172 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER, 



November 



ONE-POUND OR TWO-POUND SECTIONS. 



The query was lately in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal: "Which colony will 

 store the more surplus honey, the one 

 provided with one-pound sections, or 

 the one having two-pound sections ? 



The answers to this query were al- 

 most unanimously in favor of the two- 

 pound sections, although everybody 

 agreed that when it came to selling 

 the honey, it was much better to have 

 it in one-pound sections. 



To the farmer who keeps but a few 

 colonies, and who wishes to produce 

 honey, especially for his private fam- 

 ily use, the question of sale is but 

 secondary, and he desires, above all 

 things to get as much products as 

 possible from the few colonies of bees 

 that he keeps. It is, therefore, im- 

 portant for him to know whether there 

 is really an advantage in using large 

 honey-sections. It is my intention, 

 in this article, to explain why bees 

 prefer large receptacles. 



Bees, in a state of nature, lodge 

 themselves in the hollow of trees, prin- 

 cipally. They store honey in provi- 

 sion of future needs, especially for 

 food during the cold season. Their 

 instinct leads them to place the honey 

 at the upper part of their hive above 

 the brood, and far from the entrance, 

 so that the cluster of bees being placed 

 between their stores and the entrance, 

 they can better defend these against 

 intruders. They also want the honey 

 in a place easily accessible during 

 cold weather, and therefore as near 

 the brood-nest as possible. 



When we give our bees an empty 

 box above their breeding room, we 

 act according to their requirements, 

 but when the box is cut up into small 



compartments they readily preceive 

 that some parts of this surplus room 

 may become of difficult access to 

 them during the cold weather, and 

 they work in them much more reluc- 

 tantly . 



The first step taken for the secur- 

 ing of surplus honey, after the inven- 

 tion of the movable-frame hive, was 

 the invention of a small box, glassed 

 on four sides, and holding about four 

 pounds of honey. The bees had ac- 

 cess to this small box through only 

 one hole about an inch in diameter. 

 It was soon preceived that there was 

 less honey harvested in this style of 

 box than formerly in the old wooden 

 bucket plan , laid bottomside up on 

 the top of the box-hive. 



We used these boxes for a short 

 time, but after the invention of the 

 extractor in 1867, we tried surplus 

 cases of full size with open frames 

 right over the brood -combs, and with- 

 out any partition or honey-board. 

 These frames were used for extract- 

 ing. The result was so much in favor 

 of the large frames that we soon dis- 

 carded the glass boxes altogether. 



A little later on, the honey-section, 

 holding about a pound, was invented, 

 and found just the thing for the comb- 

 honey market. We tried these sec- 

 tions, in broad frames to hold them 

 in the supers, and we used them side 

 by side with the long extracting 

 frames. The result was by far in 

 favor of the latter, and were it not 

 that the city trade demands honey in 

 small packages, we dare the assertion 

 that no one would think of using any- 

 thing else. 



To show how evidently the bees 

 prefer a long, open frame to a small 



