518 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jui,Y 1. 



their brood-nests filled with bees, brood, and honey — 

 it was only in hiving s^Tarnls that contraction was 

 practiced. It is possid/e that some practiced contrac- 

 tion with established colonies ; it seems that \ou have 

 under.stood it that way, but you are the first man I 

 have ever met who .so understood it or practiced it. 



In a letter just received from Dr. Miller he 

 writes : 



Ml-. Editor. — Referring to what you have said about 

 contraction, and what Bro. Hutchinson .says in Ret'iezv, 

 page 179, it is evident that there is considerable mis- 

 understanding. You are talking about one kind of 

 contraction, he of another. You are wrong if you 

 think all contraction applies to establislied colonies 

 with no swai ming in the case, and he is just as clearly- 

 wrong when he says, " Brother Root, so far as I know, 

 no one has practiced contraction of old established 

 colonies — those that had their broodne.sts filled with 

 bees, bro^d, and honey; it was only in hiving swarms 

 that contraction was practiced." In a book entitled 

 "A Year among the Bees," among other fooli.sh things 

 I find this, which is on page4!(: "Uptothe time of 

 putting on supers, the desire has been to have the 



I lees occupy as many combs as possible 



When it comes time to put on supers they are reduced 

 1o four or five frames." And I suppo.sed that in gen- 

 eral that was the kind of contraction that was prac- 

 ticed. After you've talked it over together I think 

 you'll not be far apart in your views. 



Today I have received from Medina L'Abeille, a 

 Belgian bee-journal (in the French language), and I 

 leturn inclosed a part of it. I.,ook at page rJ3. Under 

 the item " .Sections," after saying that supers of sec- 

 tions are over the brood-nest of populous colonies, the 

 underlined words read : " In order to force the bees 

 to occupy them immediately, it is advisable to limit at 

 the same time the space which the colony occupies to 

 about two-thirds of its capacity. If this practice brings 

 the colony to the swarming-point, the swarm is put 

 upon a few frames." 



You see, there's contraction both of the full colony 

 and the swarm, given in a journal for June, 1S98. in 

 its regular department of in.struction for the care of 

 the apiary in that month. 



Maiengo, 111., June U. 



When I wrote, I well knew there were two 

 — yes, three^ — kinds of contraction — one prac- 

 ticed before the swarm and at the beginning 

 of the honey-flow, (2) another after the swarm, 

 and (;')) still another in the fall, when preparing 

 for winter quarters. My remarks, as Mr. 

 Hutchinson sees, apply to the first named, 

 1 ecause I thought it was almost exclusively 

 practiced. I may have been wrong in my 

 iissumption ; if so, Mr. Hutchinson is just as 

 surely wrong in assuming that the second 

 method of contraction was the onl)- one 

 practiced. 



In addition to the fact that Dr. C. C. Miller 

 practiced and recommended in his book con- 

 traction at the beginning of the honey harvest, 

 and be/ore the swanii, there are a good many 

 others who practiced and recommended the 

 same thing. If Mr. Hutchinson will turn to 

 " Langstroth Revised " and to the A B C of 

 Bee Culture he will find under " Contraction " 

 the same kind that Dr. Miller refers to. If 

 the ABC with its nearly 65,000 copies sold, 

 has any influence with the fraternity, it is 

 patent that a very large number would prac- 

 tice the very form of contraction that I was 

 condemning. I have not time here to give 

 references, but I have consulted the back 

 volumes of the Review, the American Bee 

 Journal, and Gleanings. The more I went 

 over the references, the more I was convinced 

 that contraction, when practiced at all, was 

 usually of the kind that takes place at the 

 beginning of the harvest. I did find, how- 

 ever, that more practiced contraction at the 

 time of hiving swarms than I was aware of. 



In the Revieii' for 1890, page 6:], Mr. Martin, 

 in his second paragraph, in speaking against 

 contraction, says : "Contract the brood-nest, 

 and, in our experience, swarming will result." 

 On page 21 J of the Reviezv, same year, C. W. 

 Dayton tells how he contracts the brood-nest 

 of an established colon}' by means of perforat- 

 ed zinc. On page 51, 1891, Dr. Tinker says : 

 " We must contract the brood-nest, both dur- 

 ing the honey-flow and during the rest of the 

 season." The editor of the Reviezv, in com- 

 menting on this, says he has seldom found it 

 necessary to contract the brood nest of an 

 established colony. On page 1(14 of the 

 Rez'icw for ]S9o, R. L. Taylor says, referring 

 to the Heddon hive: " Every colony is con- 

 fined, either to one or two sections of the hive, 

 which in either case is substantially full of 

 brood about the 20th of June." This I take 

 to be contraction before the swarming season ; 

 but from other writings of Mr. Taylor I take 

 it that he practices both kinds of contraction. 



So on I might multiply references, both 

 from Gleanings and the American Bee 

 Journal, both pretty much to the same effect. 

 I will be frank about it, and state that there 

 are some who practice or did practice contrac- 

 tion at the time of hiving swarms. Among 

 the li.st that I remember are J. A. Green, G. 

 M. Doolittle, W. Z. Hutchinson, R. L.Taylor, 

 and James Heddon; also J. Oatman. 



The kind of contraction that I referred to as 

 having been abandoned, and which I con- 

 demned as resulting in swarming, was that 

 which was practiced at the beginning of the 

 hone}'-harvest; and it is true that it has been 

 almost entirely abandoned, I believe ; and 

 even the other kind of contraction that friend 

 Hutchinson recommends, if I remember cor- 

 rectly, has also been given up in some in- 

 .stances. I think I could find quite a number 

 of even these; but as it may take hours and 

 even days to hunt them up, I will give only 

 two that I ran across in the first volume of the 

 American Bee Journal that I picked up. On 

 page 9 of that volume for 1889, C. A. Bunch 

 writes: "It seems that the bees in Indiana 

 act differently from what they do in Michigan. 

 . I hived sometimes on five Langstroth 

 frames with mostly half-inch foundation 

 starters. . . The bees began to swarm, and 

 at one time four of these swarms came out at 

 once. . . The only way to get out of such 

 a dilemma was to give the bees room for eight 

 brood-frames, which I did, and after that 

 scarcely a swarm issued." Again, on page 

 217, same year, S. H. Hovis says : " I put the 

 swarms on six frames; . . in return for my 

 care and trouble I expected the supers filled 

 with nice honey in one-pound sections ; but, 

 alas ! I was disappointed. Not one gave me a 

 pound of surplus, while those in box hives 

 had the pleasure of taking care of themselves, 

 and gave me some surplus. . . With these 

 results I took in the situation, and I said to 

 the contraction theory, ' Get thee hence.' " 



Now, in opposition to this I will add that I 

 received a letter some little time ago, and 

 which I believe I published, referring to what 

 I wrote on the contraction fad, saying the 

 writer had practiced the method as advocated 



