1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



801 



Answer. — All of the older readers of the 

 bee-papers know that I have been an advocate 

 of a brood-chamber as small as or smaller 

 than nearly any one else, when working for 

 comb honey, the same holding only nine Gal- 

 lup frames. These nine Gallup frames give a 

 capacity about the same as (\}i Langstroth 

 frames would; and from a brood-nest of that 

 capacity I secured an average yield of nearly 

 100 pounds of comb honey for each of the 

 years between 1872 and 1883, from each colony 

 I had during that time, spring count — a record 

 which has rarely been excelled, and never 

 equaled, if I am right, by any of the large- 

 hive advocates. But I am free to confess that, 

 without doubt, more labor is required in 

 rightly managing such small hives than is 

 needed in the management of larger hives. 

 But with me it always seemed that, from the 

 extra amount of honey obtained, I always 

 secured enough to more than pay for the extra 

 labor expended ; and if so, could the cry of 

 " labor saving " enter into the problem ? The 

 question is, " Which will give the best returns 

 for the amount of labor expended?" not, 

 " With how little labor is it possible to run an 

 apiary and secure any returns at all ? " 



But I wish to look a little at the statement 

 often made, that "large hives will give large 

 colonies, with little or no de.sire to swarm; 

 and if any swarms do issue, the}- will be large 

 swarms, not the little cramped-up things 

 which always come from small hives," or 

 words of that import, which are going the 

 rounds of the papers, and which are doubtless 

 what is hinted at by the questioner. I can 

 look upon such talk only as a fallacy which 

 has been passed from one mouth to another 

 till those telling it really believe they are 

 giving expression to words of truth; for with 

 those nine-frame Gallup hives, I had fully as 

 little swarming as I have had with the ten- 

 frame Langstroth hives, and the average of 

 the swarms was not materially different as to 

 size in either case. I am free to admit that, 

 were each placed side by side, with )io sections 

 on, the ten-frame L. hives would probably be 

 later in swarming, and st nd out larger swarms; 

 but, if I am right, no one working on the 

 contraction plan treats his colonies in that 

 way. With the small hive or brood-chamber, 

 the sections are put on as soon as any honey 

 comes in from the field, and the brood-combs 

 are manipulated till the whole nine are solid 

 full of brood and pollen ; and when in this 

 shape, if any honey is stored at all it must go 

 into the sections, for there is no other place 

 for it to go. Thus started early in the sec- 

 tions, the bees become accustomed to their 

 surroundings, and thus these fully occupied 

 combs of brood entertain the best queen to 

 her fullest capacitj' as to egg-laying; and, if 

 so, how could a larger hive give any larger 

 colonies, even though 100 L. frames were 

 used ? Large hives do not make large colo- 

 nies any more than a large hat, worn all 

 through our boyhood days, gives the world 

 larger-headed men. If the queen has all the 

 vacant cell room her prolificness requires, 

 more room is only a damage to our crop of 

 comb honey; for in the finding of many va- 



cant cells in the brood-chamber, at the begin- 

 ning of the honey-harvest, comes an " accus- 

 toment " to the brood chamber for storing 

 honey, instead of the sections, and thus the 

 queen is crowded upon with honey, instead of 

 said honey going into the sections; and, with 

 restricted room for her eggs, comes discontent, 

 and from this comes the desire, and from the 

 desire comes swarming, the very thing that we 

 have been working to avoid. 



Remember, we are talking about working 

 for comb honey, or honey in sections, not ex- 

 tracted honey. 



Some eight or ten years ago I was persuad- 

 ed, through the urgency of a farmer bee-keeper 

 living five miles from me, to purchase his bees, 

 as he did not wish to bother with them any 

 longer, so offered them to me for almost a song, 

 and gave me the privilege of keeping them 

 where they were as long as I wished, for 25 

 sections of honey a year. These bees were in 

 ten-frame L. hives, and I have kept them in 

 those hives, and at the same place, ever since 

 I bought them, and thus I have had a chance 

 to know about the workings of these hives as 

 compared with the nine-frame Gallup hives of 

 my home yard. The result has been that I 

 can, by giving plenty of section room, hold 

 these colonies at the out-yard back from 

 swarming about a week later, on an average, 

 than where the nine Gallup frames are used; 

 but this out-apiary is no nearer being a non- 

 swarming apiary than my home yard; and, in 

 fact, I often consider them more determined 

 to swarm than those are here; but the swarm- 

 ing comes a little later in the season. And 

 this little later in the season has quite a bear- 

 ing upon the problem of comb-honey produc- 

 tion, from my present standpoint, for, when 

 colonies are managed by the caging-of-queen 

 plan, as I gave last winter (I think in the Jan- 

 uary 1st issue of Gleanings, but I have no 

 time to hunt it up), this holding back a week 

 puts them in just the right condition to take 

 advantage of the honey harvest when it comes, 

 with the largest kind of working force all 

 kept together, with no desire to swarm after 

 the manipulation. In this way I secured 

 nearly 117 pounds of comb honey on an aver- 

 age from each of the .'50 colonies there, this 

 poor season, while those all about me, and 

 that apiary, got little or nothing. But one 

 thing I find, no matter what hive is used, or 

 how many frames that hive contains, within 

 the bounds of reason, either way, toward large 

 or small brood-chambers, a given amount of la- 

 bor w/^^/ be performed, so that the "letting the 

 bees take care of themselves" part of our 

 questioner's query is nearly or quite a myth, 

 if we expect to reap any great success from 

 our bees. This labor part has been harped on 

 so much that it has become a sort of bugbear, 

 and a desire seems to have sprung up for a 

 " holding of the pot to catch the porridge" 

 sort of apiculture. Let us away with such a 

 thought, for "in the sweat of thy face shalt 

 thou eat bread " brings the highest joy that is 

 attained unto in this life. To whom come the 

 greatest joy and contentment in life? Is it 

 not to the one who has labored and toiled 

 patiently, day after day, till at last the prob- 



