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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Oct., 



be expected that farmers with only one or two 

 hives of bees will seek to become experts in the 

 management of bees and handle movable comb 

 frames, raise queens, &c., &c. ; nor is it neces- 

 saiy. The hive is constructed with either 

 movable frames or bars. I have used both. 

 The best hive of which I here speak is made 

 with bars ; and no trouble, but to put on the 

 surplus boxes in their season and remove them 

 when filled. 



I have another hive from which I have this 

 season taken 94 lbs. of surplus, all white clover 

 honey; 234 lbs. from two colonies. 



In many fields, I have no doubt but they 

 would have done better, and in some not as 

 well. This is but an ordinary field. 



Any communication addressed to me upon 

 the subject, at Albany, N. Y., will receive due 

 attention. 



Jasper Hazen. 



Albany, August 25, 1873. 



P. S. If we consider a few facts, the product 

 of 200 lbs. sm'plus by a non-swarmer need not 

 surprise us. 



1. No Surplus honey is stored by the 

 swarmer, as a general rule, while the bees are 

 making preparation for swarming. They clus- 

 ter outside of the hive in idleness. 



2. If a second swarm issues eight or ten days 

 more are lost. 



3. Sometimes third and even fourth swarms 

 issue. 



4. All this time is improved by the whole 

 working force of the whole colony in the non- 

 swarmer. The old colony and all the new 

 swarms are the product of the old queen, and 

 all the brood in the first swarm. With such a 

 force instead of working in three or more hives, 

 all operating in one hive and its surplus boxes, 

 with no loss of time in preparation for swarm- 

 ing, I think 200 lbs., and even more may be 

 secured in surplus. 



J. H. 



*-* 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



To Novice. 



Dear Friend Novice — Do you think you 

 have only one friend who understands your 

 motives, and does not hesitate to say so through 

 the Journal ? If you do, it is time you were 

 undeceived ; and I beg that I may be counted 

 as a second, and I am sure that the third, fifth 

 or twentieth could be found with very little 

 trouble. How anyone who has read — with 

 pleasure and profit — as I have, every article 

 you have written for the Journal, as they ap- 

 peared, can accuse you of using the pages of 

 the paper for your own benefit, is more than I 

 can understand. 



My pleasure in reading the Journal, of late, 

 has been very much lessened by the constant 

 and unmerited attacks upon you — to whom all 

 of us are indebted for so much useful informa- 



tion, so agreeably imparted. That you have 

 hit some hives pretty hard is not your fault, 

 but theirs ; as your aim was evidently to teach 

 true principles of bee-culture, and if the use of 

 these hives was inconsistent with this end, you 

 could do no less than you did. As to there 

 being any room for profit in prices at which 

 you sold your articles — and I believe there was 

 and is very little — that is no one's business but 

 your own, as you advertised in the advertising 

 columns of the Journal, and gave full direc- 

 tions for making them in the reading column ; 

 so that it was a matter of choice whether to 

 make or purchase them. 



Daniel M. Worthington. 

 Sr. Denis, Md., Aug. 16, 1873. 



[For the American Bee JoumaL] 



Small vs. Large Hives. 



In an article on cheap hives, by D. L. Adair, 

 in the Annual of Bee. Culture for 1872, also ta 

 an article read before the North American Bee- 

 Keepers' Society by the same author, ideas are 

 broached that many will ridicule. But I am 

 fully prepared by actual experience to believe 

 that he is in the main correct. In my nuclei 

 hive of three combs, a queen will occupy only 

 about such a proportion of the cells with brood 

 and the remainder is occupied with pollen and 

 honey ; and in my standard hive with twelve 

 combs of the same size the same queen will 

 occupy the twelve combs in the same propor- 

 tion. Now we increase the size of the hive to 

 thirty-two combs in the New Idea form and 

 the same queen will occupy twenty six of these 

 combs just as fully as she did the three in the 

 nuclei hive. This is a positive fact, no guess 

 work about it. 



Now the reader [will readily see that if we 

 are correct in the above, hives of 2000 cubic 

 inches in the brooding apartment are not half 

 large enough. And we are now positive that 

 hives of 4000 inches in the brooding apartment, 

 when in the right form, will produce three 

 times the amount with the same queen that 

 hives 2000 cubic inches in the l^rooding apart- 

 ment will. The past season we had eighteen 

 of the large twin hives, and four oblong or New 

 Idea form of hives. We obtained all of our 

 surplus except fifty pounds from said stocks, 

 (1600 pounds in eight days,) and this fall when 

 they bad done gathering, we had three times 

 the weight of honey in the large hives that we 

 had in the same number of small or 2000 cubic 

 inch hives. Yet the large hives had no better 

 queens than the small ones had, and the large 

 hives (with the exception of three that cast 

 swarms) went into winter quarters with nearly 

 three times the amount of bees that the small 

 ones did. Remember this was in the same yard 

 and with tbe same management as nearly as 

 possible. Those three that cast swarms did so 



