1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAt. 



93 



begin to comply with Mr. Dadant's 

 request for the results of the venture. 

 First, I group all the colonies in 

 Dadant hives under the three head- 

 ings of strong, medium and weak, 

 and do the same for the other style 

 of hive, the shallow divisible, and I 

 find that 72 per cent in the Dadant 

 hives are strong, while in the others 

 only SS per cent. On the face of it, 

 this looks first rate, but I have four 

 different lines of queens in my yard, 

 and a little more than half of last 

 year's raising. So I have to work out 

 a few more percentages. For exam- 

 ple, one strain of queens, which I will 

 call A, has 66 per cent strong in the 

 whole yard, but in the Dadant hive 

 there are 75 per cent of them under 

 the same heading. Strain B, for 

 which I paid a pretty good price on 

 account of much booming, has 33 

 per cent strong in the whole yard, 

 and in Dadant hives. Funny queens 

 these, slow in building up, not in- 

 clined to swarm, giving a croi) equal 

 to the average of the yard. Stock C 

 is 66 per cent strong over the yard, 

 but 80 per cent in Dadant hives, while 

 strain D is 70 per cent strong in the 

 apiary and 80 per cent in Dadant 

 hives. Queens of all four strains 

 raised in 1918 are 58 per cent strong 

 over the yard, but 83 per cent strong 

 in Dadant hives. Older queens are 

 70 per cent strong in the yard, and 

 80 per cent strong in Dadant hives.- I 

 take the strains individually as found 

 in Dadant and the other style of 

 hives, and find the average at least 

 25 per cent in favor of the Dadants. 

 The two colonies housed in typical 

 Dadant style, that is in a brood- 

 chamber alone with a sack of dry 

 moss in a protecting case above, have 

 in the last week of April five solid 

 combs of brood, just as fine as I ever 

 saw. 



The above was written in May, 

 when I intended to convert 30 more 

 of my colonies into this style of hive, 

 hoping to find the task much easier, 

 seeing I had so many drawn combs, 

 and would be able to help out with 

 frames of sealed brood occasionally. 

 Now in November, I have to report 

 that in the region where my apiary 

 is located the season has been cold 

 and dry, as in 1918. My colonies, as 

 a whole, were very strong by the end 

 of May, but from that date until the 

 honeyflow started in the middle of 

 July, they practically lived from hand 

 to mouth. The best I could do was to 

 work over 19 more of my colonies 

 into 11-frame Jumbo hives. My honey 

 crop averaged 40 pounds to the hive, 

 spring count. On the first extracting 

 when the supers were stacked up in 

 the honey house, I was rather sur- 

 prised to find that fifteen of them 

 came from the original eighteen 

 original Jumbo colonies, and five from 

 the nineteen shallow-frame hives. I 

 have thought much as to the mechan- 

 ical why, but have failed to get an 

 answer satisfying to myself. The 

 most probable to my mind is the pro- 

 tection given the super by the outside 

 telescope case. 



I am now more than satisfied with 

 the great ease in working this style 

 of hive, and I think I have run the 



gamut through Gallups, 8-frame 

 Langstroth, 10-frame Langstroth, 

 Long idea with 17 frames (by the way 

 it is rather good), Simmons' bureau 

 hive and 8-frame .shallows. Many 

 theorists denounce the shallow hive, 

 but I have always liked it in prefer- 

 ence to 10-frame Langstroths. As a 

 rule it lagged in early spring behind 

 a hive with Langstroth frames, but 

 whenever it had six frames of brood 

 I transposed the bottom half with the 

 upper, then there was something do- 

 ing. 



For extracting I use the shallow 

 frame, prefer it much to the ordinary 

 Langstroth, all this after using it for 

 eleven years. When I started to learn 

 golf I chose a heavy club so that the 

 weight of the head would drive the 

 ball; later I learned that a light club 

 over which I had perfect control al- 

 ways gave longer distances and bet- 

 ter line. In the field of carpentry my 

 first hammer weighed a pound and a 

 half; now for ordinary bench work 

 my choice is a 14 or 16 ounce ham- 

 mer. In beekeeping I am applying 

 the same principle. In examining a 

 brood-chamber in my own apiary my 

 heaviest lift is now 8 or 10 pounds, 

 that is a full Jumbo frame; when ex- 

 tracting I handle about 5 pounds, and 

 the width of the frame is such that 

 the uncapping • knife slices off the 

 cappings very easily. I find I can un- 

 cap about 50 frames an hour without 

 rushing, and I am no speed artist. 

 With eight shallow frames in four 12- 

 inch baskets I extract the equivalent 

 of five ordinary frames, so I gain 

 a little there. In my own apiary 

 from now on my only heavy lifts will 

 be the supers of honey in July and 

 August, so I have gained a lot. 



When I bought my (sYiy&Vz camera 

 over thirty years ago. Dr. Thompson, 

 then aged 65, said, "When I was your 

 age nothing less than a 12x15 was 

 good enough for me. It was in the 

 wet plate days, so I had to take with 

 me large bottles of chemicals and 

 baths, and you can picture to your- 

 self how I looked trundling a well- 

 laden wheelbarrow all over the coun- 

 try side seeking for new scenes to 

 photograph. Now I am content with 

 a camera for 3^x4^ plates." 

 My sympathy is now with Dr. Thomp- 

 son. Then I could not appreciate his 

 point of view, now I understand. 



Just ask any man who owns a camera 

 weighing over 2 pounds how often he 

 carries it a few miles from home 

 and you will find it is very seldom. 

 He is the victim of his tools. 



B. C. 



Well-Known Beeman Dies 



On December 29, 1919, occurred the 

 death of Ernest J. Bceker, of Rush- 

 ville, N. Y. Mr. Bceker was one of 

 the oldest and most successful bee- 

 keepers hereabouts. We were always 

 glad to have him with us at our meet- 

 ings. He was a well posted man in 

 apiculture when I was learning my 

 ABC's about 45 years ago. I well re- 

 member the hive I saw in his yard at 

 that time — brood-chamber in the cen- 

 ter and 4-lb. glazed boxes piled all 

 around this. The principle of the hive 

 was : the boxes were started over 

 the brood-chamber, and while partly 

 filled were moved to the side, where 

 empty ones again were placed on 

 top. Mr. B's success with this plan 

 was a wonder to me at that time. 

 However, he adopted the 1-lb. section 

 cases soon after and with them the 

 Langstroth hive. Mr. Beeker was 

 highly esteemed by the beekeeping 

 fraternity here and we shall all miss 

 him. F. GREINER, 



Naples, N. Y. 



Wax as Varnish 



THE bees appear to be quite deft 

 in handling their kind of var- 

 nish. We all know how deter- 

 mined they are to stick everything 

 fast, messing around with propolis, 

 world without end, causing beekeep- 

 ers to become prematurely grey, not 

 to say profane. One often thinks that 

 they might make better use of their 

 time. But who knows? Perhaps it 

 was here that men got the germ of 

 the idea for varnish, which was later 

 to blossom forth as that divine con- 

 fection used by the old violin makers 

 of Cremona to embellish and preserve 

 their instruments. 



In modern formulae for varnish, 

 wax does not appear to be mentioned. 

 Recipes are found, though, for wax 

 polishes and wax stains. Here is one 

 for wax polish : 



Melt 8 ounces of beeswax with 8 

 ounces of spirits of turpentine; allow 



A Massachusetts house-apiary 



