

PutiUsUt Weekly at US Jijc/iig-jn Street. 



SIAH) a Yeiii — SoiupJc C'<>i>y ^'Vee. 



37th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 27, 1897. 



No. 21. 



A Defense of the "Detestable" Bee-Space. 



BY W. Z. HUTCHIKSON. 



In the American Bee Journal /or April 29, I find an arti- 

 cle in which the writer severely and unjustly condemns the 

 bee-space that has so nearly universally come into use. The 

 great objection brought agalust the!-e spaces by this writer, 

 who signs himself " Commou-Sense Bee-Keeping," is that they 

 allow the escape of heat. If the heat rises and escapes from 

 between two combs, pray where does it escape to .?■ Into the 

 adjoining spaces, of course — where else can it go? If the 

 heat from one space escapes into the adjoining spaces, and 

 that from the adjoining spaces escapes into the first-mentioned 

 space, where does the loss come in ? The illustration about 

 the heat escaping from a hen's nest, if there were a lot of 

 boles iu its bottom, is not a parallel case, as in that case the 

 heat escapes iuto the open air and is lost, while In the bee- 

 hive the heat is slill In the liive. 



Iknow that our "common-sense" friend says that the 

 heat escapes over iuto the farther corners of the hive away 

 from the bees, and that it there "condenses and wastes." I 

 am at a loss to know what he means by its "condensing." I 

 know that steam can be condenst into water, or that we can 

 condense the rays of the sun by passing them through a 

 lens, etc., but I fail to understand how heat can be "con- 

 denst" if it escapes into the corner of a bee-hive. 



When the weather is cold, or even cool, a colony of bees 

 contracts, the outer part being especially compact, thus form- 

 ing a sort of covering, or natural hive, as Cheshire calls it, 

 and Inside this crust of bees the temperature may be, and 

 often is, raised to over 90, while the outside is below the 

 freezing point. If we could make a hive that was exactly the 

 size and shape of a contracted cluster or colony of bees, and 

 thus have the bees completely fill It, there would be no need 

 of this crust or natural hive of bees; but this would be well- 

 nigh impossible, as the clusters would vary so in size. When 

 a colony is compactly clustered — when its outside is thus cov- 

 ered with this crust or living hive — some heat is, of course, 

 radiated from the cluster. This rises until it strikes the ceil- 

 ing of the hive, or whatever is over the cluster ; but, as I have 

 already askt, what difference does it make whether the heat 

 between any two combs rises by itself and then spreads out 



until it reaches the outside wall of the hive, or if the heat 

 from all of the spaces joins in a body and spreads out until it 

 reaches the walls of the hive? It is possible that there is a 

 difference, but I fail to see it. 



But let us suppose, for argument's sake, that there is a 

 difference — it would be better to cover the brood-nest in winter 

 and spring with a sheet of enameled cloth, and a chaff cush- 

 ion over that, and even go to the trouble of inverting each 



Square vs. Oblong Sections. — See page 3'J9. 



hive at the beginning of winter and pushing a thin board or 

 cushion up at the ends of open-end frames so as to make them 

 close-fitting ; it would be infinitely better to go to all of this 

 trouble than to attempt to handle bees all through the work- 

 ing season with no bee-spaces. How any one who has had 



