Ma 



1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



423 



* Contributeb + 

 Special Ctrttcles 



1 



=^ 



11— Dadant Methods of Honey-Production 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



BEFORE I pass to the details of management with large 

 hives, I desire to take notice of an acknowledgment that 

 helps my cause — the cause of large hives. In the April 

 number of the Bee-Keepers' Review, Mrs. F. W. Frey asks 

 how to keep bees from wanting to swarm, while producing 

 comb honey. That question cannot be answered in an abso- 

 lute way. * That is, there is not yet a method devised by 

 which we can keep our bees entirely from wanting to swarm, 

 most especially when they have to build their surplus combs. 

 But 3 pages further on, I find a partial answer to the ques- 

 tion asked. Permit me to quote from the editorial : 



"Size of hives, as it affects the tendency of the bees to 

 swarm is well illustrated by the experience of Mr. C. F. 

 Smith, of Cheboygan, Mich. He writes that he has bees in 

 7, 8, 9, io and 12- frame hives, respectively, and, of the colo- 

 nies in the "-frame hives, 95 percent swarmed ; of the 8- 

 frames, 85 percent swarmed ; of those on 9 frames, 70 percent 

 swarmed; of the 10-frame style, 55 percent swarmed; while 

 only 33 percent of those on 13 frames cast swarms." 



From all sides we can hear the same thing. If we wish 

 to avoid natural swarming, we must give our bees enough 

 room to accommodate the most prolific queens. It is one of 

 the principal steps in the direction of control of swarms. 



But this is not all. If we have large brood-chambers, we 

 will rear powerful colonies, whenever our queens are very 

 prolific. These powerful colonies will need more room in 

 every way, for it is out of the question to have a powerful 

 colony satisfied with a super such as would be ample for a 

 small one. So if we expect the large hives to help towards 

 prevention of swarming, we must expect to give them addi- 

 tional surplus room in proportion to the larger size of the 

 colony. Dr. C. C. Miller tried 2 Jumbo hives, in the hope 

 of securing a non-swarming hive. One of these was the 

 first colony in his apiary to swarm. Evidently the colony 

 was able to fill this hive to overflowing, because it had a 

 very prolific queen. Is it not most likely that these bees 

 would have swarmed still sooner had they had but an 8-frame 

 hive to fill, instead of one equivalent to 12 frames? 



But Dr. Miller succeeds in securing large colonies with 

 small hives. How does he do it? He adds another hive 

 on top of the 8-frame body, whenever the brood-chamber is 

 full of brood, and allows the queen to go up into this addi- 

 tional hive and breed until the honey crop has begun, when 

 he again reduces it and puts on supers, leaving a body full 

 of combs of brood in only one story. The surplus combs 

 of brood which cannot find place in that one story go to 

 help other colonies. In this way, Dr. Miller avoids the loss 

 caused by the cramping of queens for room to lay, and gets 

 his tremendous crops. It is more labor than by our method, 

 but it is probably the best way to secure a large force of bees 

 with small hives, and to get as much honey as possible 

 stored into the sections. 



The apiarist who uses 8-frame Langstroth hives will 

 get a great deal of valuable information by reading the Doc- 

 tor's book, "Forty Years Among the Bees." I had read it, 

 but did not realize the most valuable points until I had sev- 

 eral personal talks with the author. 



I am very fond of my own methods, and I feel very 

 sure that others can succeed where we have succeeded, but 

 I am also aware that bee-keepers — no matter how pro- 

 gressive they are — will not throw away their small hives 

 just for the sake of trying my ways. I therefore urge those 

 who have small hives and do not expect to change, to give 

 the method of Dr. Miller a thorough trial. I acknowledge 

 that there is much in the management described in "Forty 

 Years" that will scare a novice, owing to the numerous 

 manipulations performed, but the ideas evolved are to be 

 found nowhere else. Perhaps not enough attention has been 

 paid to the Doctor's methods. Few men have his long ex- 

 perience, his knowledge of the habits of the bee, and few men 

 succeed as he does in producing very large crops regularly. 

 He has both the theory and the practice at his fingers' ends. 



But I am running away from my subject. I started to 

 talk about the Dadant methods, and I am falling into the 

 Miller methods. I only wish to emphasize the fact that the 

 Miller methods for comb honey with small hives, and the 

 Dadant methods for extracted honey with large hives, are 

 not antagonistic — they corroborate one another. 



There is no method by which we may entirely prevent 

 swarming. Such a method may be devised later, but it will 

 very probably have to be by artificial means and manipula- 

 tions. But a spacious hive-body in which to rear brood, a 

 thoroughly ventilated hive in which communication from top 

 to bottom is easy; a well-shaded spot; a reduced produc- 

 tion of drones; and plenty of surplus-room, will secure most 

 desirable results. Hamilton, 111. 



[A new edition of Dr. Miller's "Forty Years Among the 

 Bees" has just been issued. It contains an Appendix which 

 brings the Doctor's experience down to date. The book, 

 containing 344 pages, we mail for $1.00, or club it with the 

 American Bee Journal, one year, both for $1.80. The ap- 

 pendix alone is 10 cents. Send all orders to the office of 

 the American Bee Journal. — Editor.] 



Facing and Shading Hives-Other Comments 



BY ADRIAN GETAZ. 



Some time ago a French apiarist reported that all his 

 hives but one were facing east. And that one, facing south, 

 has given him more surplus honey than any of the others. 

 He added that it was shaded by a tree during a part of 

 the dav. 



My first impression was that this colony had a better 

 queen than the others, or something of that sort; but the 

 context, while not saying so positively, seems to imply that 

 the superiority of that colony had existed for a number of 

 years during which there may have been a number of differ- 

 ent queens. It is not likely that they would all have been 

 better than the others. 



Then I thought that perhaps the shade given by that 

 tree was the cause. But the climate of western Europeis 

 totally different from ours. It is considerably milder in win- 

 ter, and very much cooler in summer. So it would be hard 

 to say whether the extra surplus honey was due to the extra 

 warmth of the south exposure, or to the shading of the 

 tree. Perhaps both, if the tree was shading in the middle 

 of the day and letting the sun shine on the hive early in the 

 morning and late in the evening. 



The incident in itself is insignificant, but I quote it here 

 to show how hard it is sometimes to give the right kind of 

 an explanation, and how careful we should be when criticising 

 other people's assertions. 



SHADE FOR HIVES. 



Mr. Alexander, of New York, doesn't want his hives- 

 shaded. He says that the extra work the bees do early and 

 late in the day when the sun warms up the hives adds con- 

 siderably to his surplus. It has been stated already that it is 

 largely a question of locality. Shade might be a nuisance in 

 some parts of the State of New York, an advantage in east 

 Tennessee, and an absolute necessity in Arizona. And that is 

 true but there is another fact that has been overlooked. Mr. 

 Alexander's surplus honey is altogether from buckwheat, and 

 therefore is gathered at a time of the year when the weather 

 is already quite cool. If it was gathered in July, he might, 

 even in his present locality, find the shade a decided advan- 

 tage. 



ANNUAL RENEWING OF QUEENS. 



I was the first one, some 8 or 9 years ago, to advocate 

 a yearly renewing of the queens. I have always said that it 

 was especially an advantage when working for comb honey, 

 and in poor localities like mine. A colony with a young 

 queen is not likely to swarm, and in a poor locality a colony 

 that has swarmed, and its swarm, are not going to give much 

 surplus honey, if any at all. I think Mr. Aspinwall is about 

 right when he says that the colonies which do not swarm 

 give twice the surplus of those that do. Another thing in 

 favor of young queens (those reared late in the preceding 

 year) is that they keep the bees from crowding honey in the 

 brood-nest better than the older ones. And that is an im- 

 portant item. Less honey in the brood-nest means more in 

 the supers. Less honey in the brood-nest means more brood 

 reared and more bees later on, which, where the honey season 

 lasts several months, is an important item. 



