1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



30o 



of reversible frames, except for reversing." Where- 

 in it is " inferior," he fails to explain. 



But Mr. Heddon has a " better and cheaper way " 

 (what is the use of it, if reversiner is of no benefit?) 

 that completely solves all the difficulties. Let us 

 see what it is. " Reverse the whole hive at one 

 movement." This would bo on a par with advising 

 one who wished to relieve the queen from crowd- 

 ing, to extract the whole hive at one movement. 

 Friend Heddon, you must have been poking fun at 

 Mr. Baldridge and myself when you wrote that. 

 You are too experienced an apiarist to give such ad- 

 vice 8Priousl5'. 



Judging from Mr. Root's comments on this plan, 

 page 334, April Gleanin<".?, 1 think he fails to catch 

 rtZithe advantages proprjsed by reversing the frames, 

 only one of which, getting the combs built solid, 

 would be secured by "reversing the whole hive," to 

 say nothing of its disadvantages, and the difficulty 

 of its successful execution. C. J. F. Howes. 



Adrian, Mich.. April 2, 1881. 



Well, friend II., you have made a pretty 

 able defense, but I am afraid 1 shall have to 

 be accused of "• reversing " some of your 

 ideas as well as frames, when I tell you that 

 the most practical reversible frame that has 

 ever come to my knowledge is the one men- 

 tioned in one of our editorial pages. If it 

 works as well in our apiary as it seems to 

 me that it will, I think it is destined to do 

 considerable ''reversing" before we get 

 through with it. We are having engravings 

 now prepared to illustrate the frame and 

 hive in our next issue. 



SiWALl, COLONIES. 



FRIEKD HEDDON SPEAKS A LITTLE IN THEIR 

 DEFENSE. 



f|HOSE who have read the leading works on api- 

 culture have been taught, that the golden 

 rule of bee-keeping is to "keep your stocks 

 strong." Now if that means, keep a large number of 

 individual bees in each colony, I object to the rule. 

 If it means keep a large number of bees according 

 to the size of the brood-nest, I agree with it. At 

 the same time, however, I can not then agree that 

 we must have large numbers of bees in a hive, in 

 order to get a large pro-rata yield of honey. 1 mean 

 pro rata to the number of bees. Let me explain by 

 relating practical experience. 



Nearly every spring we have two, three, or four 

 colonies, and sometimes more that are weak in 

 numbers; that is, weak according to the capacity 

 of-our standard L. 8-frame hive. I will now tell you 

 how I manage such colonies, to avoid any loss by 

 their being weak, and try to show you the mistake 

 in Bro. Doolittle's argument, on page 236, top of sec- 

 ond column. 



Let us suppose we have a queen, two frames of 

 brood, and about three pin^s of bees when the honey- 

 harvest opens, in our hives, with 8 combs, to consti- 

 tute our weak colony. Now by its side we have a 

 strong one with brood in 7 coqibs, and usually 8, 

 with the hive full of bees. Now, is the Ptrong col- 

 ony, which hag about four times the brood and bees 

 of the other, going to be any moi-e profitable, ac- 

 .cording to its size, than the weak one? Let us see. 



Now for the management. Let us suppose we are 

 going to run for extracted honey. The first thing 

 ?fp must do is to put a super of empty combs, apd in 



a few days another, and perhaps soon after a third 

 one, on our strong colony, when we have a 4-story 

 hive, raising ripe extracted honey on the plan given 

 in Dadant's little book. Now let us return to the 

 weak colony. We And it with about the same num- 

 ber of combs for surplus honey, according to its ca- 

 pacity, all in one story, working on the side-storing 

 principle, a la Adair, Gallup, Poppleton, and others. 

 This liltle colony has brood to care for only in pro- 

 portion to its size, and they gather honey from the 

 fields, and store it for us, and make a draft upon the 

 resources of our field, and upon our capital in wood 

 and combs, in proportion to the capacity of the en- 

 tire stand. Tnis we know to be true by an experi- 

 ence of 12 years. 



I remember well at one of our State Conventions, 

 when I related similarly to one of this State's bright- 

 est bee-keepers, asking him how this coincided with 

 the golden rule of bee-keeping. He replied that he 

 had, for several years, worked in the same way with 

 great satisfaction. The reader will notice that this 

 system is adapted to an apiary equaling the capacity 

 of the field which surrounds it. 



MOTH WORMS AND POLLEN. 



Bro. Vandervort, who has just paid us a visit, is a 

 man of over 20 years' experience, and born with the 

 faculty of clo.=e and careful observation, and he says 

 that moths will never breed iu combs that contain 

 no bee-bread, and an able writer confirms that the- 

 ory, and I can not remember of any case to disprove 

 it; and may it not be that Bro. Doolittle's system of 

 partially storing comb honey in the brood-chamber 

 has caused him to have so much to say in regard to 

 preventing the ravages of the moth larvae? 



Dowagiac, Mich., April, 1884. James Heddon. 



I am aware, friend II., that several have 

 taken the ground that you take ; but I could 

 never really understand how they did 

 it. Powerful colonies have always been 

 most profitable for us ; and I do not know 

 that I am aware of any exception to this. 

 On one occasion we had a hybrid queen that 

 filled her hive so full they were almost ready 

 to swarm before the fruit-bloom opened. 

 This colony gave us enough so that we ex- 

 tracted quite a surplus from the fruit-bloom, 

 while all the rest of our apiary gathered 

 only about what they needed to rear brood. 

 At another time, another powerful colony 

 in early spring gave quite a yield of honey, 

 and furnished four good natural swarms, all 

 of them furnishing more or less surplus. 

 This colony was worth to us in clear profit 

 three or four of the rest. Quite a number 

 of the friends have doubled up, iu prepaiing 

 bees in the spring, in order to get all boom- 

 ing before the harvest carae, and then gave 

 us astounding rei)orts. In the illustration 

 you cite, I should say that a strong colony 

 would get by far the most honey in propor- 

 tion to the number of bees it contained. 

 Where thev get the sw^arming mania, and 

 loaf around, and won't work, we have a se- 

 rious drawback, 1 know ; for a weak colony 

 that kepi)s right on storing honey, without a 

 disposition to swarm, miglit go far ahead of 

 a powerful one that would not work. — I en- 

 tirely agree witli l>ro. V^andervort in regard 

 to the pollen business; but it never before 

 occurred to me why it was that friend Doo- 

 little was troubled with moth worms wheQ 

 t^e rest of u§ 4i<i not fi»(J any. 



