GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



tions were finished as soon as the others. In 

 the A B C it is claimed as an advantage of 

 section-holders, that the outside rows can be 

 shifted to the center. What's the need of 

 shifting them if the rows are all finished alike? 

 The fact is, that bees are slower about finishing 

 the outside sections just because they are out- 

 side, independently of what may be under 

 them. 



While it was a straight fight between a ten- 

 frame hive and an eight-frame, I could keep 

 track of it pretty well; but now you're getting 

 me all mixed up by talking as if eight-frames 

 were, part of the time, not enough, and you let 

 it leak out that you're running bees in two 

 stories in the linden apiary. Now, look here; 

 no hiding things. If you've been learning any 

 thing new, tell. What were you using two 

 stories for? Were you raising bees or honey ? 

 If honey, was it comb or extracted ? Was there 

 any gain in having the two stories? What 

 time did you give the second story ? When did 

 you take it away? Just own up all about it. 

 Here I've been trusting you to remain loyal to 

 the eight-frame hive, single story, all the year 

 round, and you've deserted and deceived me by 

 running two stories, and, for aught I know, five 

 stories, on the sly. 



Now I'll tell you what I'd like. I'd like to be 

 convinced that it is the most profitable thing to 

 confine bees to eight frames all the year round; 

 and. by the way, your head's very level when 

 you insist that an eight-frame hive is better 

 than a ten-frame with two dummies; and then 

 if it must be admitted that that won't do in all 

 cases, if you have any scheme by which the 

 eight-frame can be held most of the year, and 

 a second story added part of the time, I'm 

 inclined to believe I'd rather submit to that 

 than to go back to the larger hive. 



Now please tell us just where you do stand, 

 Ernest, at latest advices. Do you think a 

 strong colony should be confined to an eight- 

 frame hive all the year round— particularly if 

 working for comb honey ? and if not, just what 

 would your procedure be? or are you like me, 

 so uncertain and wiggly you don't know just 

 where you do stand ? 



Marengo, 111. 



[As you have addressed me personally, I 

 conclude it will serve my purpose better to 

 come out from under the editorial " we ^' and 

 use the singular pronoun. 



To begin with, you have proposed some rather 

 naughty knotty questions, and it hioTix as if the 

 working-gear of my mind were rather " loose- 

 jointed;" but by supplying some particulars, 

 licrhaps I can redeem that function of my 

 anatbmy. 



In the first place, I ran the basswood yard for 

 hccs, and. incidentally, for extracted honey. 

 There were two reasons for doing this: (1) I 

 knew that, if I ran it for comb honey, they 

 would swarm, and that would require an at- 

 tendant. (3) I did not care so much for comb 

 or extracted honey as for bees. In selling bees 

 in the form of nuclei, we run short every fall. 



and the following spring we are obliged to buy- 

 up more or less poorly marked bees on crooked 

 combs; and as it takes a couple of months to 

 Italianize them, they are not suitable for filling 

 orders till along in the season; hence you see 

 the securing of bees was the prime object at the 

 basswood yai'd. There being a heavy flow at 

 this place, as soon as one story began to be 

 crowded for brood and room for honey. I put on 

 an upper story, putting one or two frames of 

 brood in the same, and filling up the space be- 

 low with frames of foundation. The upper 

 story was then filled out with foundation. 

 This, of course, would result in more brood and 

 no swarming : and the consequence was, we 

 had quite a few colonies having two upper 

 stories with brood and honey scattered more or 

 less in both; and there were three colonies that 

 had three each, with brood in all the stories. 

 Now that the season is over we have rousing 

 big colonies, and a large number of combs con- 

 taining more or less sealed honey. We may ex- 

 tract these, or we may reserve them to supply 

 some colonies this fall that are short of stores. 

 Now, then, having given you the situation, I 

 will take up the questions in your second para- 

 graph. 



No, I do not think we did secure more brood 

 in the ten-frame hive than in the eight-frame. 

 If the ten-frame hives did not contain dummies- 

 there was a couple of fi-ames of honey which 

 we would rather have had in sections above. I 

 may be mistaken: but I feel quite certain that 

 we now rear as much brood in the single-story 

 eight-frame as we formerly had in the single- 

 story ten -frame hive. 



Now, others may not agree with me, but I 

 can get, I think, more brood in a tall chamber 

 than in a shallow one spread out horizontally. 

 In other words. I can get more brood easier in 

 ten or twelve L. frames by having them piled 

 up in two tiers of five and six frames respective- 

 ly; because I always notice that the bees show 

 a disposition to work upward or downward 

 rather than laterally. According to this, if the 

 broodinff-chambers are in two stories the eight- 

 frame body is plenty large, to say nothing of 

 the ten and twelve-frame stories. But suppose 

 the bees would work out laterally; and suppose 

 they would fill out a twelve-frame Dovetail 

 hive with brood, all of said frames in one tier. 

 The hive would be too heavy to handle; and 

 even a ten-frame hive is rather heavy for the 

 average man to handle when it is filled with 

 bees, brood, and honey; therefore, in consider- 

 ation of the fact that bees like a tall rather 

 than a horizontal chamber in which to rear 

 brood; and with that other fact that it is han- 

 dier to have that tall chamber in two sections. I 

 should prefer the eight-fiame to the ten-frame. 

 The same logic might call for a smaller than an 

 eiirht-frame, but it would not be standard. 



The eight-frame chamber is large enough, at 

 least ten months in the vear, for ordinary hon- 

 ey production. If brood-rearing has been car- 

 ried on two or three months in the year prior to 

 the honey-flow, there will, according to Doo- 

 little, on this lOon square inches of comb, be a 

 large enough force of bees to get the crop, pro- 

 viding there is one. Then the necessary room 

 can bi> obtained by adding supers. 



But you will say I want to run for comb hon- 

 ey, and others desire to run for extracted, and 

 that you can not. in one story of the eight-frame, 

 get more than eight frames of brood, (xranted. 

 But in most localities, if that eight-frame ca- 

 pacity is kept booming from May 1. we will 

 say. until the middle of June, or about the time 

 when the first white honey begins to come, you 

 will have a large force of bees. Manifestly, 

 after this time, if honey is the object, more 

 brood is not wanted; because the bees, when 



