1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



403 



deep side down, the second one oa 

 top of this, deep side up, to prevent 

 the crushing of bees on bottom of 

 super frames. This will allow the 

 bees access to the supers. 



Twenty-four hours later, examins 

 to see if bees have removed card 

 from over candy; if not, remove, 

 close hive and do not open again for 

 five days. 



If a long time queenless, or if rob- 

 bing has been going on, wait forty- 

 eight hours before removing ci'rd. If 

 convenient, I rub the body of the 

 dead queen on cage. While it isn't 

 essential, theoretically, at ieast, it 

 seems as though it might, in '■ degi'ee, 

 allay the first antagonism of the bees 

 towards the new queen. 



So far this season I have intro- 

 duced forty-seven queens without 

 loss, and in one instance the colony 

 was being kept on edge by robbers. 



The method is very simple and 

 easy. No shaking or brushing of 

 bees, no removing or spreading of 

 frames, and I believe as safe and 

 efficient as any method yet devised. 



(The above method is almT;t iden- 

 tical with that recommended in para- 

 graph 536 of "The Hive and Honey 

 Bee," and is probably the safest that 

 may be devised, barring the introduc- 

 tion of queens to combs of hatching 

 bees. Leaving the hive alone lor sev- 

 eral days after introduction is im- 

 portant, as it avoids the excitement 

 often caused by robbers. — Editor.) 



SMALL OR LARGE CHAMBERS 

 FOR A HIVE 



By C. E. Fowler 



Most beekeepers realize that a 

 large super is too large for the bees 

 to enter readily unless there is a 

 heavy flow on. 



Some beekeepers hate the small su- 

 per because the frames are not in- 

 terchangeable with their largs brood- 

 chambers. 



Others using the Jumbo style of 

 hive just can't use their brood-cham- 

 bers for supers, so they try to be 

 contented with two size frames. 



Then there is a large number of 

 beekeepers who are either women, or 

 who have women helpers, to whom 

 a large chamber is a very great in- 

 convenience. 



Miost beekeepers already have large 

 chambers, and not knowing what to 

 do with them and not knowing any- 

 thing about the advantages of the 

 small chamber, not only keep on us- 

 ing large hives, but keep on talking 

 large hives. 



\Vhen I first kept bees I scrapped 

 everything but the 10-frame Lang- 

 stroth. One day I lifted a super of 

 honey off of a hive about 4 feet 

 high, weighing 90 pounds, boiling 

 over with as lively bees as anyone 

 could wish for. 



As I was trying to get a perfect 

 system of beekeeping, I immediately 

 adopted the 10-frame 5 11-16 chamber 

 for everything, and have scrapped 

 everything else since. 



N'ow, the advantages of the shal- 

 low chamber will pay me on each 

 hive each year enough cash money 



to pay for a 10-framc Langstroth hive 

 and the time saved will pay for an- 

 other one that I have scrapped. 



Perhaps some of the ladies would 

 like to know how I do it. For their 

 benefit I will say that, first of all, you 

 must follow a different systetn. 



First, use frames with full sheets of 

 foundatiton and bottom-starters, with 

 top and bottom bars not over seven- 

 eighths of an inch wide, with the 

 frames of one section directly over 

 the frames of the under one; then the 

 queen, as well as the bees, will go 

 freely all over the hive and some 

 kind of an excluder is necessary. 



Second, handle sections instead of 

 frames. In spring when using two 

 sections to 12 L. frames most all 

 queen-cells will be built at the bottom 

 of the top frames, directly in the 

 middle of the brood-chamber, and by 

 raising the top chamber swarming 

 conditions are appafent at a glance. 

 Third, when swarming fever starts 

 put a section of drawn comb be- 

 tween the two brood sections, mak- 

 ing the brood-nest 3 stories, equal to 

 18 L. frames. 



Fourth, always give plenty of su- 

 per room, and the problem is solved, 

 and you will be happy forever after. 

 This system, with me this year, pre- 

 vented swarming entirely and avoid- 

 ed those 57 varieties of tedious swarm 

 control, and all of that Demaree 

 business talked of so much. And, 

 best of all, I got twice the honey 

 with less work than I did before. 



If you want comb honey, put your 

 sections on the best hives after tlie 

 flow is started and the danger of 

 swarming is over, and don't put on 

 any too late to have them finished. 

 One-fourth or one-third comb honey 

 is plenty to supply all demands. 



I can uncap 100 pounds iof honey in 

 much less time in shallow frames 

 than in regular Langstroth size, and 

 some extractors will hold two shal- 

 lows in one pocket. 



A word about handling frames : In 

 looking for queens, I can handle 20 

 of my frames as quickly as 10 Lang- 

 stroth frames without bottom start- 

 ers, but I don't need to find her ex- 

 cept when I requeen. 



I am not a bee inspector, but I have 

 traveled with one, and when he 

 comes to a side liner with 5 or 6 

 swarms in regular Langstroth hives, 

 what does he say before he opens 

 them? Immovable-frame hives; and 

 some need a crowbar and knife to get 

 them out; and don't forget that most 

 beekeepers are side liners, and don't 

 often take frames out, because they 

 dread the immovable-frame hive. 

 This dread would partly disappear 

 with shallow frames, and many side- 

 liners would graduate to beekeepers 

 and be happy. 

 Xew Jersey. 



Our correspondent revives some- 

 thing similar to the Heddon system 

 which was so popular for a short time 

 a generation ago. Many beekeepers 

 thought that the ideal system had at 

 last been discovered; but, unfortu- 

 nately, it did not prove practical. 



In the hands of an expert, good re- 



sults can be obtained, but without ex- 

 tra attention the bees do not thrive. 

 Wherever the system was generally 

 adopted, beekeeping suffered a great 

 decline, and in many localities hun- 

 dreds of beekeepers gave up the busi- 

 ness as unprofitable. On the other 

 hand, where large hives were used, 

 the beekeepers continued prosperous 

 and remained in the business. Results 

 count far more than theory. Hun- 

 dreds of pages were given to argu- 

 ments in support of the divisible hive 

 in the bee magazines of the olden 

 days, but arguments were insufficient 

 to convince the bees. There are yery 

 few beekeepers now who use the 

 divisible hive, and the number is 

 smaller every year. 



There is much to be said in favor 

 of a shallow extracting super. A 

 shallow brood-nest is quite another 

 thing.— F. C. P. 



HIVES IN GROUPS OF SIX 



By Hy. W. Sanders 

 For the past two seasons our home 

 yard has been arranged in groups 

 each consisting of six hives, two of 

 which face south, two east and two 

 west. The idea was derived from a 

 study of the various apiary f.rrange- 

 nients, as we felt that the more us- 

 ual arrangement of hives in long 

 rows was causing us the loss of young 

 queens. During the last season, 

 when we had our hives in rows, two 

 out of every five virgins failed to 

 mate, and it was found that increase 

 was thereby made very expensive, for 

 our season is too short to iUow for 

 the retrieving of lost time. The 

 search for the cause of the trouble 

 led us to Langstroth, one of whose 

 sentences is so full of bee-sense and 

 common-sense that it deserve^^ quot- 

 ing here: "If a traveler should be 

 carried in a dark night, to a hotel 

 in a strange city, and on rising in 

 the morning, should find the streets 

 filled with buildings precisely like it, 

 he would be able to return to his 

 proper place only by previously as- 

 certaining its number, or by counting 

 the houses between it and the cor- 

 ner. Such a numbering faculty, 

 however, was not given to the queen 

 bee, for who, in a state of nature, 

 ever saw a dozen or more hollow 

 trees or other places frequented by 

 bees, standing close together precise- 

 ly alike in size, shape and color, with 

 their entrances all facing the same 

 way, and at exactly the same height 

 from the ground?" 



Dr. Miller's method of putting the 

 hives in pairs was first planned, for 

 he spoke an obvious truth when he 

 said that each hive of the pcir held 

 an individuality, and that bee.i would 

 only make a mistake where the pairs 

 were arranged very close, a>.d that 

 in that case bees from a right-hand 

 side hive would enter the right-hand 

 hive of the next pair, and so on. 

 Then came a study of the A-B-C, 

 and the plan took shape. Ths hives 

 were arranged in gi-oups of six, as 

 stated, and these groups, or units as 

 we now call them, were then aiTangeJ 

 in the yard so that the second row of 

 groups were placed behind the gaps 



