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311 



BROOD-CHAMBERS. 



Size of the Brood-Chamber — or 

 Large vs. Small Hives. 



Written for theAmerican Bee Journal 



BY CHAS. DADANT. 



I desire to review the criticism writ- 

 ten by Mr. Hutchinson, in the April 

 number of the Bee-Keepers'' Eeview, on 

 Chapter IV of the "Langstroth Re- 

 vised." 



I write this article for the American 

 Bee Journal instead of sending it to 

 Mr. Hutchinson, because he refused to 

 publish an answer that I sent him 

 about one year ago. As my present 

 criticism will bear on the same ques- 

 tion — " the size of the brood-chamber" 

 — I do not wish to expose myself to the 

 same (to me) unusual mortification. 



According to my notions, the pub- 

 lisher of a periodical devoted to im- 

 provements is bound to give, with 

 the largest possible impartiality, both 

 sides of every question. When he 

 favors the writers whose views are 

 identical with his own, by refusing or 

 shortening the articles opposed to his 

 ideas, or when he takes only a few 

 words from a paragraph, to condemn 

 what his opponent says, he is deficient 

 in impartiality, which, to my mind, is 

 the first quality indispensable to a re- 

 liable editor. 



In his review of this chapter of our 

 book, Mr. Hutchinson, after writing 

 that, " through the chapter runs a vein 

 of opposition to small hives," has 

 omitted to quote several points given 

 in our plea in favor of large ones — in 

 fact he discarded every one of them ! 



For instance, he quotes thus from 

 our book : " The harvest is in propor- 

 tion to the number of bees in the hive ;" 

 and he starts from this member or 

 phrase, to assert that it is of no matter 

 whether the same number of bees is in 

 one or in more hives. He does not 

 copy one word on the causes of our 

 preference, as given in the same para- 

 graph, which reads thus : 



"309. As the harvest of honey is 

 always in proportion to the number of 

 bees in the hive, and as a large colony 

 requires no more labor from the api- 

 arist than a small one, the hive should 

 afford the queen sufficient space to de- 

 posit all the eggs which she is able to 

 lay during 21 days, the average time 

 for an egg to be transformed into a 

 worker. Besides, it should contain a 

 certain amount of food, honey and 

 pollen." 



The part of the paragraph omitted 

 implies that if we have 100,000 bees, 



on the average, in one of our large 

 hives, or one million in ten, we will 

 get as much hone}', with far less work 

 than if the same number of bees is 

 divided into twenty small colonies. As 

 such theorem cannot be disputed, Mr. 

 Hutchinson has deemed prudent not to 

 mention it. 



A little further on he writes that, 

 " a large hive is more expensive than 

 a small one." Nobody will deny it. 

 But, if our large liive contains twice as 

 many bees as his small one, our outlaj' 

 is smaller, since our hive costs less than 

 two small ones ; even without putting 

 in account the cost of queens, for he 

 affirms " gravely" that thej' cost prac- 

 tically nothing to the bee-keeper ; and 

 without reckoning the extra number of 

 empty hives required to receive the 

 more numerous swarms that his small 

 hives will not fail to give. 



He does not contest that bees in 

 large hives swarm less than in small 

 ones ; but he adds that they will swarm 

 enough to need an attendant. How 

 does he know that such is the fact ? 

 Did he ever try our system and our 

 capacious brood-chamber ? No ! Never! 

 For more than 15 years we have dis- 

 pensed with watching the bees of our 

 home apiary, numbering from 80 to 

 100 colonies. As the yearly number of 

 natural swarms does not exceed two 

 or three, the expense of such watching 

 would be far above the profit. 



He continues : " If the hives are 

 too large, some of the queens will fail 

 to fill all the combs with brood, leav- 

 ing from $1.00 to $2.00 worth of honey 

 in the outside combs as dead capital." 

 He passes directly over our anticipated 

 answer to this objection, in the follow- 

 ing paragraph, 310, in which he did 

 not fail to read, "This space must 

 allow of contraction, according to the 

 needs of the colony, by what is called 

 ' movable division-boards.' " Besides, 

 I could add that while we can reduce 

 the capacity of our large hive, he can- 

 not increase the size of his small one. 



Mr. Hutchinson seems to be opposed 

 to a great prolificness in queens, for 

 he avoided to mention that, according 

 to our idea, one of the qualities of 

 large brood-chambers is to enable the 

 bee-keeper to discern which of his 

 queens are the most prolific, to be 

 selected as breeders, to improve his 

 bees ; while such selection is impossible 

 with small hives. 



He adds that " he is surprised to see 

 us assert that the honey-board has been 

 discarded of late years." What we 

 wrote is far from being so peremptory, 

 for we said this : 



"352. The oil-cloth, or enameled 

 cloth, first applied to hive purposes by 

 R. Bickford, is used over the brood- 

 frames in the spring. It fits closely, 

 concentrates the heat, and can be re- 



moved without jar or cflfort. When the 

 surplus arrangement, or upper story, 

 is put on, this cloth is removed and 

 placed at the top. All apiarists, or 

 nearly all, who have tried the oil-cloth 

 and honey-board simultaneously, have 

 discarded the latter forever, except in 

 some cases of comb-honey production, 

 when a skeleton honey-board is used 

 between stories." 



At last he writes : " In closing the 

 chapter on hives, beginners are cau- 

 tioned to be very careful in buying 

 patent hives. Why, we ask, any more 

 caution when investing in a patent 

 hive, than in one unpatented ?" I 

 wonder why Mr. Hutchinson asks for 

 ."in answer to this question. He can 

 read it in the same paragraph, of 

 which he took, as before, just what he 

 intended to condemn, avoiding to 

 quote our motives, for we wrote as 

 follows : 



" 358. More than 800 patents on bee- 

 hives and implements have been issued 

 in the United States since January, 

 1873. Not ten of these have proved 

 to be of any use to bee-keepers. The 

 mention of this fact will suffice to show 

 the small value of these 790 patents, 

 and the loss incurred by those who 

 have bought them before they were 

 able to judge of their merits." 



I may add that the buyer of a pat- 

 ent has to pay a royalty for the right 

 of use, and that hundreds of beginners 

 were victimized by patent venders, in 

 paying for worthless implements which 

 sometimes proved to be even real 

 nuisances. 



To sum up the criticism of Mr. 

 Hutchinson : In perusing it, nobody 

 could form a correct idea of our views, 

 since it does not contain a word on the 

 causes of our preference for large 

 hives ; although we wrote that it is 

 based on a successful practice of more 

 than twenty j-ears, with several hun- 

 dred colonies in diflferent sized hives, 

 used in producing comb and extracted 

 honey ; and although we quote repoi-ts 

 from several noted bee-keepers of 

 Europe, who praise the large hives, 

 and have discarded their small ones, 

 after serious comparative experiments. 



Our friends, Newman and Root, can 

 say that for years, the hives which are 

 the most recommended by the editors, 

 and the most advertised by the hive 

 manufacturers, in the bee-papers pub- 

 lished in the French language, have 

 very large brood-chambers ; some of 

 them, such as the Layens, having it 

 even more capacious than ours ; while 

 none of our opponents, Mr. Hutchin- 

 .son himself included, can bring any- 

 thing forward but their preconceived 

 ideas. 



We would be glad to see our book 

 reviewed and criticized, since con- 

 troversies would help us in redressing 



