1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



of the piny flavor of the wood. Now, why 

 would not honey absorb a flavor ironi wax if 

 allowed to stand long enough in it ? And 

 again : There are a good many people who 

 prefer comb to extracted. If this were con- 

 fined to the consiiiiier who knew nothing 

 about bee-keeping, we would assume that 

 this preference was based on the supposed 

 purity of the honey in the comb as against that 

 free from the comb. But how do you account 

 for this same preference on the part of many 

 bee-keepers who, while acknowledging the 

 purity of either, prefer section honey ? I 

 know you ma}' say there are a good many who 

 prefer extracted ; but do you know that this 

 number do so for any other reason than for 

 convenience i?i eating? Only yesterday I was 

 eating a nice sample of comlj honey and one 

 of extracted, both clover, V)ut it seemed to me 

 the comb had the better flavor. You may 

 argue that it may have been left on the hive 

 longer. But I do not think that will explain 

 it.— Ed.] 



LARGE HIVES. 



Comparison of Wintering in Large and in Small 

 Hives; Depth of Frames an Important Feature. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



In the consideration of this question I trust 

 the reader will not lose sight of the fact that, 

 when I speak of small hives, I include as such 

 both the eight and ten frame Langstroth, and 

 that, although I much prefer the ten-frame 

 hive to the eight-frame, I still consider it as 

 too small. When I speak of large hives I 

 mean deep-frame hives, either of the length of 

 the Langstroth or of the length of the Quinby, 

 which is the style we use. The greatest ad- 

 vantage, in my mind, resides in the depth of 

 the frame. The Quinby frame has a depth of 

 11 >^ inches, and is, therefore, over two inches 

 deeper than the regular Langstroth. This 

 frame is not a new pattern. It was used and 

 recommended by Ouinby long before the in- 

 vention of the honey-extractor ; and some of 

 his largest crops, when leading apiarists were 

 few and honey was scarce, were harvested in 

 this style of hive. A number of Eastern apia- 

 rists, large producers, use it yet, and it is quite 

 probable that, if it had been patented and ad- 

 vertised as was the Langstroth pattern, it 

 would still be the leading hive. But Mr. 

 Langstroth held that the Ouinby invention 

 was an infringement, as perhaps it was, for I 

 am no judge in such matters, and the fear of 

 infringement certainly deterred many an apia- 

 rist from using it. 



If I did not have my own experience to 

 guide me I could still perceive that a number 

 of our leading men recognize tacitly that the 

 Langstroth frame is too shallow, and the hive 



inadequate for a prolific queen, since so many 

 men report favorably on the use of a double 

 story, although they all recognize that such an 

 addition makes the brood-apartment too large 

 for the raising of comb honey. But the pur- 

 pose of this rticle is to show you, from facts 

 and reasoning, that the deeper frame and 

 larger hive are better for wintering, and so I 

 will pass to this subject. 



The facts I base myself upon are those that 

 we have seen under our own eves, of the bet- 

 ter success for winter of the large deep hive. 

 I believe I showed you plainly', in a previous 

 article, why the colony might be more popu- 

 lous, from the greater amount of space, the 

 greater quantity of stores, and the greater ease 

 that the queen has in finding empty cells, in 

 the larger circle which is furnished to her on 

 a greater circumference in each comb, so that 

 she has to spend less time in hunting for cells. 

 We thus have stronger colonies for winter, 

 which is in itself a great advantage, as the 

 number of bees has much to do with their 

 ability to keep warm, and their ability to re- 

 tain the heat has also much to do with their 

 honey consumption. A weak colon v suffers 

 from the cold, and is compelled to eat more. 

 The bowels of the bees are then more quickly 

 loaded with excrement, and their restlessness 

 is increased. Perhaps these differences b2- 

 tween one colony and another are very slight ; 

 but it is in litile things the success of the bee- 

 keeper resides. Was it not Heddon who said, 

 "This business of ours is a business of de- 

 tails"? Yes, it is a "business of details," 

 and those details make the failure or the suc- 

 cess. That is surely why the careful, solici- 

 tous, attentive apiarif^t, who can not bear to 

 see a thing out of place in his apiary, and 

 must have every thing "just so," is the suc- 

 cessful bee-keeper. 



But to me the greatest advantage of the deep 

 large frame is in the greater ease the bees have 

 in reaching the honey and in keeping in a more 

 compact cluster. With a deep frame, as much 

 honey and as many bees can be conveniently 

 located in six combs as in eight combs of a 

 shallower frame, and there is less danger of 

 their chilling, and very much less of their 

 starving. I know that many of our good 

 writers say that the bees can and do move as 

 readily sidewise as upward to the honey in 

 very cold weather ; but I can not agree to it, 

 for I have, in practice, often seen the reverse 

 of this assertion. We must not take, as an in- 

 stance, an ordinary winter, when all the bees 

 come through without trouble. It is the hard 

 and destructive winter that should be used as 

 a criterion, and I have often seen cases of 

 starvation with honey on the same comb, but 

 at the back end, where it was too cold for the 

 bees to reach it. The deeper frame, of the 

 same length as the Langstroth, has more hon- 

 ey above the bees, and as much at the rear, or 

 perhaps also more, at the rear of each comb, 

 than in the Langstroth frame. 



If the bees winter better they are better 

 able, in spring, to stand the variations of the 

 atmosphere ; there is less spring dwindling, 

 brood is reared earlier, and our colonies are 

 better able to — let me quote Hutchinson — 



