

 pleasure, like himself, could best see 

 the advantages of those manipulations. 

 He <lid not advise any large producer 

 to change the spaces every S[U-ing and 

 Fall, but he knew that for a bee-keeper 

 like himself, there was a great advan- 

 tage in it. He thought that his way 

 would be the very way for Mr. Clarke 



