652 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1.5. 



just such grand men and women— bright, cul- 

 tured. Christian, as Pomona is sending out. 



And why am I here? I love and believe in 

 just such colleges. Besides, the President is a 

 broad-gauged man, and saw the importance of 

 the bee-keeping industry, and the economic re- 

 lation of entomology to fruit culture, and so 

 wished a zoologist alive to these departments 

 of study, and 1 was offered the position. L 

 have already had a class of seventeen in eco- 

 nomic entomology and apiculture. 



Would T recommend anyone to come here? 

 If such are well and happily located in the East, 

 no. If impecunious, emphatically no, unless 

 some position is assured. If a man has a few 

 thousand dollars, and wishes a more genial 

 and delightful climate, and especially if im- 

 paired in health, and finds the winters severe 

 and trying, then yes; and if he, to all this, is 

 fond of orcharding or bee-keeping, then de- 

 cidedly yes. If to these last he has a family to 

 educate, then surely he could make no mistake 

 in locating right here at Claremont A small 

 orchard from three to ten acres, and an apiary 

 of from 50 to 1.50 colonies, which could be moved 

 to catch the best, would be profitable and de- 

 lightful. In this land, where irrigation is 

 practiced, uncertainty is almost banished in 

 orcharding, and is no more common in apicul- 

 ture than in other places. 



Claremont, Cal., July 1:2. 



[Even if the above does savor somewhat of 

 an advertisement for Pomona College, it is ad- 

 vertising of the right sort, and we are glad to 

 encourage institutions of this kind.— Ed.] 



THE ROOT-HATCH DISCUSSION. 



DO QUEEN.S LAY IN TWO STORIES, OK DO THEY 

 PREFER ONLY ONE? 



By Dr. C. C. MiUn: 



Seldom am I so deeply interested in reading 

 any thing as I was in reading pages .572 and 573 

 of Glkanings. In the first place, I am inter- 

 ested in the subject from a dollar-and-cent 

 point of view; for, as Ernest says, "if there is 

 a difference ... it is important to know 

 which is better." In the second place, the two 

 sides are argued by men of ability, and, what 

 is perhaps more important, by men of fairness. 

 I believe it will be in the interest of our pursuit 

 if the same two men fight it out to a finish. I 

 don't mean for them to occupy two pages of 

 every issue, but to give all the honest argu- 

 ments they have, each one doing some experi- 

 menting in both directions, each one offering a 

 new point as often as he gets one; and although 

 the finish might not come in two years, it would 

 be of value when it did come. 



As one on the fence, not ready to take sides 

 with either. I might be asked to keep out of 

 the fight. But it will hardly be amiss for any 

 one to mix in if he can do any thing toward 



settling any of the points at issue. I had fond- 

 ly hoped that, by this time, I should have learn- 

 ed quite a little from my own experience of 

 this summer as to the different results from the 

 different-sized hives. But the terribly disas- 

 trous season put me all out in that respect. I 

 think not more than five or six of my colonies 

 made the least start toward working in sections, 

 and only one of these filled a single section. So 

 I can't tell what might have been done in a 

 good season by any one of my perhaps 30 colo- 

 nies which had more than eight combs, some of 

 them sixteen. 



Bro. Hatch makes a good point in saying 

 that, in comparing 1.50 colonies in eight-frame 

 hives with 120 in ten-frame hives— the same 

 number of frames in each — the same force of 

 bees will give a greater amount of work for the 

 bee-keeper with the smaller hives. And yet, 

 when Bro. Hatch comes to be less rugged and 

 strong than now, he will admit quite an offset. 

 Just so far as the swarms are concerned, he can 

 hold his ground. It's just as much work to 

 take care of a swarm from an eight-frame hive 

 as from a ten-frame; and if bees were just as 

 much inclined to swarm in one hive as the 

 other, then there would be a fourth more 

 swarms to care for with the small hives. But 

 when you take into account the greater ten- 

 dency to swarming in the small hives, I suspect 

 it may be safe to say that the labor of swarm- 

 ing will be four or five times as much with the 

 150 small as with the 120 large. Even in that, 

 however, there is an offset. If the old hive is 

 to be lifted every time of swarming. I'd rather 

 have more swarms and lighter hives. For a 

 very strong person there might be little or na 

 difference. But suppose the lifting of a ten- 

 frame hive is the limitof my strength— that is, I 

 can lift it, but that s all. In that case I'd rath- 

 er lift three eight-frame hives than one ten- 

 frame hive. And whether the hives are lifted 

 at swarming time or not. the bee-keeper wha 

 runs an out-apiary must count on a good deal of 

 lifting if he hauls his bees back and forth. 



If I didn't believe C. A. Hatch to be a thor- 

 oughly reliable man I should doubt one of his 

 statements; and I'm puzzled to know what pe- 

 culiarity makes so much difference between his 

 experience and mine. He says his queens will 

 go into an upper story, but will not come down 

 again into the lower story. In the first place, 

 it seems lo me I wouldn't give additional brood 

 room above, but would give it below. For not 

 only will my queens go back down to the combs 

 that had brood in. but they'll go from an upper 

 story down into a lower story that has no brood 

 in it. 



Just now it occurs to me that perhaps the 

 reason for the difference is, he is talking about 

 bees in ten-frame hives and I'm talking about 

 eight-frame hives. Suppose a queen capable 

 of keeping 11 frames filled is in an eight-frame 



