THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



205 



to be occupied with brood. Say the bar is ten 

 iuches long iu each frame, theu it occupies ton 

 square inches, or tliereabout. Eacli square 

 incli will contain fifty worker cells, and ten 

 limes lilty is live hundred. Thus your bees are 

 brooding a slick instead of five hundred wor- 

 kers every three weeks during the season. 



This article was suggested by my receiving 

 so many inquiries from indiviiluals relative to 

 my opinion about different kinds of hives, A;c., 

 and whose hive I would recommend. I have 

 endeavored to answer them without fear or 

 favor. Tliere are so many worthless hives, and 

 so many worthless fixings about different Iviuds 

 of Jiives, that it is not to be wondered at that 

 the novice is puzzled to know what kind to 

 choose. 



A letter of iuquiry enclosing a stamp will be 

 answered on any occasion ; but in future, by 

 the editor's permission, some of the questions 

 shall be answered through the Bee Jouknal. 

 Elisiia Gallup. 



Osage, Iowa. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Depth of Hives. 



Mr. Langstroth in the February number of 

 the JomiNAL, recommends the trial of deep 

 Lives, as to their relative value for iointcring in 

 tlie open air. I will give you a little of my ex- 

 perience. I have used hives sixteen inches, 

 fourteen iuches, and am now using them twelve 

 inches deep. I have also had the care of them 

 for my neighbors, of the dimensions Mr. Lang- 

 stroth uses; but you must recollect that I have 

 always lived in a colder climate than Mr. Lang- 

 stroth does. The dimensions of the hive I now 

 use, are twelve inches from front to rear, twelve 

 inches deep, and eighteen inches long, inside 

 measure. 1 have wintered iu this hive in the 

 open air with perfect success. But I never 

 could winter in the open air, in any kind of 

 hive, without the bees consuming too much 

 honey to suit me. If I was going to winter in 

 the open air, I would make a hive just high 

 enough to admit a frame twelve inches high in- 

 side, and enough narrower to receive one or 

 tAVO frames less, because that is high enough to 

 contain, above and in the cluster of bees, all 

 the honey they will consume during the coldest 

 weather. In the broad shallow hives the bees 

 cannot cluster naturally; for a good strong col- 

 ony in the fall, if allowed to cluster naturally, 

 will occupy a space (together with the comb and 

 honey), in a circular form, twelve inches in 

 diameter. And when bees are constrained to 

 cluster in a non-natural manner, they cannot 

 economize the animal heat, either in winter 

 or summer. Consequently the queen cannot 

 breed u}) to her full capacity so early in the sea- 

 son; neither will she breed so well throughout 

 the season in the broad shallow form. If the 

 hive is too high, the bees eat the honey directly 

 above them, and in the spring they commence 

 breeding where they are clustered. It then 

 takes them till late in the season before they oc- 

 cupy the combs at the bottom of the hive, 



which gives the moth a chance to get in. 

 Another thingj if your combs are too deep, you 

 cannot use a division board to so good advan- 

 tage as you could if the comb was not so deep. 

 To illustrate, say that for making small swarms 

 or for raising queens, you take a frame from the 

 American hive, and one from Mr. Langstroth's 

 shallow hive; put each into hives just largo 

 enough for said combs, with bees enough to oc- 

 cupy the combs, and a fertile queen in each. 

 You have got to have more bees, according to 

 the surface of comb, to occupy those combs, 

 than you would if that comb surface were in a 

 more compact form. I would sooner have the 

 surplus honey in the body of the hive for the 

 use of the bees in spring, at the side than at the 

 top. With the practical working of the hive I 

 use, I am perfectly satisfied. For breeding pur- 

 poses or wintering, I would as soon have a 

 comb on one side of the bees, or both, as I would 

 a board ; and I am not sure but I would sooner. 

 After all my experimenting, I am satisfied that 

 hives can be too high for storing surplus honey, 

 as well as on the opposite extreme, too low. 

 High enough to have sufficient honey above the 

 bees for the coldest weather, is sufficient. 



In another article I give you the practical 

 working of the form I use, I care not whose 

 hive you call it. Mr. Langstroth's agents, and 

 other agents also, have urged me to try their 

 hives. I have never mixed myself up with any 

 form of patent hive; so I ought to be as good a 

 judge as those that are interested. I have had 

 bee on the brain for the last thirty-five years. 

 So Mr. Editor, you will have to have some 

 patience with me for occupying so much space 

 in your Journal. E. Gallup. 



Osage, Iowa. 



[For tlie American Bee Journal.) 



" A profitable Apiary " examined. 



Mr. Editor :— I find in your Journal for 

 November an account of Mr. Way's success iu 

 the bee business, furnished by Mr. Baldridge. — 

 As I knoAV no better way to come to just con- 

 clusions relative to the best mode of conducting 

 the business, than by experiment and observa- 

 tion, I am always pleased with a definite report 

 of results in dilferent apiaries and in different 

 hives. 



This apiary consisted of 125 colonies, 18 colo- 

 nies in hives that gave no swarms, and 107 

 colonies that gave swarms, constituting in the 

 sequel 105 new colonies, and the product of 

 surplus honey was about 2,920 pounds. If api- 

 arians would keep exact accounts of their sur- 

 plus, so as to render it unnecessary to calculate 

 from about so much, it would be more satisfac- 

 tory. The eighteen non-swarmers gave an 

 average of GO pounds each, at 30 cents per pound, 

 or $1W. 



The product of the 107 colonies is, 105 new 

 colonies and an average of 27^ pounds per hive, 



A colony of bees will consume for breeding, 

 drones, »S:c., during the summer season and for 

 wintering, ^0 pounds of honey. The eighteen 

 colonics that gave GO pounds surplus, and coa- 



