1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



377 



ers, that is when the greatest obje - 

 tion is found to the large hive. Vet, 

 if the 8-frame hive man wishes to 

 give his queens full scope, he needs 

 to use two stories for brood, as Dr. 

 Miller did. Then there is but little 

 difference in the bulk of a colony, 

 and we are certain that it is less 

 trouble to transport one large brood- 

 chamber than two small ones. 



•"When tiering up," we do not tier 

 hive bodies. It is never necessary 

 with our management. We tier up 

 supers, just as every one does who 

 harvests large crops. 



It is now a trifle over 50 years 

 since the Dadants adopted the large, 

 deep frames of Quinby pattern. Dur- 

 ing that interval of time, we had oc- 

 casion to use a large number of 10- 

 frame hives of the shallow pattern or 

 standard Langstroth, having, at one 

 time, two apiaries in these hives. We 

 also kept them side by side, and con- 

 cluded, years ago, that there is no 

 comparison between them. 



Not long ago, I read somewhere 

 the criticism of a beekeeper who 

 stated that queens became aged more 

 quickly in large hives than in small 

 ones, because they laid more eggs in 

 the same length of time. Well, that 

 is just what we want, as many eggs 

 as possible, at the right time, when 

 making ready for the crop. We re- 

 place the queens as often as neces- 

 sary, but not so often as some of our 

 friends would have us do. I have 

 never yet become convinced that a 

 good queen could not give a two- 

 season service, efficientl}', in our 

 large hives. 



But why not use a 13-frame Lang- 

 stroth depth hive, instead of the 

 deeper hives with a less number of 

 frames? Because the deeper frames 

 supply more honey in the combs, 

 above the cluster, in winter, all other 

 conditions being equal. It places the 

 bees in better position, since they are 

 spread over a le.ss number of spaces 

 and undoubtedly secure better win- 

 tering, as we have proven to our 

 satisfaction by comparative tests, 

 side by side. 



Understand, now, that we do not 

 urge anyone to change his colonies 

 from Langstroth depth to Quinby- 

 Dadant depth of hive, for we know by 

 experience how annoying it is to 

 make a change. We simply answer 

 questions asked and objections, by 

 explaining how it happens that three 

 generations of Dadants have suc- 

 ceeded with deep frame hives, in a 

 locality where very few beekeepers 

 appear to succeed. 



But let no one expect extraordi- 

 nary results. In the British Bee 

 Journal for August 26, page 412, J. 

 M. Ellis writes: "I had the Dadant- 

 Quinby brood-frames in use many 

 years ago, but although noted for 

 production of enormqus populations, 

 results were not always satisfac- 

 tory." (Emphasized words ours). 

 Well, we can say the same. We do 

 not always have large crops. We do 

 not always prevent swarming. We 

 do not always have prolific queens. 

 We do nof always have safe winter- 

 ing. But we always have larger 

 crops, less swarming, better winter- 



ing, with the deeper frames than 

 with the shallow frames, and that is 

 due — as we keep repeating to any 

 enquirer — to the more comfortable 

 position of the cluster and to the 

 "production of enormous popula- 

 tions." It is for us to manage so as 

 to have thtse enormous poiuilations, 

 for the crop, and not after the crop. 



During tlie summer jiist past, I 

 had occasion to visit the apiary of a 

 very efficient honey producer who 

 has all his bees in 8-frame hives. I 

 was highly pleased with his system, 

 admired it and told him so. His 

 answer was, as nearly as I can re- 

 member, in the following words: 



"Yes, sir, I have a very good sys- 

 tem; but there is so much work about 

 It that I do not believe I can con- 

 tinue it, with the number of colonies 

 I have, about 300, when I get a little 

 older and less able to stand the 

 strain. For that reason I am plan- 

 ning to change to your sj'Stem, which 

 attains similar results with much less 

 labor." 



FINDING THE QUEEN 



By Frank Van Haltern 

 Requeening hives or boxes con- 

 taining crooked combs is often a 

 hard problem. Beekeepers some- 

 times requeen their neighbor's bees 

 with Italian stock in ord.er to be 

 sure of pure matings of their own 

 queens. It sometimes happens, also, 

 that beekeepers owning hives with 

 crooked combs wish to requeen 

 without destroying the combs. Find- 

 ing the old queen is usuallj^ the 

 greatest drawback in requeening 

 such hives. 



An easy method of finding the 

 queen, that works nicely for me, is as 

 follows: First remove the top of the 

 hive, then, if the bottom can be re- 

 moved, raise the front of the body 

 a few inches from the bottom. Have 

 a good smoke going in the smoker 

 and drive the bees upward by smok- 

 ing the under side of tlie brood-nest. 



Do not smoke on top of the combs. 

 If the bottom cannot be removed, 

 make the entrance as large as pos- 

 sible, so as to get the smoke well to 

 the back of the hive. Hybrid and 

 black bees are very nervous and will 

 boil up on top of the frames, and 

 the queen will come up with them. 

 As soon as she appears, catch and 

 kill her. The new queen in her cage 

 may be given immediately after kill- 

 ing the old one. 



Care should be used in smoking, for 

 if too much smoke is used the bees 

 may come up so fast that the queen 

 will not be seen, and if too little is 

 used they may not come up at all. If 

 much honey is broken on top of the 

 combs in removing the hive top, this 

 method may not succeed, on account 

 of getting the bees smeared with 

 honey. 



Kansas. 



HOW BUTTERFLIES HEAR 



(From Literary Digest of Aug. 14.) 

 In recent years numerous interest- 

 ing experiments have been made with 

 regard to the sensory organs of in- 

 sects. In the latest volume. No. 41, 

 of The Zoological Year Book (in Ger- 

 man), published in Berlin, there are 

 reported the results of an extremely 

 extensive study made by Mr. F. Eg- 

 gers, concerning the organs of hear- 

 ing of some of the butterflies, the 

 spiders, and the moths. These possess 

 certain structures in the last ring of 

 the thorax which have hitherto es- 

 caped notice, and whose true signifi- 

 cance has been ignored. It now ap- 

 pears that this structure is a so- 

 called tympanal organ, similar to 

 that possessed by crickets and grass- 

 hoppers, but much more delicately 

 constructed. The essential part of 

 this organ is an air-filled trachean 

 vesicle or "bladder" (such as is pos- 

 sessed by man\' winged insects and 

 by some butterflies), which lies very 

 close to two extremely thin portions 

 of the external covering; of chitin ; 





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The red wasps resting on their paper comb 



