June 14, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



503 



+ Contrtbutcb * 

 Special Ctrticles 



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Small vs. Large Hives and Supers 



BY C. W. DAYTON. 



I NOTICED the statements relating to Mr. Andrew's bees, 

 honey and hives on page 180. Simply for mutual examina- 

 tion I wish to compare conditions. 

 Mr. Andrews had 250 colonies, and I had 160, spring 

 count. His yield was 25 tons, and mine 12 tons. Mr. An- 

 drews moved to oranges. I , did not have oranges. Sage 

 alone. But if he has oranges and sage both in one location 

 it would not be any better than sage alone, except that 

 oranges might give 2 or 3 extractings before sage came in. 



1 did not extract until May 15. Oranges, as I understand, 

 yield water-white, or very light amber at Riverside (or 

 Corona). Here, oranges give dark amber, and it will not 

 pay to mix with sage. Mr. Andrews may have extracted 

 several times before I extracted at all. It may be that sage 

 would last longer here at Chatsworth on account of the 

 damper location. It was damp and cloudy here from April 

 10 to May 20. The clouds came over the mountains from 

 the coast. Riverside and Corona are so far inland that there 

 is far more clear weather when the bees could gather honey 

 earlier in the season. 



Mr. Andrews' hive I take to be the regular, full-sized 

 Langstroth, 10 frames in the lower story and the same size 

 story above. My lower stories are for 10 frames, 13 inches 

 long, and an extracting super on top 13 inches long, and 

 S inches deep, or one-third the size of Mr. Andrews' ex- 

 tracting super. My lower story is only 34 the size of Mr. 

 Andrews.' 



I allowed the honey to become entirely sealed over, in- 

 cluding both outside combs, and then allowed them to stay 

 on the hives 3 to 4 days until they were built solid with 

 brace-combs between the stories. From my 160 colonies 

 there were 350 swarms, but only 100 were hived. Mr. An- 

 drews' yield was 50 pounds to the colony in excess of my 

 yield. At 5 cents per pound it is $2.50, not counting recep- 

 tacles. If the cost of production is 4 cents per pound it 

 comes to $2.00, leaving a net profit of 50 cents in favor of 

 Mr. Andrews' hive, yield, or something. Or, is it possible 

 that my small hive and awfully small super will do as well 

 as larger? 



At the first of the season I had 12 or 15 colonies with 



2 of these little supers on each. When I had extracted 3 or 4 

 times I took the extra super off, only leaving one, as it seemed 

 that I got just as much honey from the one. 



Of course, 50 pounds of honey is considerable honey, 

 but 50 cents profit is not much difference, yet it is one-fourth. 

 But I wonder now if 4' of my hives, which are about one-half 

 as large as Mr. Andrews', cannot be manipulated and handled 

 as easily as 3 of the regular and larger size. One thing, 

 I never use a brush on these small combs, and put 9 combs, (or 

 a whole super) in the extractor at once. I have not brushed 

 bees off extracting combs in 10 years. Of course, small 

 combs are easier to handle all around, and more rapid. It 

 takes me just two minutes to go 100 feet from the extract- 

 ing house, take the cover off the hive, smoke the bees, take 

 the combs out and put the empty combs in their places, close 

 the hive, and get back into the extracting house again. 

 I have the idea that it would take 5 or 6 minutes with the 

 large hive. Of course, I must extract oftener where the 

 small super is used, but I extract from but few lower stories, 

 and that where there is no queen below or trie super remains 

 full a long time. As I understand, the large stones run 

 from 32 to 38 pounds at an extracting, when they are sealed, 

 and my small ones go from 22 to 28 pounds. The large combs 

 are thicker in the middle at the top in most of the colonies 

 than at the ends and along the lower half. 



It has long been my belief that there are but a small 

 proportion of the bees which gather honey compared to the 

 whole colony, a large share standing around on the honey 

 doing nothing, or else there is more inside work in the hives 

 than we know of. If 5 pounds of bees went out after honey 

 S times a day, they ought to bring back 25 pounds. And as 

 sage honey is so easy to get they could easily make 25 trips 



a day if they were so disposed, as the days are 17 hours in 

 length and sage is unlike many other honey-plants, in that 

 the honey tubes are open for the visits of the bees all day 

 long. . 



One thing against the large hives and supers is the trou- 

 ble they make to carry them over the dry years when we 

 need so few bees in the hives. Where the bees can be moved 

 into the orange-groves the trouble does not occur, but very 

 few apiaries are, or could be, so situated here. But it is 

 much more labor to move large hives than small ones. Too 

 much for the 50 cents I have figured above. Every one who 

 has seen my apiary in years past has detested such a stingy 

 super and hive. But my management is different from that 

 of the large hives. In the spring I manipulate the brood- 

 combs so that the small combs become solidly filled. If 

 there is any pollen or solid combs of honey it is caused to 

 be removed and carried into the super where such off grades 

 can be extracted at the first round and kept separate from 

 the sage. With larger super the dark would go in with 

 considerable sage. Small supers enable more perfect separa- 

 tion of grades. 



When the bees get the combs of honey all sealed and 

 properly ripened they retire from the supers, only enough 

 bees remaining to keep guard over the honey, and then the 

 main force of bees begins to cluster out at the entrance. 

 I tell from outside indications when they are ready to ex- 

 tract. When the combs are completely finished in capping 

 and ripening the bees are very easily shaken off, so that no 

 brush is necessary. I set the combs in tin-bottomed boxes on 

 the wheel-barrow which hold 24 combs each. I have 5 of 

 these boxes and 150 to 200 extra empty combs so that I do 

 not open hives the second time to put the combs in. 



The quick handling of small combs, without brushing, 

 gives robber-bees very little time. But robbers seldom are 

 numerous until near the close of the season. At that time 

 I' take out honey in the middle of the day to keep the ex- 

 tractor going until dark, if necessary. Then through the 

 night, if robbers trouble my work, the boxes of empty combs 

 remain stacked up with robber-cloths (cloths wet with car- 

 bolic-acid water) over each. This renders them unattractive 

 to robbers, while on the wheel-barrow, and also to the in- 

 mates of the hives they are put into. The most of the 

 trouble is caused by the bees of the colony rushing outdoors 

 at the smell of the combs within, and perhaps turning to 

 dig and pull at the cracks of their own hive. And, es- 

 pecially, forgetting in the excitement, to guard their own en- 

 trance. Carbolized combs maintain order in the colony in 

 which they are placed. In a few hours the acid is all evap- 

 orated and the combs are cleaned up more gradually, and 

 with little strife. 



It is seldom that a box of combs is brought in to ex- 

 tract containing a dozen bees, but, occasionally a few are. 

 The boxes of combs are slid off the wheel-barrow onto 

 shelves. Above the shelves is a 20-inch strip of wire-cloth 

 extending entirely around the extracting house. The bees 

 climb out of the combs and run up on the screen and soon find 

 the escapes where they get out of the building. But most of 

 the bees brought in are young, as they cling to the combs 

 and are more difficult to shake off than old bees. The young 

 bees go up on the screen in a cluster and stay through the 

 night. A corner toward the sunrise is chosen. In one or 

 two days the young bees find their way out the escape. 

 Near the escape on the outside of the building I keep a 

 nucleus hive. It is usually started with a cluster of bees 

 the size of your fist, and a little chunk of brood such as most 

 bee-men throw out in the grass. They start to rear a queen 

 of their own, but in swarming-time it is easy to put in a 

 ripe queen cell from one of the best colonies. They build 

 combs from a strip of wax as a starter, except the one brood- 

 comb I put in empty to give their queen a chance to lay. 

 When one nucleus becomes strong enough to "go it" with- 

 out further help it is moved away and another started in 

 the same way. All the stray bees that come out go straight 

 into the nucleus the same way as others have traveled, and 

 a bee that has stayed out of its hive a day or two is always 

 accepted, or, in fact, invited in. The older bees go home 

 at once. Some of these nuclei have given 50 pounds of 

 honey, and every one gives something, and will fill a regu- 

 lar hive in time for the harvest the following year. 



The "breeding up" of the colonies into working strength 

 is very much like the growth of plants. Plants grow faster 

 and faster as the weather warms up until they reach the 

 climax; then there is a slackening. My hives are abundant, 

 in size, early or late, or, as, we may say, both ways from the 

 climax. No old queen, after hiving with a swarm or any 



